[ 268 ]
OF the birth or early part of the life of Ambrose Philips. I have not been able to find any account. His academical education he received at St. John's college in Cambridge, where he first solicited the notice of the world by some English verses, in the collection published by the University on the death of queen Mary.
From this time how he was employed, or in what station he passed his life, is not yet discovered. He must have published his Pastorals before the year 1708, because they are evidently prior to those of Pope.
He afterwards (1709) addressed to the universal, patron, the duke of Dorset, a "poetical Letter from Copenhagen," which was published in the "Tatler," and is by Pope in one of his first letters mentioned with high praise, as the production of a man "who could write very nobly."
