THE fame of this poet (says the grave doctor of the last century,) will endure as long as Blenheim is remembered, or cider drunk in England. He might have added, as long as tobacco shall be smoked; for Philips has written more meritoriously about the Indian weed, than about his native apple; and his Muse appears to be more in her element amidst the smoke of the pipe than of the battle.
His father was archdeacon of Salop, and minister of Bampton, in Oxfordshire, where the poet was born. He was educated at Winchester, and afterward at Cambridge. He intended to have followed the profession of physic, and delighted in the study of natural history, but seems to have relinquished scientific pursuits when the reputa
tion of his Splendid Shilling, about the year 1703, introduced him to the patronage of Bolingbroke, at whose request, and in whose house, he wrote his poem on the Battle of Blenheim. This, like his succeeding poem on Cider, was extravagantly praised. Philips had the merit of studying and admiring Milton, but he never could imitate him without ludicrous effect, either in jest or earnest. His Splendid Shilling is the earliest, and one of the best of our parodies; but Blenheim is as completely a burlesque upon Milton as the Splendid Shilling, though it was written and read with gravity. In describing his hero, Marlborough,
[* His diplomatic correspondence is now in the British Museum.]
stepping out of Queen Anne's drawing-room, he unconsciously carries the mock heroic to perfection, when he says,
Nods horrible. With more terrific port
He walks, and seems already in the fight."
Yet such are the fluctuations of taste, that contemporary criticism bowed with solemn admiration over his Miltonic cadences. He was meditating a still more formidable poem on the Day of Judgment, when his life was prematurely terminated by a consumption.*
THE SPLENDID SHILLING.
..Sing, heavenly Muse!
Things unattempted yet, in prose or rhyme,"
A Shilling, Breeches, and Chimeras dire.
HAPPY the man, who void of cares and strife,
In silken or in leathern purse retains
A Splendid Shilling: he nor hears with pain
New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale;
But with his friends, when nightly mists arise,
To Juniper's Magpie, or Town-Hall† repairs:
Where, mindful of the nymph, whose wanton eye
Transfix'd his soul, and kindled amorous flames,
Chloe, or Phillis, he each circling glass
Wisheth her health, and joy, and equal love.
Meanwhile, he smokes, and laughs at merry tale,
Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint.
But I, whom griping Penury surrounds,
And Hunger, sure attendant upon Want,
With scanty offals, and small acid tiff,
(Wretched repast!) my meagre corpse sustain :
Then solitary walk, or doze at home
In garret vile, and with a warming puff
Regale chill'd fingers; or from tube as black
As winter-chimney, or well-polish'd jet,
Exhale mundungus, ill-perfuming scent!
Not blacker tube, nor of a shorter size,
Smokes Cambro-Briton (versed in pedigree,
Sprung from Cadwallader and Arthur, kings
Full famous in romantic tale) when he
O'er many a craggy hill and barren cliff,
Upon a cargo of famed Cestrian cheese,
High over-shadowing rides, with a design
To vend his wares, or at th' Arvonian mart,
Or Maridunum, or the ancient town
Yclep'd Brechinia, or where Vaga's stream
Encircles Ariconium, fruitful soil!
Whence flow nectareous wines, that well may vie
With Massic, Setin, or renown'd Falern.
Thus while my joyless minutes tedious flow,
With looks demure, and silent pace, a Dun,
Horrible monster! hated by gods and men,
To my ærial citadel ascends,
With vocal heel thrice thundering at my gate,
With hideous accent thrice he calls; I know
The voice ill-boding, and the solemn sound.
What should I do? or whither turn? Amazed,
Confounded, to the dark recess I fly
Of wood-hole; straight my bristling hairs erect
[Fenton, in a letter to the father of the Wartons, makes mention of a copy of verses by Philips against Blackmore. The poem, if recoverable, would be a curiosity.
The fame of Philips will live through his Splendid Shilling and the poetic praises of Thomson and Cowper.] Two noted alehouses at Oxford in 1700.
Through sudden fear; a chilly sweat bedews
My shuddering limbs, and (wonderful to tell!)
My tongue forgets her faculty of speech;
So horrible he seems! His faded brow,
Entrench'd with many a frown, and conic beard,
And spreading band, admired by modern saints,
Disastrous acts forebode; in his right hand
Long scrolls of paper solemnly he waves,
With characters and figures dire inscribed,
Grievous to mortal eyes; (ye gods avert
Such plagues from righteous men!) Behind him
stalks
Another monster, not unlike himself,
Sullen of aspect, by the vulgar call'd
A Catchpole, whose polluted hands the gods,
With force incredible, and magic charms,
Erst have endued; if he his ample palm
Should haply on ill-fated shoulder lay
Of debtor, straight his body, to the touch
Obsequious (as whilom knights were wont)
To some enchanted castle is convey'd,
Where gates impregnable, and coercive chains,
In durance strict detain him, till, in form
Of Money, Pallas sets the captive free.
Beware, ye Debtors! when ye walk, beware,
Be circumspect; oft with insidious ken
The caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdue in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallow'd touch. So (poets sing)
Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Protending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowell'd web
Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies: she secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable, nor will aught avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue;
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly, proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make: with eager strides,
She towering flies to her expected spoils;
Then, with envenom'd jaws, the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.
So pass my days. But, when nocturnal
shades
This world envelop, and th' inclement air
Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines, and crackling blaze of
Me lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light
Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk,
Of loving friend, delights; distress'd, forlorn,
Amidst the horrors of the tedious night,
Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts
My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse
Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,
Or desperate lady near a purling stream,
Or lover pendent on a willow-tree.
Meanwhile I labour with eternal drought,
And restless wish, and rave; my parched throat
Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose:
But if a slumber haply does invade
My weary limbs, my fancy's still awake,
Thoughtful of drink, and, eager, in a dream,
Tipples imaginary pots of ale,
In vain; awake I find the settled thirst
Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.
Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarr'd,
Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays
Mature, john-apple, nor the downy peach,
Nor walnut in rough-furrow'd coat secure,
Nor medlar, fruit delicious in decay ;
Afflictions great! yet greater still remain:
My galligaskins, that have long withstood
The winter's fury, and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued (what will not time subdue!)
An horrid chasm disclosed with orifice
Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds
Eurus and Auster, and the dreadful force
Of Boreas, that congeals the Cronian waves,
Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts,
Portending agues. Thus a well-fraught ship,
Long sail'd secure, or through th' Egean deep,
Or the Ionian, till crusing near
The Lilybean shere, with hideous crush
On Scylla, or Charybdis (dangerous rocks!)
She strikes rebounding; whence the shatter'd oak,
So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea; in at the gaping side
The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize
The mariners; Death in their eyes appears,
They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear,
they pray;
(Vain efforts!) still the battering waves rush in, Implacable, till, deluged by the foam,
The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.*
He that is below envieth him that riseth,
And he that is above, him that's below despiseth;
So every man his plot and counterplot deviseth:
Holla, my fancy, &c.
Look, look, what bustling Here do I espy:
Here another justling,
Every one turmoiling,
The other spoiling,
As I did pass them by. One sitteth musing in a dumpish passion, Another hangs his head because he's out of fashion, A third is fully bent on sport and recreation: Holla, my Fancy, &c.
Amidst the foamy ocean
Fain would I know
What doth cause the motion,
And returning,
In its journeying,
And doth so seldom swerve;
And how these little fishes that swim beneath salt water,
Do never blind their eyes, methinks it is a matter
An inch above the reach of old Erra Pater:
Holla, my Fancy, &c.
Fain would I be resolved
How things were done,
And where bull was calved
Of bloody Phalaris,
And where the tailor is
That works to the man in the moon. Fain would I know how Cupid aims so rightly, And how these little fairies do dance and leap so lightly,
And where fair Cynthia makes her assemblies Holla, my Fancy, &c. [nightly:
ON A WOMAN'S INCONSTANCY.
FROM THE SAME.
I LOVED thee once, I'll love no more;
Thine be the grief as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?
He that can love, unloved again,
Hath better store of love than brain:
God send me love my debts to pay,
While unthrifts fool their love away.
Nothing could have my love o'erthrown,
If thou hadst still continued mine;
Yea, if thou hadst remain'd thy own,
I might perchance have yet been thine.
FROM "THE VIOLENCE OF LOVE, OR THE RIVAL SISTERS."
FAIR and soft, and gay and young,
All charm-she play'd, she danced, she sung:
There was no way to 'scape the dart,
No care could guard the lover's heart.
Ah, why, cried I, and dropp'd a tear,
Adoring, yet despairing e'er
To have her to myself alone,
Why was such sweetness made for one?
But, growing bolder, in her ear
I in soft numbers told my care:
She heard, and raised me from her feet,
And seem'd to glow with equal heat.
Like heaven's, too mighty to express,
My joys could but be known by guess;
Ay, fool, said I, what have I done,
To wish her made for more than one!
But long she had not been in view,
Before her eyes their beams withdrew;
[This is by Sir Robert Ayton, and was among the poems of his in the Ayton MS. once in Mr. Heber's hands. See Note also at p. 141.]
"The Rival Sisters," and "Innocence Distressed."
Ere I had reckon'd half her charms,
She sunk into another's arms.
But she that once could faithless be,
Will favour him no more than me:
He too, will find he is undone,
And that she was not made for one.
CELIA is cruel: Sylvia, thou,
I must confess, art kind; But in her cruelty, I vow,
I more repose can find. For, oh thy fancy at all games does fly, Fond of address, and willing to comply.
Thus he that loves must be undone,
Each way on rocks we fall;
Either you will be kind to none,
Or worse, be kind to all.
Vain are our hopes, and endless is our care; We must be jealous, or we must despair.
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