the general style, metre and diction, remind us so strongly of Philips' later works that it seems next to impossible that in the days, when no other Miltonian produced blank verse of a quality approaching Philips' in any respect, an unknown imitator should have written such Miltonic lines as early as 1704. Here is a specimen:

"And Winter keen in Breath blew shivering Cold,
Around the Globe, and Ty'd the voluble streams.
Some to the Chimneys warm Protection fly,
And fright the sooty Hearth with dreadful tale,
Of spright Nocturnal or adventrous Knight;
Some bid defiance to th'inclement Air,

Fir'd with the juicy flame of old Falerne."

Philips' beloved drink cider plays an important part in the catastrophe.

Two small poems, entitled "A Song" and "To A Lady with Milton's Paradise Lost" were added to the edition of "Cyder" which Hills published in 1708. The volume contains a third song as well, but this is stated to be by Mr. Cheek. The first two are quite possibly by Philips; the lady in both cases may have been Mary Meers.

To A
Lady

with Milton's Paradise Lost.

See here how bright the First-born Virgin shone!
And how the first Fond Lover was undone!
Such powerful words our charming Mother spoke,
As Milton's are, and such as Yours her Look.
Your's the best Copy of the Original Face,
Whose Beauty was to furnish all her Race.
Your Charms no Author can escape but he;
There's no way to be safe, but not to see.

Two other poems, both fairly long, were first attributed to John Philips by Dr. Harrach 1), They are "The Sylvan

1) John Philips. Diss. Leipzig, 1906.

THE SYLVAN DREAM; RAMELIES

157

Dream or the Mourning Muses" (1701) and "Ramelies" (1706). The first is an imitation of Milton's "Comus" and consists of an attack on contemporary poetry, a eulogy on King William III, the proposed invasion of England (1696) and the Peace of Ryswick (1697). The poet says that the poem is "the first that I've attempted." All this fits in with what we know of Philips' life. If he wrote it he must have started it shortly after he came up to Oxford. The latter half of the poem is a threnody on "Adonis dead", reminding us of "Lycidas". The copy in the British Museum has the name of John Philips written in an early hand on the title-page. It is clear enough that the work is by an admirer of Milton, but it is impossible to detect the work of John Philips in this dull mixture of pindarics and heroic couplets. Leonard Welsted may have ascribed "The Mourning Muses" to Philips in his "Poem to the Memory of the Incomparable Mr. Philips', (1710):

"But hear, oh hear, the Mourning Muse relate

Our once young Churchill's and our Gloster's Fate."

"Ramelies, A Poem" (1706) is in blank verse and written in imitation of "Bleinheim". It has too little of the genuine Philips of "Cyder" to make it at all probable that it was his work. The copy of this particular poem on the battle of Ramillies in the British Museum bears the name "Rob. Wake" and the initials "R. W.", both in an early hand.

The justification of this chapter must lie in the historical position of John Philips rather than in the quality of his verse. We have seen what position Philips' blank verse poetry held in the literary estimate of the first decade of the eighteenth century. The poetry of the century is full of imitations and adaptations of "The Splendid Shilling" and "Cyder". Thomson and Somerville owe much

to him, the former perhaps more than he admitted, when he referred to the "facetious bard" 1). and to the "Silurian vats" of cider. Gay 2), Tickell 3), William Thompson 4), Heard 5), Crabbe "), and others praised Philips in poetical effusions. We may conclude that Philips led many to Milton. The following quotation from W. H. Roberts' "Poetical Epistle to Christopher Anstey, Esq., on the English Poets, chiefly those who have written in Blank Verse" (1773), illustrates once more the value that the century attached to Philips as well as to Milton:

"Poet of other times, to thee I bow

With lowliest reverence. Oft thou tak'st my soul,
And waf'st it by thy potent harmony

To that empyreal mansion, where thine ear
Caught the soft warblings of a Seraph's harp.
What time the mighty visitant unlock'd
The gates of Heav'n, and to the mental sight
Display'd celestial scenes. She from the lyre
With indignation tore the tinkling bells,
And tun'd it to sublimest argument.
Sooner the bird, that ushering in the spring
Strikes the same notes with one unvarying pause,
Shall vie with Philomel, when she pursues
Her evening song thro'every winding maze
Of melody, than rhyme shall soothe the soul
With music sweet as thine. With vigilant eye
Thee Philips watches, and, with taste refin'd
Each precept culling from the Mantuan page,
Disdains the Gothic bond. Silurian wines,
Ennobled by his song, no more shall yield
To Serin, or the strong Falernian juice,
Beverage of Latian chiefs."

1) In later editions this was changed into "Pomona's bard".

2) "Wine", 1709.

3) "On the death of the Earl of Cadogan", "Oxford" (1707).

4) "In the Midst of an Appletree over Mr. Philips' Cyder."

5) "A Sentimental Journey to Bath, Bristol and their Environs" (1778). ) "The Borough" (1810).

Camden, W., Britannia. Londini, 1586.

Dictionary of National Biography. London, 1885 ff.

DRAYTON, M., The Poly-Olbion, a chorographicall description of Great Britain. Printed for the Spenser Society. London, 1889. GILES, History of Bampton. London, 1848.

HARRACH, A., John Philips. Diss. Leipzig, 1906.

JOHNSON, S., Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. New Ed.
1783. Vol. I. Life of John Philips. Vol. II. Life of Edmund Smith.
KIPPIS, A., Biographia Britannica. 2nd ed. London, 1793.
Life of Philips in Bell's, Johnson's, Anderson's, Chalmer's and
Gilfillan's Collected Editions of English Poets. See Bibliography
Ch. XIV.

NICHOLLS, J., Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. 6 vols. London, 1812.

NICHOLLS, J., A Select Collection of Poems. London, 1780. 8 vols. PHILIPS, J., The Whole Works of Mr. John Philips, Late Student of Christ Church, Oxenford. To which is Prefixed his Life. By Mr. Sewell. London, 1720.

PHILIPS, J., Poems Attempted in the Style of Milton. With a New Account of his Life and Writings. London, J. and R. Tomson, 1762.

SEWELL, G., The Life and Character of Mr. John Philips. London, 1714. 2nd ed. 1715, 3rd ed. 1720: etc.

SMITH, E., A Poem on the Death of Mr. John Philips. London, 1709.

SMITH, E., The Works of Mr. Edmund Smith. 3rd ed. London, 1719. VIRGIL, Bucolics, Aeneid and Georgics. Ed. by J. B. Greenough. New York, 1903.

WOOD, A. A., Fasti Oxonienses. Oxford, 1691-92.

WOOD, A. A., Athenae Oxonienses. 2nd ed., 1721.

CHAPTER XI

EARLY MILTONIANS

"Could all this be forgotten. Yes, a scism
Nurtured by foppery and barbarism,

Made great Apollo blush for this his land.
Men were thought men who could not understand
His glories: with a puling infant's force

They swayed about upon a rocking horse,
And thought it Pegasus. Ah dismal soul'd!
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean roll'd
Its gathering waves ye felt it not. The blue
Bared its eternal bosom, and the dew

Of summer nights collected still to make
The morning precious; beauty was awake!
Why were ye not awake? But ye were dead
To things ye knew not of, were closely wed
To musty laws lined out with wretched rule
And compass vile: so that ye taught a school
Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit,
Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit,
Their verses tallied. Easy was the task:
A thousand handicraftsmen wore the mask
Of Poesy. Ill-fated, impious race!
That blasphemed the bright Lyrist to his face,
And did not know it, no, they went about,
Holding a poor, decrepit standard out

Mark'd with most flimsy mottos, and in large
The name of one Boileau!"

Thus John Keats in "Sleep and Beauty", the last poem of his first volume of poetry. It expresses, with an uncommon union of poetic beauty and epigrammatic force, all that the nineteenth century critics had to