After the accession of his late majesty, Mr. Philips was made a justice of peace, and appointed a commissioner of the lottery.  But though his circumstances were easy, the state of his mind was not so; he fell under the severe displeasure of Mr. Pope, who has satirized him with his usual keenness.

’Twas said, he used to mention Mr. Pope as an enemy to the government; and that he was the avowed author of a report, very industriously spread, that he had a hand in a paper called The Examiner.  The revenge which Mr. Pope took in consequence of this abuse, greatly ruffled the temper of Mr. Philips, who as he was not equal to him in wit, had recourse to another weapon; in the exercise of which no great parts are requisite.  He hung up a rod at Button’s, with which he resolved to chastise his antagonist, whenever he should come there.  But Mr. Pope, who got notice of this design, very prudently declined coming to a place, where in all probability he must have felt the resentment of an enraged author, as much superior to him in bodily strength, as inferior in wit and genius.

When Mr. Philips’s friend, Dr. Boulter, rose to be archbishop of Dublin, he went with him into Ireland, where he had considerable preferments; and was a member of the House of Commons there, as representative of the county of Armagh.

Notwithstanding the ridicule which Mr. Philips has drawn upon himself, by his opposition to Pope, and the disadvantageous light his Pastorals appear in, when compared with his; yet, there is good reason to believe, that Mr. Philips was no mean Arcadian:  By endeavouring to imitate too servilely the manners and sentiments of vulgar rustics, he has sometimes raised a laugh against him; yet there are in some of his Pastorals a natural simplicity, a true Doric dialect, and very graphical descriptions.

Mr. Gildon, in his compleat Art of Poetry, mentions him with Theocritus and Virgil; but then he defeats the purpose of his compliment, for by carrying the similitude too far, he renders his panegyric hyperbolical.

We shall now consider Mr. Philips as a dramatic writer.  The first piece he brought upon the stage, was his Distress’d Mother, translated from the French of Monsieur Racine, but not without such deviations as Mr. Philips thought necessary to heighten the distress; for writing to the heart is a secret which the best of the French poets have not found out.  This play was acted first in the year 1711, with every advantage a play could have.  Pyrrhus was performed by Mr. Booth, a part in which he acquired great reputation.  Orestes was given to Mr. Powel, and Andromache was excellently personated by the inimitable Mrs. Oldfield.  Nor was Mrs. Porter beheld in Hermione without admiration.  The Distress’d Mother is so often acted, and so frequently read, we shall not trouble the reader with giving any farther account of it.

A modern critic speaking of this play, observes that the distress of Andromache moves an audience more than that of Belvidera, who is as amiable a wife, as Andromache is an affectionate mother; their circumstances though not similar, are equally interesting, and yet says he, ’the female part of the audience is more disposed to weep for the suffering mother, than the suffering wife.[1]’ The reason ’tis imagin’d is this, there are more affectionate mothers in the world than wives.