the

fion) will write their own panegyricks; and it is very hard that they fhould go without reputation, only because they the more deserve it. The end of writing Lives is for the imitation of the readers. It will be in power of very few to imitate the duke of Marlborough; we must be content with admiring his great qualities and actions, without hopes of following them. The private and focial virtues are more easily transcribed. The Life of Cowley is more instructive, as well as more fine, than any we have in our language. And it is to be wifhed, fince Mr. Philips had fo many of the good qualities of that poet, that I had fome of the abilities of his hiftorian.

The Grecian philofophers have had their Lives written, their morals commended, and their fayings recorded. Mr. Philips had all the virtues to which most of them only pretended, and all their integrity without any of their affectation.

The French are very juft to eminent men in this point; not a learned man nor a poet can die, but all Europe must be acquainted

with his accomplishments. They give praise and expect it in their turns: they commend their Patru's and Moliere's as well as their Conde's and Turenne's; their Pellifons and Racines have their elogies as well as the prince whom they celebrate; and their poems, their mercuries, and orations, nay their very gazettes, are filled with the praises of the learned,

I am fatisfied, had they a Philips among them, and known how to value him; had they one of his learning, his temper, but above all of that particular turn of humour, that altogether new genius, he had been an example to their poets, and a fubject of their panegyricks, and perhaps fet in competition with the ancients, to whom only he ought to fubmit.

I fhall therefore endeavour to do juftice to his memory, fince nobody elfe undertakes it. And indeed I can affign no caufe why fo many of his acquaintance (that are as willing and more able than myself to give an account of him) fhould forbear to celebrate the memory of one fo dear to them, but only

that

that they look upon it as a work intirely belonging to me.

I fhall content myfelf with giving only a character of the perfon and his writings, without meddling with the transactions of his life, which was altogether private: I fhall only make this known obfervation of his family, that there was scarce fo many extraordinary men in any one. I have been acquainted with five of his brothers (of which three are still living), all men of fine parts, yet all of a very unlike temper and genius. So that their fruitful mother, like the mother of the gods, feems to have produced a numerous offspring, all of different though uncommon faculties. Of the living, neither their modefty nor the humour of the present age permits me to speak of the dead, I may fay fomething.

One of them had made the greatest progrefs in the ftudy of the law of nature and nations of any one I know. He had perfectly mastered, and even improved, the notions of Grotius, and the more refined ones of Puffendorf. He could refute Hobbes with

as much folidity as fome of greater name, and expofe him with as much wit as Echard, That noble study, which requires the greatest reach of reafon and nicety of distinction, was not at all difficult to him. 'Twas a nae tional lofs to be deprived of one who understood a science fo neceffary, and yet fo unknown in England. I fhall add only, he had the fame honefty and fincerity as the perfon I write of, but more heat: the former was more inclined to argue, the latter to divert one employed his reafon more; the other his imagination: the former had been well qualified for those posts, which the modefty of the latter made him refufe, His other dead brother would have been an ornament to the college of which he was a member. He had a genius either for poetry or oratory; and, though very young, composed several very agreeable pieces, In all probability he would have wrote as finely, as his brother did nobly. He might have been the Waller, as the other was the Milton of his time. The one might celebrate Marlborough, the other his beautiful offspring. This had not been fo fit to defcribe the actions of heroes as the virtues

of

of private men,

In a word, he had been fitter for my place; and while his brother was writing upon the greatest men that any age ever produced, in a ftyle equal to them, he might have ferved as a panegyrist on him.

This is all I think neceffary to fay of his family. I fhall proceed to himself and his writings; which I shall first treat of, because I know they are cenfured by some out of envy, and more out of ignorance.

The Splendid Shilling, which is far the least confiderable, has the more general reputation, and perhaps hinders the character of the rest. The style agreed fo well with the burlesque, that the ignorant thought it could become nothing else. Every body is pleased with that work. But to judge rightly of the other, requires a perfect mastery of poetry and criticism, a juft contempt of the little turns and witticifms now in vogue, and, above all, a perfect understanding of poetical diction and description.

All