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John Phillips (1631–1706) was an English writer, the brother ofEdward Phillips, and a nephew ofJohn Milton.
Anne Phillips, mother of John and Edward, was the sister of John Milton, the poet. In 1652, John Phillips published aLatin reply to the anonymous attack on Milton entitledPro Rege et populo anglicano. He appears to have acted as unofficial secretary to Milton, but, unable to obtain regular political employment, and (like his brother) chafing against the discipline he was under, he published in 1655, a bitter attack onPuritanism titled aSatyr against Hypocrites (1655). In 1656, he was summoned before theprivy council for his share in a book of licentious poems,Sportive Wit, which was suppressed by the authorities, but almost immediately replaced by a similar collection,Wit and Drollery.
InMontelion (1660) he ridiculed theastrological almanacs ofWilliam Lilly. Two other skits of this name, in 1661 and 1662, also full of coarse royalist wit, were probably by another hand. In 1678, he supported the agitation ofTitus Oates, writing on his behalf, saysAnthony Wood, many lies and villanies. Dr Oates'sNarrative of thePopish Plot indicated it was the first of these tracts. In the same year he published the first English translation ofJean-Baptiste Tavernier's 'Six Voyages' recounting a lifetime of travel in the Middle East and South Asia.[1]
He began a monthly historical review in 1688, entitledModern History or a Monthly Account of all considerable Occurrences, Civil, Ecclesiastical and Military, followed in 1690, byThe Present State of Europe, or a Historical and Political Mercury, which was supplemented by a preliminary volume giving a history of events from 1688. He executed many translations from the French language, and a version (1687) ofDon Quixote, which has been called byQuixote translatorSamuel Putnam the worst English translation ever made of the novel. Putnam goes so far as to say in his Translator's Preface that Phillips's version "cannot be called a translation". This is largely because Phillips actually changes the novel by substituting references to famous English locales in place of the original Spanish ones, and including references to things British not found in the original novel.
An extended account of the brothers is given by Wood inAthenæ Oxononienses (ed. Bliss, iv. 764 seq.), where a long list of their works is dealt with. This formed the basis ofWilliam Godwin'sLives of Edward and John Phillips (1815), with which was reprinted Edward Phillips'sLife of John Milton.
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| Poetry | ||
| Antiprelatical tracts | ||
| Divorce tracts | ||
| Political tracts | ||
| Other writings | ||
| Individual sonnets | ||
| Disputed | ||
| Related | ||
