John Phillips (1631–1706) was an English author, the brother of
Edward Phillips
Edward Phillips (August 1630 – c. 1696) was an English author.
Life
He was the son of Edward Phillips, of the Crown Office in Chancery, and his wife Anne, only sister of John Milton, the poet. Edward Phillips the younger was born in Stran ...
, and a nephew of
John Milton.
Life
Anne Phillips, mother of John and Edward, was the sister of John Milton, the poet. In 1652, John Phillips published a
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
reply to the anonymous attack on Milton entitled ''Pro 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 on
Puritanism titled a ''Satyr against Hypocrites'' (1655). In 1656, he was summoned before the
privy 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''.
In ''Montelion'' (1660) he ridiculed the
astrological almanacs of
William 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 of
Titus Oates, writing on his behalf, says
Anthony Wood, many lies and villanies. Dr Oates's ''Narrative of the
Popish Plot'' indicated it was the first of these tracts. In the same year he published the first English translation of
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's 'Six Voyages' recounting a lifetime of travel in the Middle East and South Asia.
[Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, Volume 45, Phillips, John (1631–1706)]
He began a monthly historical review in 1688, entitled ''Modern History or a Monthly Account of all considerable Occurrences, Civil, Ecclesiastical and Military'', followed in 1690, by ''The 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) of ''
Don Quixote
, the full title being ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'', is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and is of ...
'', which has been called by ''Quixote'' translator
Samuel 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 in ''Athenæ Oxononienses'' (ed. Bliss, iv. 764 seq.), where a long list of their works is dealt with. This formed the basis of
William Godwin's ''Lives of Edward and John Phillips'' (1815), with which was reprinted Edward Phillips's ''Life of John Milton''.
References
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External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, John
1631 births
1706 deaths
English writers
Place of birth unknown
Date of death unknown
Place of death unknown
Date of birth unknown
English male writers