John Philips

John Philips 1676-1709, English poet. He was one of the few to write in blank verse in an age when the heroic couplet was the standard form. His Splendid Shilling (1701, 1705) is a parody of Milton. Cyder (1708), a utilitarian poem describing the cultivation of apples and the pressing of cider, is modeled after Vergil's Georgics.

Bibliography: See his poems (ed. by M. G. L. Thomas, 1927).

Philips, John (1676–1709), the author of The Splendid Shilling (unauthorized 1701, authorized 1705), a burlesque in Miltonic blank verse, in which Philips contrasts the happy possessor of the splendid shilling with the poor poet in his garret. In 1705 he published Blenheim, written at the suggestion of Harley and Bolingbroke, as a Tory counterpart to The Campaign of Addison. Cyder (1708), a poem in blank verse written in imitation of Virgil's Georgics, celebrates the cultivation, manufacture, and virtues of cider; it provided a model for later blank verse georgics.