Of his personal character all that I have heard is, that he was
eminent for bravery and skill in the sword, and that in conversation
he was solemn and pompous. He had great sensibility of censure, if
judgment may be made by a single story which I heard long ago from
Mr. Ing, a gentleman of great eminence in Staffordshire. "Philips,"
said he, "was once at table, when I asked him, 'How came thy king of
Epirus to drive oxen, and to say, "I'm goaded on by love"?' After
which question he never spoke again."

Of The Distressed Mother not much is pretended to be his own, and
therefore it is no subject of criticism: his other two tragedies, I
believe, are not below mediocrity, nor above it. Among the poems
comprised in the late Collection, the "Letter from Denmark" may be
justly praised; the Pastorals, which by the writer of the Guardian
were ranked as one of the four genuine productions of the rustic
Muse, cannot surely be despicable. That they exhibit a mode of life
which did not exist, nor ever existed, is not to be objected: the
supposition of such a state is allowed to be pastoral. In his other
poems he cannot be denied the praise of lines sometimes elegant; but
he has seldom much force or much comprehension. The pieces that
please best are those which, from Pope and Pope's adherents,
procured him the name of "Namby-Pamby," the poems of short lines, by
which he paid his court to all ages and characters, from Walpole the
"steerer of the realm," to Miss Pulteney in the nursery. The
numbers are smooth and sprightly, and the diction is seldom faulty.
They are not loaded with much thought, yet, if they had been written
by Addison, they would have had admirers: little things are not
valued but when they are done by those who can do greater.

In his translations from "Pindar" he found the art of reaching all