Works
His contemporary reputation rested on his pastorals and epistles, particularly the description of winter addressed by him from Copenhagen (1709) to the Earl of Dorset. In T. H. Ward's English Poets, however, he is represented by two of the simple and charming pieces addressed to the infant children of John Carteret, 2nd Lord Carteret, and of Daniel Pulteney. These were scoffed at by Jonathan Swift, and earned for Philips from Henry Carey the nickname of "Namby-Pamby".
Philips's works include an abridgment of Bishop John Hacket's Life of John Williams (1700); The Thousand and One Days: Persian Tales (1722), from the French of F Pétis de la Croix; three plays: The Distrest Mother (1712), an adaptation of Racine's Andromaque; The Briton (1722); Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1723). Many of his poems, which included some translations from Sappho, Anacreon and Pindar, were published separately, and a collected edition appeared in 1748.
Read more about this topic: Ambrose Philips
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Do not worry about the incarnation of ideas. If you are a poet, your works will contain them without your knowledge—they will be both moral and national if you follow your inspiration freely.”
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“Reason, the prized reality, the Law, is apprehended, now and then, for a serene and profound moment, amidst the hubbub of cares and works which have no direct bearing on it;Mis then lost, for months or years, and again found, for an interval, to be lost again. If we compute it in time, we may, in fifty years, have half a dozen reasonable hours.”
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“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)