His reputation was confined to his friends and to the university; till, about 1703, he extended it to a wider circle by the Splendid Shilling, which struck the publick attention with a mode of writing new and unexpected.
This performance raised him so high, that, when Europe resounded with the victory of Blenheim, he was, probably, with an occult opposition to Addison, employed to deliver the acclamation of the tories. It is said that he would willingly have declined the task, but that his friends urged it upon him. It appears that he wrote this poem at the house of Mr. St. John.
Blenheim was published in 1705. The next year produced his greatest work, the poem upon Cider, in two books; which was received with loud praises, and continued long to be read, as an imitation of Virgil's Georgicks, which needed not shun the presence of the original.
He then grew probably more confident of his own abilities, and began to meditate a poem on the Last Day; a subject on which no mind can hope to equal expectation.
This work he did not live to finish; his diseases, a slow consumption and an asthma, put a stop to his studies, and on Feb. 15, 1708, at the beginning of his thirty-third year, put an end to his life.
He was buried in the cathedral of Hereford; and sir Simon Harcourt, afterwards lord chancellor, gave him a monument in Westminster Abbey. The inscription at Westminster was written, as I have heard, by Dr. Atterbury, though commonly given to Dr. Freind.
Obijt 15 die Feb. Anno Dom. 1708., Aetat suae 32.
Cujus Ossa si requiras, hanc urnam inspice: Si ingenium nescias, ipsius opera consule;
Si tumulum desideras, Templum adi Westmonasteriense: Qualis quantusque vir fuerit, Dicat elegans illa et praeclara, Quae cenotaphium ibi decorat, Inscriptio. Quam interim erga cognatos pius et officiosus, Testetur hoc saxum A MARIA PHILIPS matre ipsius pientissima Dilecti filii memoriae non sine lacrymis dicatum.
Herefordiae conduntur ossa, Hoc in delubro statuitur imago, Britanniam omnem pervagatur fama, JOHANNIS PHILIPS: Qui viris bonis doctisque juxta charus, Immortale suum ingenium, Eruditione multiplici excultum, Miro animi candore, Eximia morum simplicitate, Honestavit. Litterarum amoeniorum sitim, Quam Wintoniae puer sentire coeperat, Inter Aedis Christi alumnos jugiter explevit. In illo musarum domicilio Praeclaris aemulorum studiis excitatus, Optimis scribendi magistris semper intentus, Carmina sermone patrio composuit A Graecis Latinisque fontibus feliciter deducta, Atticis Romanisque auribus omnino digna, Versuum quippe harmoniam Rythmo didicerat, Antiquo illo, libero, multiformi, Ad res ipsas apto prorsus, et attemperato, Non numeris in eundem fere orbem redeuntibus, Non clausularum similiter cadentium sono Metiri: Uni in hoc landis genere Miltono secundus, Primoque poene par.