Author: Phillips, William
Biography:
PHILLIPS, William (c. 1807-33: findmypast.com)
No record has been found of his birth or baptism. He published only one volume of verse, Mount Sinai, in 1830 as by “W. Phillips. Esq., of the Middle Temple.” He was at that time studying law in London; he would be called to the bar in Nov. 1831. The work was handsomely produced, with a frontispiece engraving by John Martin; it was quite widely advertised. Reviews were mixed, with one particularly scathing one from the News that declared the poem to be “even worse” than Satan by Robert Montgomery (q.v.) and advised the author to stick to his profession and not attempt poetry again. A brief, helpful obituary in the Dublin Evening Packet reveals that he was an Irishman, a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine and “other eminent periodical publications,” and that he died, aged 26, at Abbeyview, near Sligo, on 27 Jan. 1833. This obituary does not mention Mount Sinai but attributes to him a tragedy on the popular subject of Regulus—of which however there is no other record. (findmypast.com 8 Oct. 2023; News [London] 4 Apr. 1830; MH 28 Nov. 1831; Dublin Evening Packet 5 Feb.1833) HJ