Philip Francis (translator)

Philip Francis (19 July 1708 – 5 March 1773) was an Anglo-Irish clergyman and writer, now remembered as a translator of Horace.

He was son of Dr. John Francis, rector of St. Mary's, Dublin (from which living he was for a time ejected for political reasons), and dean of Lismore, and was born about 1708. He was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, taking the degree of B.A. in 1728, and was ordained, according to his father's wish, in the Church of Ireland. He held for some time the curacy of St. Peter's parish, Dublin, and while resident in that city published his translation of Horace, besides writing in the interests of ‘the Castle.’

Soon after the death of his wife, Elizabeth Rowe, whom he married in 1739, he crossed to England, and in 1744 obtained the rectory of Skeyton in Norfolk. He shortly was residing for the sake of literature and society in London. In January 1752, when Edward Gibbon became an inmate of his house, Francis was keeping or supposed to be keeping a school at Esher; but the boys' friends quickly found that the nominal instructor preferred the pleasures of London to the instruction of his pupils and in a month or two Gibbon was removed. To maintain himself in the social life of London, Francis tried many expedients, but most of them were failures. Two plays of his were produced on the stage, each time without success. He tried translation, but, except in his rendering of the works of Horace, he was sidelined by other writers.

His fortune was made when he secured, through the kindness of Miss Bellamy, who recommended him, the post of private chaplain to Lady Caroline Fox, and lived in her family, where he taught Lady Sarah Lennox to declaim and Charles James Fox to read. At the end of 1757 Fox was sent to Eton, and Francis accompanied him to assist the boy in his studies. The father, Henry Fox found Francis a useful ally. It has sometimes been said that he was the chief writer in the paper called ‘The Con-test,’ which lived from November 1756 to August 1757, but the accuracy of this statement is doubted. He is also said to have contributed to the ‘Gazette’ daily newspaper on behalf of the court interest.

When William Pitt the Elder resigned, in 1761, Francis wrote a libel against him under the title of ‘Mr. Pitt's Letter Versified,’ the notes to which, according to Horace Walpole, were supplied by Henry Fox (now Lord Holland), and he followed this with ‘A Letter from the Anonymous Author of “Mr. Pitt's Letter Versified,”’ in which he reflected on Pitt's indifference to the truculent language of Colonel Isaac Barré. In 1764 he attacked Pitt and John Wilkes with great bitterness in the ‘Political Theatre.’

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