PHILLIMORE, JOHN S.

Classical scholar; b. Boconnoc, Cornwall, Feb. 26, 1873; d. Sheffield, Hampshire, Nov. 16, 1926. At Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford, he won a succession of honors in classics. Christ Church appointed him a lecturer in 1895, and a tutor in 1898. The following year he succeeded Gilbert Murray in the chair of Greek at the University of Glasgow. Upon the retirement of G. G. Ramsay in 1906, he was transferred to the chair of humanity, a position that to him was most congenial. He produced critical editions of Propertius (1901; 2d ed.1907) and Statius, Silvae (1905), and an excellent translation of Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana (2 v. 1912). Throughout his life he published a large number of scholarly articles and learned notes in the Classical Quarterly, Classical Review, Mnemosyne, and similar journals. Phillimore was also a gifted poet, as is evidenced by his Poems (1902) and Things New and Old (1918), and a brilliant lecturer and writer on classical and literary themes in general who exercised a marked influence on Scottish intellectual life. Following his conversion to Catholicism in 1906, he became an occasional contributor to the Dublin Review and developed an interest in Christian Latin poetry. His last work was The Hundred Best Latin Hymns (London 1926).

Bibliography: s. n. miller, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, 63 v. (London 1885–1900; repr. with corrections, 21 v., 1908–09, 1921–22, 1938; suppl. 1901—) (1922–30) 675–677.

[m. r. p. mcguire]