Garth died in January, 1717-18, and, according to Pope, was a good Christian without knowing it. Addison, however, who visited Garth in his last illness, told Dr. Berkeley that he rejected Christianity on the assurance of his friend Halley that its doctrines were incomprehensible, and the religion itself an imposture. According to another report which comes through Pope, he actually 'died a papist.' [Sidenote: Ambrose Philips (1671-1749).] Ambrose Philips, who belonged, like Tickell, to Addison's 'little senate,' was born in 1671, and educated at St. John's, Cambridge. His _Pastorals_ were published in Tonson's _Miscellany_ (1709), and the same volume contained the _Pastorals_ of Pope. Log-rolling was understood in those days, and Philips's verses received warm praise in more than one number of the _Guardian_, the writer in one place declaring that there have been only four masters of the art in above two thousand years: 'Theocritus, who left his dominions to Virgil; Virgil, who left his to his son Spenser; and Spenser, who was succeeded by his eldest born, Philips.' Pope's _Pastorals_ were not mentioned, and in revenge he devised the consummate artifice of sending an anonymous paper to the _Guardian_, in which, while appearing to praise Philips, he exalted himself. Steele took the bait, and considering that the essay depreciated Pope would not publish it without his permission, which was of course readily granted. 'From that time,' says Johnson, 'Pope and Philips lived in a perpetual reciprocation of malevolence.' Philips's tragedy, _The Distrest Mother_ (1712), a translation, or nearly so, of Racine's _Andromaque_, was puffed in the _Spectator_. It is the play to which Sir Roger de Coverley was taken by his friends, and the representation supplied the good knight with an opportunity for much humorous comment. 'When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear that he was sure she would never have him; to which he added with a more than ordinary vehemence, "You cannot imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a widow." Upon Pyrrhus his threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered to himself, "Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination that at the close of the third Act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered in my ear, "These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says he, "you that are a critic, is this play according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of."'[32] Addison also inserted and praised in the _Spectator_ Philips's translations from Sappho (Nos. 223, 229).