John Phillips (1631–1706) was an English poet and satirist, best known for his satirical poem A Satyr Against Hypocrites. He was a nephew of the poet John Milton, a family connection that is an important clue to his life and literary circles. Public information about his education, career, and social activities is limited, so these aspects cannot be described in detail. Judging from his surviving work, he was mainly active in poetry and satire, directing his pen against hypocrisy and affectation, with the moral criticism common to seventeenth-century English satire. His output appears small—only one work is held in this collection—but the very title A Satyr Against Hypocrites indicates his concern with religious hypocrisy and social pretence. Overall, he is a minor yet identifiable figure in the seventeenth-century English satirical tradition, and his direct, pungent style is best understood within the literature that attacked hypocrisy and Puritan affectation.
