son, young Phillips acquired
the rudiments of a sound scholarship as well as that urbane and
conciliating manner which was so conducive to his success in subsequent
life.

Judge Phillips and his excellent wife took a lively interest in the
studies of their ward. They examined him from time to time, not only in
his catechism, which was then regularly taught, but also in respect of
his literary efforts and acquirements. They encouraged him to make
strenuous efforts to obtain a high rank as a scholar, speaker,
gentleman, and Christian. Their labors were not lost. On leaving
Andover, the youth was prepared to take an elevated stand in college,
which he maintained to the completion of his course, when the honor of
pronouncing the salutatory oration was conferred on him by the faculty.

Mr. Phillips chose the profession of the law, and soon gained an
extensive practice. His popularity became such, that in 1794, he was
invited to deliver the annual Fourth of July oration before the people
of Boston. "This production," says a writer, "bears the finest marks of
intellectual vigor." Some extracts from it have found their way into the
school-books as models of eloquence.

In this same year Mr. Phillips was married to Miss Sally Walley,
daughter of Thomas Walley, Esq., a respectable merchant of Boston. On
the establishment of the Municipal Court in Boston, in 1800, he was made
public prosecutor, and in 1803 was chosen representative to the General
Court. The next year he was sent to the Senate, and such was the wisdom
of his political measures, and the dignity of his bearing towards all
parties, that he continued to hold a seat in this body every successive
year until his decease, always discharging his duties, either as a
debater or in the chair, to which he was ten times called, most
creditably to himself as well as most acceptably to his constituents and
the State.

In 1809 Mr. Phillips was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
Three years later he was elected a member of the corporation of Harvard
College, and in 1820 a member of the convention for the revision of
the State Constitution. In this able and dignified body he held a
conspicuous rank. His remarks upon the various questions which arose
were learned, judicious, and sometimes rendered all the more effective
by the flashes of his wit. Speaking, for example, on the third article
of the Bill of Rights, he said he hoped they would not be like the man
whose epi