At what time he composed his Miscellany, published in 1727, it is not easy or necessary to know: those which have dates appear to have been very early productions, and I have not observed that any rise above mediocrity.

The success of his Vida animated him to a higher undertaking: and in his thirtieth year he published a version of the first book of the Eneid. This being, I suppose, commended by his friends, he some time afterwards added three or four more; with an advertisement, in which he represents himself as translating with great indifference, and with a progress of which himself was hardly conscious. This can hardly be true, and, if true, is nothing to the reader.

I

At last, without any farther contention with his modesty, or any awe of the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English Eneid, which I am sorry not to see joined in this publication with his other poems. It would have been pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing the two best translations that perhaps were ever produced by one nation of the same author.

Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures, and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's Iliad, he had an example of an exact, equable, and splendid versification. With these advantages, seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labour particular passages, and escape many errours. If the two versions are compared, perhaps the result would be, that Dryden leads the reader forward by his general vigour and sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the excellence of a single couplet; that Dryden's faults are forgotten in the hurry of delight, and that Pitt's beauties are neglected in the languor of a cold and listless perusal; that Pitt pleases the critics, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read.

He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work deservedly conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a stone at Blandford, on which is this inscription.

In Memory of

CHR. PITT, clerk, M. A.
Very eminent
for his talents in poetry;
and yet more

for the universal candour of
his mind, and the primitive
simplicity of his manners.

He lived innocent;
and died beloved,
Apr. 13, 1748,
aged 48.

It has since been added to the collection.

SIR,

TO GEORGE PITT, ESQ.

OF STRATFIELD SEA, IN HAMPSHIRE.

SINCE you vouchsafe to be a patron to these sheets, as well as to their author, I will not make an ill use of the liberty you give me, to address you in this public manner, by running into the common topics of dedications. Should I venture to engage in such an extensive theme as your character, the world would judge the attempt to be altogether unnecessary, because it had long before been thoroughly acquainted with your virtues; besides, I am sensible, that you as earnestly decline all praise and panegyric, as you eminently deserve them.

I hope, sir, on another occasion, to present you with the product of my severer studies; in the mean time be pleased to accept of this trifle, as one small acknowledgment of the many great favours you have bestowed on,

honoured sir,

your obliged humble servant,

CHRISTOPHER PITT.

PREFACE.

My translation of Vida's Art of Poetry having been more favourably received than I had reason to expect, has encouraged me to publish this little miscellany of poems and select translations. I shall neither embarrass myself nor my reader with apologies concerning this collection; for whether it is a good one or a bad one, all excuses are unnecessary in one case, and offered in vain in the other.

An author of a miscellany has a better chance of pleasing the world, than he who writes on a single subject; and I have sometimes known a bad, or (which is still worse) an indifferent poet, meet with tolerable success; which has been owing more to the variety of subjects, than his happiness in treating them.

I am sensible the men of wit and pleasure will be disgusted to find so great a part of this collection consist of sacred poetry; but I assure these gentlemen, whatever they shall be pleased to object, that I shall never be ashamed of employing my talents (such as they are) in the service of my Maker; that it would look indecent in one of my profession, not to spend as much time on the psalms of David, as the hymns of Callimachus; and farther, that if those beautiful pieces of divine poetry had been written by Callimachus, or any heathen author, they might have possibly vouchsafed them a reading even in my translation.

But I will not trespass further on my reader's patience in prose, since I shall have occasion enough for it, as well as for his good-nature, in the following verses; concerning which I must acquaint him, that some of them were written several years since, and that I have precisely observed the rule of our great master Horace-Nonumque prematur in annum. But I may say more justly than Mr. Prior said of himself in the like case, that I have observed the letter, more than the spirit of the precept.

1727.

TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS.

In scenes which thy invention sets to view,
Forgive me, friend, if I lose sight of you;
I see with how much spirit Homer thought,
With how much judgment cooler Virgil wrote;
In every line, in every word you speak,
I read the Roman and confess the Greek;
Forgetting thee, my soul with rapture swell'd,
Cries out, "How much the ancient bards excell'd!"
But when thy just translations introduce
To nearer converse any Latian Muse,
The several beauties you so well express,
I lose the Roman in the British dress!
Sweetly deceiv'd, the ancients I contemn,
And with mistaken zeal to thee exclaim,
(By so much nature, so much art betray'd)
"What vast improvements have our moderns
made!"