ired the early displays of his genius, that with an engaging
familiarity he used to call him his son.

Amongst the first of Mr. Pitt's performances which saw the light, were a
panegyric on lord Stanhope, and a poem on the Plague of Marseilles: But
he had two large Folio's of MS. Poems, very fairly written out, while he
was a school-boy, which at the time of election were delivered to the
examiners. One of these volumes contained an entire translation of
Lucan; and the other consisted of Miscellaneous pieces. Mr. Pitt's Lucan
has never been published; perhaps from the consideration of its being
the production of his early life, or from a consciousness of its not
equalling the translation of that author by Rowe, who executed this talk
in the meridian of his genius. Several of his other pieces were
published afterwards, in his volume of Miscellaneous Poems.

The ingenious writer of the Student hath obliged the world by inferring
in that work several original pieces by Mr. Pitt; whose name is prefixed
to them.

Next to his beautiful Translation of Virgil, Mr. Pitt gained the
greatest reputation by rendering into English, Vida's Art of Poetry,
which he has executed with the strictest attention to the author's
sense, with the utmost elegance of versification, and without suffering
the noble spirit of the original to be lost in his translation.

This amiable poet died in the year 1748, without leaving one enemy
behind him. On his tombstone were engraved these words,

"He lived innocent, and died beloved."

Mr. Auditor Benson, who in a pamphlet of his writing, has treated
Dryden's translation of Virgil with great contempt, was yet charmed with
that by Mr. Pitt, and found in it some beauties, of which he was fond
even to a degree of enthusiasm. Alliteration is one of those beauties
Mr. Benson so much admired, and in praise of which he has a long
dissertation in his letters on translated verse. He once took an
opportunity, in conversation with Mr. Pitt, to magnify that beauty, and
to compliment him upon it. Mr. Pitt thought this article far less
considerable than Mr. Benson did; but says he, 'since you are so fond of
alliteration, the following couplet upon Cardinal Woolsey will not
displease you,

'Begot by butchers, but by bishops bred,
How high his honour holds his haughty head.

Benson was no doubt charmed to hear his favourite grace in poetry so
beautifully exemplified, which it certainly is, without any affec