The Revd. Mr. CHRISTOPHER PITT,

The celebrated translator of Virgil, was born in the year 1699. He
received his early education in the college near Winchester; and in 1719
was removed from thence to new college in Oxford. When he had studied
there four years, he was preferred to the living of Pimperne in
Dorsetshire, by his friend and relation, Mr. George Pitt; which he held
during the remaining part of his life. While he was at the university,
he possessed the affection and esteem of all who knew him; and was
particularly distinguished by that great poet Dr. Young, who so much
admired 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