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 affectation
or stiffness. Waller thought this a beauty; and Dryden was very fond of
it. Some late writers, under the notion of imitating these two great
versifiers in this point, run into downright affectation, and are guilty