PITT HRISTOPHER PITT, of whom whatever I shall relate 1 CH more than has been already published' I owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton 2, was born in 1699 at Blandford, the son of a physician much esteemed. He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into Winchester College, 2 where he was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance; and, at his removal to New College in 1719 3, presented to the electors, as the product of his private and voluntary studies, a compleat version of Lucan's poem, which he did not then know to have been translated by Rowe *. This is an instance of early diligence which well deserves to be 3 recorded. The suppression of such a work, recommended by such uncommon circumstances, is to be regretted. It is indeed culpable to load libraries with superfluous books; but incitements to early excellence are never superfluous, and from this example the danger is not great of many imitations. When he had resided at his College three years he was pre- 4 sented to the rectory of Pimpern in Dorsetshire (1722) by his relation, Mr. Pitt of Stratfeildsea in Hampshire 5, and, resigning his fellowship, continued at Oxford two years longer, till he became Master of Arts (1724). He probably about this time translated Vida's Art of Poetry, 5 ' In Cibber's Lives, v. 298. 2 Warton, as first a pupil and then Head Master of Winchester College, would be likely to know whatever traditions were preserved of him. [For more information see Nichols's Lit. Anec. ii. 260, where are given the Latin inscription written by him on his parents' monument at Blandford and that on his own tomb.] 3 The following note I owe to the late Dr. Sewell, Warden of New Col lege:-'Pitt matriculated at Wadham 5 George Pitt, father of George Pitt, first Baron Rivers. Governor Thomas Pitt, Lord Chatham's grandfather, was the poet's first cousin. Dict. Nat. Biog [Vida's Art of Poetry translated 6 7 8 which Tristram's splendid edition' had then made popular. In this translation he distinguished himself, both by its general elegance and by the skilful adaptation of his numbers to the images expressed; a beauty which Vida has with great ardour enforced and exemplified 2. He then retired to his living, a place very pleasing by its situation, and therefore likely to excite the imagination of a poet, where he passed the rest of his life, reverenced for his virtue and beloved for the softness of his temper and the easiness of his manners. Before strangers he had something of the scholar's timidity or distrust, but when he became familiar he was in a very high degree chearful and entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect; and he passed a life placid and honourable, neither too great for the kindness of the low nor too low for the notice of the great. AT what time he composed his Miscellany, published in 1727 3, 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 Æneid. 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". 9 At last, without any further contention with his modesty, or any awe of the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English into English verse by C. Pitt, 1725. Brit. Mus. Cata.] 'Six or seven hundred copies of it,' wrote Pitt, 'were soon disposed of.' Hughes Corres. 1773, ii. 94. See ante, ROWE, 35 n. 3. In the first edition, 'elegant edition.' Johnson, by his correction, avoided the juxtaposition of 'elegant' and 'elegance.' T. Tristram's edition of Vida's De Arte Poetica was published by the Clarendon Press in 1722. Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 92, quotes a long passage from Vida, with Pitt's version, on 'the felicity of Virgil's numbers.' 'Vida's poem is one of the first, if not the very first, pieces of criticism that appeared in Italy since the revival of learning; for it was finished in 1520.' J. WARTON, Essay on Pope, i. 191. Poems and Translations. This sentence is not in the first edition. 5 Ante, DRYDEN, 311. Eneid, which I am sorry not to see joined in the late 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 2. Pitt engaging as a rival with Dryden naturally observed his 10 failures, and avoided them; and, as he wrote after Pope's Iliad, he had an example of an exact, equable, and splendid versification 3. With these advantages, seconded by great diligence, he might successfully labour particular passages, and escape many errors. 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 criticks, and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read *. He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work 11 deservedly conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies It is included in the 1790 edition of Eng. Poets, vol. liii. I believe,' wrote Pitt in 1738, 'in all my version there are not above seven or eight borrowed lines. I could not help taking two together from Mr. Dryden ; they are so very sweet "Of Priam's royal race my mother came, And sure the best that ever bore the name." [Dryden's Aeneid, ix. 378]. Hughes Corres. ii. III. Pitt did not retain them. In his version the couplet runs : 'My mother, tender, pious, fond and good, Sprung like thy own from Priam's 2 royal blood.' Eng. Poets, liii. 216. Ante, DRYDEN, 311. 3 Ante, POPE, 348. Pope had the help of a version by Pitt, who wrote to Spence in 1726:- Mr. Pope has used so little of the 23rd Odyssey that I gave Dr. Young, that if I put it among the rest [of a Miscellany of his poems] I shall hardly incur any danger of the penalty concerning the patent.' Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), x. 127. For the 23rd Odyssey see ante, POPE, 134 n., and for 'the patent see ante, POPE, 130. The following translation of the Aeneid, vii. 808-11 (Pitt's version, 1037-42), shows Pitt's skill:'She led the rapid race, and left behind The flagging floods and pinions of the wind; Lightly she flies along the level plain, Nor hurts the tender grass, nor bends the golden grain; Or o'er the swelling surge suspended sweeps, And smoothly skims unbath'd along the deeps.' 'Pitt's chief fault is a general mediocrity of expression: a monotonous level, which is neither high poetry nor good prose.' CONINGTON, Misc. Writings, i. 173. buried under a stone at Blandford, on which is this inscription: 'In memory of CHR. PITT, clerk, M.A. for his talents in poetry; for the universal candour of and died beloved, JAMES THOMSON' AMES THOMSON, the son of a minister well esteemed for 1 his piety and diligence, was born September 72, 1700, at Ednam, in the shire of Roxburgh, of which his father was pastor3. His mother, whose name was Hume', inherited as co-heiress a portion of a small estate. The revenue of a parish in Scotland is seldom large; and it was probably in commiseration of the difficulty with which Mr. Thomson supported his family, having nine children 5, that Mr. Riccarton, a neighbouring minister, discovering in James uncommon promises of future Johnson wrote to Boswell on May 3, 1777:-'I think I have persuaded the bookseller to insert something of Thomson [in the Lives]; and if you could give me some information about him, for the Life which we have is very scanty, I should be glad.' Boswell's Johnson, iii. 109. Boswell, in reply, mentioned the Life in Cibber's Lives; 'that written by Dr. Murdoch; one prefixed to an edition of The Seasons, published at Edinburgh, which is compounded of both, with the addition of an anecdote of Quin's relieving Thomson from prison.' Ib. p. 116. This 'compounded' Life, prefixed to Thomson's Works, 1775, 4 vols., is Johnson's main authority. 2 Sept. 11. Works, 1775, Preface, p. 3. See Tovey's Thomson, Preface, P. 9 Boswell wrote to Johnson :'Hume was the name of his grandmother, by the mother's side. His mother's name was Beatrix Trotter, a daughter of Mr. Trotter of Fogo, a small proprietor of land.' Boswell adds in a note:-'Dr. Johnson was by no means attentive to minute accuracy in his Lives; for, notwithstanding my having detected this mistake, he has continued it.' Boswell's Johnson, iii. 359. [Murdoch in his Life, p. 3, prefixed to an edition of Thomson's Works published in 1762, gives Mrs. Thomson's maiden name as Hume. In an edition bearing date 1766 the same error appears in the Life, p. 8. The revised edition of 1768 altered it to Trotter. The Seasons, ed. Bolton Corney, 1842, Pref. p. 12. Johnson followed the Life prefixed to Thomson's Works, 1775, Pref. p. 3.] 5 Boswell mentions a brother who died young, and three married sisters. Boswell's Johnson, iii. 359. The son of one sister was James Craig, the architect of the new town of Edinburgh. Johnson met him in St. Andrews. Ib. v. 68. 6 Robert Riccaltoun. 'He was a poet himself. Thomson wrote to Cranstoun (cir. Sept. 1725):—“ Mr. Rickleton's poem on Winter first put the design [of Winter] into my head." Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, iii. 225. For Riccaltoun see Murdoch's Life in Bolton Corney's Seasons, Pref. P. II n. |