To GEORGE

PIT T, Efq;

SIR,

of Stratfield Sea, in Hampshire.

SINCE you vouchfafe to be a patron to these sheets,

as well as to their author, I will not make an ill ufe 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 fuch an extenfive theme as your character, the world would. judge the attempt to be altogether unneceffary, because it had long before been thoroughly acquainted with your virtues; befides, I am fenfible, that you as earnestly decline all praise and panegyric, as you eminently deferve them.

I hope, Sir, on another occafion, to present you with the product of my feverer ftudies: In the mean time be pleased to accept of this trifle, as one small acknow, ledgement of the many great favours you have betowed on,.

(Honoured Sir,)

Your obliged humble servant,

CHRISTOPHER PLT E..

PREFACE.

MY tranflation of Vida's Art of Poetry having been

more favourably received than I had reason to expect, has encouraged me to publish this little Mifcellany of Poems and felect Tranflations. I fhall neither embarrass myself nor my reader with apologies concerning this collection; for whether it is a good or a bad one, all excufes are unnecessary in one case, and offered in vain in the other.

An author of a Miscellany has a better chance of pleafing the world, than he who writes on a single subject; and I have sometimes known a bad, or (which is ftill worfe) an indifferent Poet, meet with tolerable fuccefs; which has been owing more to the variety of fubjects, than his happiness in treating them.

I am fenfible the men of wit and pleafure will be difgufted to find fo great a part of this collection confift of facred poetry; but I affure thefe gentlemen, whatever they fhall be pleafed to object, that I fhall never be ashamed of employing my talents (fuch as they are) in the fervice of my Maker; That it would look indecent in one of my profeffion, not to spend as much time on the pfalms of David, as the hymns of Callimachus; and farther, that if thofe beautiful pieces of divine poetry had been written by Callimachus, or any heathen author, they might have poffibly vouchfafed them a reading even in my tranflation.

But