To GEORGE

PITT, Efq;

SIR,

INCE

SIN

of Stratfield Sea, in Hampshire.

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 addrefs 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 praife and panegyric, as you eminently deferve them.

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

(Honoured Sir,)

Your obliged humble fervant,

CHRISTOPHER PITT.

PREFACE.

My tranflation of Vida's Art of Poetry having been

more favourably received than I had reafon to expect, has encouraged me to publish this little Mifcellany of Poems and select 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 unneceffary in one cafe, 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 worse) 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 pleasure will be difgufted to find fo great a part of this collection confift of facred poetry; but I affure these gentlemen, whatever they shall be pleased 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 those beautiful pieces of divine poetry had been written by Callimachus, or any heathen author, they might have poffibly vouchsafed them a reading even in my translation.

But

But I will not trefpafs further on my reader's patience in prose, since I shall have occasion enough for it, as well as for his good-nature, in the following verses ; concerning which I must acquaint him, that fome of them were written feveral years fince, and that I have precisely observed the rule of our great mafter Horace— Nonumque prematur in annum. But I may fay more justly than Mr. Prior faid of himself in the like cafe, that I have obferved the Letter, more than the Spirit of the precept.

1727.