L TEIMSO X. 3. be son of a minister well esteeme TEST BEZ, is born September 7, 17% I te som i Rezurri, of which his fath Es mother. vse name was Hume', in · A NTrion if a mail estate. Ther¦ ursa a Sestand is seldom large; and it ve zamsericon if he culty with which 1. Tam rei is imiy, having nine childre. } Krta, I regioaring minister, discoveri omises of fire excellence, unde To I seen as siuitun, and provide him books A de rummen ričments of learning a Jeiburg a nues which be delights to rece nis nem kirima; but was not considered ES BAKET IS SIpervur ʼn rimmen beys, though, in those Ser L'S N unused is pazon and his friends Keka zmestions, via vich, however, he so littà newsei umed, zat, in every new-year's day, he threw mo ne ire al de princtons of the foregoing year. Fom ne school he was removed to Edinburgh, where he hat it saded two years when his father died, and è al nis caiurea to the care of their mother, who raised. apva jer icie estate, what money a mortgage could afford and, remos ng with her family to Edinburgh, lived to see her son rising intz eminence. The design of Thomson's friends was to breed him a minister. He ved at Edinburgh, as at school, withou distinction or expectation, til, at the usual time, he per formed a probationary exercise by explaining a psalm. His diction was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the According to the Biographical Dictionary the name of Thomson's mother was Beatrix Trotter. Hume was the name of his grandmother. En. ofessor of divinity, reproved him for speaking language intelligible to a popular audience; and he censured one ` his expressions as indecent, if not profane". This rebuke is reported to have repressed his thoughts f an ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated, ith new diligence, his blossoms of poetry, which, howver, were in some danger of a blast; for, submitting his roductions to some who thought themselves qualified to riticise, he heard of nothing but faults; but, finding other udges more favourable, he did not suffer himself to sink nto despondence. He easily discovered, that the only stage on which a boet could appear, with any hope of advantage, was Lonlon; a place too wide for the operation of petty competition and private malignity, where merit might soon become conspicuous, and would find friends as soon as it became reputable to befriend it. A lady, who was acquainted with his mother, advised him to the journey, and promised some countenance, or assistance, which, at last, he never received; however, he justified his adventure by her encouragement, and came to seek, in London, patronage and fame. At his arrival he found his way to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to the sons of the duke of Montrose. He had recommendations to several persons of consequence, which he had tied up carefully in his handkerchief; but as he passed along the street, with the gaping curiosity of a newcomer, his attention was upon every thing rather than his pocket, and his magazine of credentials was stolen from him. His first want was a pair of shoes. For the supply of all his necessities, his whole fund was his Winter, which for a time could find no purchaser; till, at last, Mr. Millan was persuaded to buy it at a low price; and this low price. a See the Life of Beattie, by sir William Forbes, for some additional anecdotes. ED. When a man is once buried, the question, under what he is buried, is easily decided. He forgot that though he wrote the epitaph in a state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid over him till his grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed. The world has but little new; even this wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines: Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hac humo, seu Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nec Ut urnam cuperet parare vivens ; Olim siquod haberet is sepulchrum. Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious imitator. PITT. CHRISTOPHER PITT, of whom whatever I shall relate, more than has been already published, I owe to the kind communication of Dr. Warton, was born, in 1699, at Blandford, the son of a physician much esteemed. He was, in 1714, received as a scholar into Winchester college, where he was distinguished by exercises of uncommon elegance, and, at his removal to New college, in 1719, presented to the electors, as the product of his private and voluntary studies, a complete 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 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 presented to the rectory of Pimpern, in Dorsetshire, 1722, by his relation, Mr. Pitt, of Stratfield Say, in Hampshire; 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, 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. 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 whe he became familiar he was, in a very high degree, chec ful and entertaining. His general benevolence procure. general respect; and he passed a life placid and honc able, neither too great for the kindness of the low, nor a low for the notice of the great. At what time he composed his Miscellany, published 1727, it is not easy or necessary to know: those wh 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 under taking; and in his thirtieth year he published a version the first book of the Eneid. This being, I suppose, con! mended by his friends, he, some time afterwards, adde three or four more; with an advertisement, in which represents himself as translating with great indifference, and with a progress of which himself was hardly constiots This can hardly be true, and, if true, is nothing to th reader. At last, without any farther contention with his modest, or any awe of the name of Dryden, he gave us a complete English Eneid, which I am sorry not to see joined in th publication with his other poems. It would have beet pleasing to have an opportunity of comparing the two bes translations that, perhaps, were ever produced by one ni tion of the same author. labour Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally ob served his failures, and avoided them; and, as he wrot after Pope's Iliad, he had an example of an exact, equable, and splendid versification. With these advantages, se conded by great diligence, he might successfully particular passages, and escape many errours. If the two versions are compared, perhaps the result would be, tha 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 for ▾ It has since been added to the collection. R. |