Deserves a place in the history of English literature from his translation of Virgil. Was born in 1699, educated at Winchester College, and at New College, Oxford. In 1722 was presented to the living of Pimpern, Dorsetshire. In 1724 he resigned his fellowship and retired to Pimpern. He died in 1748. Works: “Vida’s Art of Poetry, translated into English Verse,” 1725. “Poems and Translations,” 1727. “The Æneid of Virgil, translated into English Metre,” 1740.

Personal

  Before strangers he had something of the scholars’s timidity or distrust; but when he became familiar, he was in a very high degree cheerful and entertaining. His general benevolence procured general respect, and he had passed a life placid and honourable, neither too great for the kindness of the low, nor too low for the notice of the great.

Virgil, 1740

  The impartiality which we have endeavoured to observe through this work, obliges us to declare, that so far as our judgment may be trusted, the latter poet has done most justice to Virgil; that he shines in Pitt with a lustre, which Dryden wanted not power, but leisure to bestow; and a reader, from Pitt’s version, will both acquire a more intimate knowledge of Virgil’s meaning, and a more exalted idea of his abilities…. Mr. Pitt, no doubt, had many advantages above Dryden in this arduous province: As he was later in the attempt, he had consequently the version of Dryden to improve upon. He saw the errors of that great poet, and avoided them; he discovered his beauties, and improved upon them; and as he was not impelled by necessity, he had leisure to revise, correct, and finish his excellent work.

  Pitt, engaging as a rival with Dryden, naturally observed his failures, and avoided them; and as he wrote after Pope’s “Iliad,” he had an example of an exact, equable, and splendid versification. 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 critics and Dryden the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read. He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work deservedly conferred; for he left the world in 1748.

  Pitt’s translation was included, with high commendation, in Warton’s edition of Virgil; but the prevailing opinion of contemporaries, that it rivalled the work of Dryden in beauty while it surpassed it in accuracy, has not been confirmed by subsequent critics.