Christopher Pitt

However, in 1721 he published two shorter works, the "Poem on the death of the late Earl Stanhope"[2] and - anonymously as "a person of quality" - "The Plague of Marseilles".

[3] His translation of Marco Girolamo Vida’s Art of Poetry[4] in 1725 brought him some reputation and also the friendship of Alexander Pope, whose own An Essay on Criticism (a work that Pitt judiciously echoed in homage) covered much the same ground.

From then on his time was divided between religious duties, which left him ample leisure for continuing his literary work, to visiting friends, and to recurring periods of gout.

[5] This ambitious translation project, completed in 1740, guaranteed frequent publication of all his poetry for the rest of the century, as well as a biographical preface in Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.

After his death in 1748 tributes noted that he died without a single enemy,[6] and also echoed the wording on the memorial tablet in the church at Blandford referring to "the universal candour of his mind and the primitive simplicity of his manner".