Ah love! how ill I bore thy pleasing pain? 
    For while the tempting scene so near I view’d,
  A fierce impatience throb’d in every vein,
    Discretion fled and reason lay subdu’d;
  My blood beat high, and with its trembling made
  A strange commotion in the rustling shade.

  Fear seiz’d the tim’rous Naiads, all aghast
    Their boding spirits at the omen sink,
  Their eyes they wildly on each other cast,
    And meditate to gain the farther brink;
  When in I plung’d, resolving to asswage
  In the cool gulph love’s importuning rage.

  Ah, stay Florinda (so I meant to speak)
    Let not from love the loveliest object fly! 
  But ere I spoke, a loud combining squeak
    From shrilling voices pierc’d the distant sky: 
  When straight, as each was their peculiar care,
  Th’ immortal pow’rs to bring relief prepare.

  A golden cloud descended from above,
    Like that which whilom hung on Ida’s brow,
  Where Juno, Pallas, and the queen of love,
    As then to Paris, were conspicuous now. 
  Each goddess seiz’d her fav’rite charge, and threw
  Around her limbs a robe of azure hue.

  But Venus, who with pity saw my flame
    Kindled by her own Amorer so bright,
  Approv’d in private what she seem’d to blame,
    And bless’d me with a vision of delight: 
  Careless she dropt Florinda’s veil aside,
  That nothing might her choicest beauties hide.

  I saw Elysium and the milky way
    Fair-opening to the shades beneath her breast;
  In Venus’ lap the struggling wanton lay,
    And, while she strove to hide, reveal’d the rest. 
  A mole, embrown’d with no unseemly grace,
  Grew near, embellishing the sacred place.

  So pleas’d I view’d, as one fatigu’d with heat,
    Who near at hand beholds a shady bower,
  Joyful, in hope-amidst the kind retreat
    To shun the day-star in his noon-tide hour;
  Or as when parch’d with droughty thirst he spies
  A mossy grot whence purest waters rise.

  So I Florinda—­but beheld in vain: 
    Like Tantalus, who in the realms below
  Sees blushing fruits, which to increase his pain,
    When he attempts to eat, his taste forego. 
  O Venus! give me more, or let me drink
  Of Lethe’s fountain, and forget to think.

* * * * *

The Revd.  Mr. CHRISTOPHER PITT,

The celebrated translator of Virgil, was born in the year 1699.  He received his early education in the college near Winchester; and in 1719 was removed from thence to new college in Oxford.  When he had studied there four years, he was preferred to the living of Pimperne in Dorsetshire, by his friend and relation, Mr. George Pitt; which he held during the remaining part of his life.  While he was at the university, he possessed the affection and esteem of all who knew him; and was particularly distinguished by that great poet Dr. Young, who so much admired the early displays of his genius, that with an engaging familiarity he used to call him his son.