Epigrams

SMATTERERS

ALL smatterers are more brisk and pert Than those that understand an art;

As little sparkles shine more bright

Than glowing coals, that give them light.

365

Samuel Butler.

HYPOCRISY

HYPOCRISY will serve as well

To propagate a church, as zeal;
As persecution and promotion

Do equally advance devotion:

So round white stones will serve, they say,

As well as eggs to make hens lay.

Samuel Butler.

TO DOCTOR EMPIRIC

WHEN men a dangerous disease did 'scape,
Of old, they gave a cock to Esculape;
Let me give two, that doubly am got free;
From my disease's danger, and from thee.

Ben Jonsor.

A REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

I SENT for Ratcliffe; was so ill,

That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.

But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,

I died last night of my physician.

Matthew Prior.

A WIFE

LORD ERSKINE, at women presuming to rail,
Calls a wife " a tin canister tied to one's tail";
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his Lordship's degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? consider'd aright,
A canister's useful, and polish'd, and bright;
And should dirt its original purity hide,

That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

THE HONEY-MOON

THE honey-moon is very strange.
Unlike all other moons the change

She regularly undergoes.

She rises at the full; then loses

Much of her brightness; then reposes

Faintly; and then.. has naught to lose.

DIDO

Walter Savage Landor.

IMPROMPTU EPIGRAM ON THE LATIN GERUNDS

WHEN Dido found Eneas would not come,
She mourn'd in silence, and was Di-do-dum(b).

Richard Porson.

AN EPITAPH

A LOVELY young lady I mourn in my rhymes:
She was pleasant, good-natured, and civil sometimes.
Her figure was good: she had very fine eyes,
And her talk was a mixture of foolish and wise.
Her adorers were many, and one of them said,
"She waltzed rather well! It's a pity she's dead!"
George John Cayley.

Epigrams

ON TAKING A WIFE

367

COME, come," said Tom's father," at your time of life, There's no longer excuse for thus playing the rake.— It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife.""Why, so it is, father, whose wife shall I take?" Thomas Moore.

UPON BEING OBLIGED TO LEAVE A PLEASANT

PARTY

FROM THE WANT OF A PAIR OF BREECHES TO DRESS

FOR DINNER IN

BETWEEN Adam and me the great difference is,
Though a paradise each has been forced to resign,

That he never wore breeches till turn'd out of his,

While, for want of my breeches, I'm banish'd from mine.
Thomas Moore.

SOME LADIES

SOME ladies now make pretty songs,
And some make pretty nurses;

Some men are great at righting wrongs

And some at writing verses.

Frederick Locker-Lampson.

ON A SENSE OF HUMOUR

He cannot be complete in aught
Who is not humorously prone;
A man without a merry thought
Can hardly have a funny-bone.

Frederick Locker-Lampson.

ON HEARING A LADY PRAISE A CERTAIN REV. DOCTOR'S EYES

I CANNOT praise the Doctor's eyes;
I never saw his glance divine;
He always shuts them when he prays,
And when he preaches he shuts mine.

George Outram.

EPITAPH INTENDED FOR HIS WIFE

HERE lies my wife: here let her lie!

Now she's at rest, and so am I.

John Dryden.

TO A CAPRICIOUS FRIEND

IMITATED FROM MARTIAL

IN all thy humors, whether grave or mellow,
Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;

Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

Joseph Addison.

WHICH IS WHICH

"God bless the King! God bless the faith's defender! God bless-no harm in blessing-the Pretender. But who pretender is, and who is king,

God bless us all, that's quite another thing."

John Byrom.

Epigrams

369

ON A FULL-LENGTH PORTRAIT OF BEAU MARSH

PLACED BETWEEN THE BUSTS OF NEWTON AND POPE

"IMMORTAL Newton never spoke

More truth than here you'll find;
Nor Pope himself e'er penn'd a joke
More cruel on mankind.

"The picture placed the busts between,
Gives satire all its strength;

Wisdom and Wit are little seen

But Folly at full length."

Lord Chesterfield.

ON SCOTLAND

"HAD Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom; Nor forced him wander, but confined him home."

Cleveland.

MENDAX

SEE yonder goes old Mendax, telling lies

To that good easy man with whom he's walking;
How know I that? you ask, with some surprise;
Why, don't you see, my friend, the fellow's talking.

Lessing.

TO A SLOW WALKER AND QUICK EATER

So slowly you walk, and so quickly you eat,

You should march with your mouth, and devour with your

feet.

Lessing.