, 1877-04-22

l 1ANG14CAb sssQOA3 i 4NlLAa uuu VIII HAY u
couched, il Barrow be believed in the lust)
hyperbolc Of the final coupiet, smacsng q lttl
| Us it does, perhaps, OF the excess which wouit
add perfume to the violet. But the song is
good song, albeit u translations for tic mus
part, and Is quite tn its place in Mr: Rplgrayc'
q GoldM TreasHry." anil would be So even I
that admirable and popular little book were, a.
its compiler foully inagines, a collection OF al
the best lyrics in the English tongue. But b,
what law, We ask, OF Unnatural Selection doc:
the Rev. Mr. Dodd, Of Pembroke College, Ok
ford, place this song in n collection Of cpl
grams? Again:
| Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
| Death came with friendly cure,
The opening bud 10 Heaven conveyed,
! And badc it blossom there,
| is very pretty tEpitaph OH an Infant,'' and
Colerldge was quite right in declining to omit il
| from his poems at Lambs haif-jocular sugges-
tion, although the man Of Islinston may per
haps' have had some dim forcbodings In his
president mind Of
II 60 soon US this I'm done for,
wonder what was begun for.
But surely the agreement OF these critics would
have been as wonderful as any ever seen upon
the stage, mad the volume Of poems in Which
this eptaph appeared been given to the world
as volume OF cpigrams. Yet we find it here
In Mr. Doud's selection, and cheek by iowl with
1t we find P0rson's or another's pleasantly:
When Dido saw 1Eneas would not come,
She mourned In silence, and WAS Dido dam.
Now, If one Of these things is an cpigram, the
other two are not; but US matter OF fact, not
one of them is. The first is a lively song, the
second tender conccr, and the third fourth
rate pun. What, then, is an epigram! The
original meaning OF the word is clear enough
it is simply an Inscription, aud when Theseus
set up column on the 1sthmus Of Corinth, and
inscribed upon one side OF 1t, "ucre is Attica,
and not Pcloponuesus," and upon the other,
"Hcrc is Pe;oponnesus, aud not Attica," each
OF these notices was literally and exactly an
"epigram.n The distance between SUCH an
"epgram - and an ep1gratn by Martial or 4 Ia
fra"eaise Is vast indeed, tut upon the cotlnec-
ton which links together things so diverse the
true dehnltion OF ~ epigram will bc found to
depend. The Calculation OF this connection is
due to the celebrated Lcssing whom Nacatl1ay
Justly styled the finest critic OF modern times.
luis acute thinker TOOK exception to
Favassor's argument that tile original meaning
OF the word was of no consequence. since every
one admitted that this meaning had been lost,
aud its place taken by another. True, said
Lessing, but use, III language, Is rarely, II ever,
entirely arbitrary, and, when word originally
applied Tor obvious reasons to one thing comes
70 os 1or pms sss @ OBVIOUS 70 an
or other, some connectioa between tne tnnss
themselves. "na1 Is lug coinecI,on II t!'c pfGs-
en- 1ns5ance' ocnggt tnonsn' eh:Al nt nuu qs~ Us
coVeTeo u III ene osGr1at Hnon Is, or s4ootu ne'
the @ Sn;. a'he S q hEt in hu n to
essenco nf a. cnor9m a then anr cnun1st hotr- no.
essenei y. - XII I,u.a, 49, psi'".
cocks hill, and II he's not gone nc sits there
still, /" for instance, will be an eperam; aud the
causttc spaniarl wns IN the right when he asked
whether any man could be so stupid as to be un-
able to make one epleram, Or SUCH a TOOL as to
take the trouble to make more than one Nor
was 1essing more satisfied with bo1lean's detini-
ton:
L'Epfgramme
Nest souyent uu'un bon mot de deux rimes orne.
Nor With Rattnnv,a that IT. ia an inrrn{,ua
4''1h. MA ,.nS;t,- ana +n-ea1,- a~nrassaS. ~
soouEut, nApS.i .. ses'J ~ ISL ~ ~
iEotn he1t1e1 ucnu4l!on w NC ~ tue sns4test
1nkling why certain Glass OIL stnal1 poems nave
received me name Wnlcn was grlglina.iy giy anu
propesy slse3n " ~ auae.1pson' .1 UNI
aehnitlon II LUIS. uc Goute'us M f1eMtlY en9uoh n,
tl'ut u - tne 1otai a!a ~ -, .ns .s WHICH,
consntuleS ~ r; ~ H.. ;,sn-;,,t -,
- 49,. - ~ .r;o.;t,' md Is.n,; ~
W.. a,,;o.-oE,, tha shnJ ccns;ct ~ ~,
u 49, ~ a;saJ ,a~nsata+;nn o,G saoapn1i
.9e fis;ia"tt r. ~, 49,.
lhe sALsi, III ILL., ~ ~ 20 se5 easy ~
we will choose the brictezt possible:
CT git Piron, qui nc fut rien,
Pas meme Academicicu-
The first line here raises our exDectatfon.
WHY should pirou tell US he was nobody? and
II he was. what then9 But the second line
makes the witty writer's meaning clear, and we
are pleased aud satisfied, as hy an Inscription,
~. 49,. H., .r,,. -. IT.