Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-09-14
Aa11caster fntelIige1lrer.
TUESDAY EVENING, SEPT. IA, 1880.
EpigramS.


in New Jersey, which is worthy of the
savage dean Of St. Patrick's
st Reader, pass don't waste your time,
On bad biography and bitter rhyme.
For what am. this crumbling clay insures,
And what I was is no affair of yours"
Some disappointed lover doubtless in
dited the following. poor disillusioned
man, to disdainful beauty:
"Your breast is white as mountain SHOWS,
Your cheek is like q blushinX rose,
Your eyes are black as ripened sloes,
Like diamonds do they glitter
I do not hatter like q fool
The diamond is q cutting tool,
The rose is thorny, snow IL cool.
And sloes are very bitter"'
The ensuing epitaph is said to exist in
Rizmurry church yard
This stone was raised by Sarah's lord,
Not Sarahs virtues to record
They're too well-known by all the town,
But 1t was raised to keep her down."
But here is another on the other side of
the question, wherein the husband re-
ceives the condemnation Oftener mcted
out to the wife {:
Hero lies the body of Mary Ford
We hope her soul Is with the Lord;
But If for TopheI she's changed this life,
Better bc there than John FOrd's wife,"
The would-be beauty and the would-be
blue are /" hit off, in the following
1uc SOluCH Odllulsl WcdTS
Is hcrs-who would have thought 1t:
She swcars tits hers, and true she swears.
For know where she bought it,
On a poetess who had red hair
Unfortunate woman-how sad your lot
Your ringletsare red and your poems are moi" !"
Samuel Bishop was called tho "Martial
of England" and was the author of the
"Maiden's Choice -
"A fool and knave with different views,
hH,y.1 1,rls ", 1,nv><
The knavc to wed his fortune, sues,
Ask you low Julia will behaye:
Depend ont tor Il rule,
If she's Il fool, she'll wed the knave,
If she's q knavc, the fool"
The professions come for their share of
raillery-evcn the clergy do not escape
for example
Cries Sylvia to q reverend dean, ''Wlat reason
can he given,
mono In heaven"
"Thero are no women there he said. She
quick returns the jest.
"WOmen there are; but I'm afraid they can
not find O priest"
This pungent bit of satire emanated from
Robert Dodsley, who began life as a foot
man and ended it as a successful bookseller
and author. The unknown writer of the
following, doubtless thus reveDged him.
self ON a tedious sermOnizer:
Jehovah, ruler of the earth and skies, Oft
chose the foolish to cenfSund the wise.
fsc lthe audience will agreed tho Lord has
made no blunder in selecting FOrd.'
The lawyers arc cxcoriated in their turn.
Witness the following. Like tho preceding
possibly composed by sufferer.
Two lawyers when q knotty case was DER,
Shook handsan were as friendly as before.
Zounds!" said client, - 1 would fain know
You can be friends who were such foes just
Thou fool - said one. 1--WE lawyers, though
SO keen,
Like shears nc'er cut ourselves, but what's be-
tween"
The poets arc more severe on each other
than anyone else, thus confirming the vul-
gar saying that we must set an IriShman
to roast an Irishman-c. e., COlley Cibber,
whom Pope enthrOned as king of the
Dunnces, was poet laureate, and his breth-
rem of the pen cnvied him accordingly, one
of them venting his spleen by the follow
ing lines
"In merry old England 1t once was q rule
The king had his poet and also his fool,
But now we're SO frugal, I'd have you to know
That Cibbcr can serve both for fool and for
poet"
Here is another equally graceful and
polite
"Sir, admit your general rule,
That every poet is u fool,
hut you yourself will serve to show IT
That every fool Is not poet
Martial wrote many good cpigrams (and
many bad ones, say his readers) and docs
not fail to touch upon the tendency of
authors to sneer at each other. The two
following are different translations of the
same, ad auctum. The first is by Sir
John Harrington, the gOdson of the great
Elizabeth, and himself a fertile writer of
one distich that the world will not will
ingly let die.
"Treason doth never prospcr-what's the
reason?
For it it prosper, none dare call it treason"
AD ACCTUM.
A brother scribbler calls my verses wrong
In point of art small merit can he see.
Well, since my readers like my simple song,
That, am sure, IS quite enauyh for me-
The man who gives public dinner looks
To please his guests, not other peoples
cooks.
{" The readers and the hearers like my books:
But yet some writers cannot them digest;
But what care =? for when l make Il feast
Iwould my guests should praise 1T, not the
cooks"
Addison translated MAJ tails celebrated
quatrain:
In all my hunOrs whether grave or mellow,
ThOu'rt well touchy, tcsty, pleasant fellow.
Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about
thee,
There is no living with thee Or without thee"
So the Latin poet has been fortunate in
his English INTERPRETER