richly dressed books in the library of a lordly ignoramus, who had suffered the moths to feast upon what he never touched, he wrote on the fly leaf of a moth-eaten volume this stinging comment: way, attributed to Napoleon, but real- that less knowledge must therefore be still ly as old as Tacitus-Deos fortioribus more dangerous? adesse") are familiar in the mouths of When the poet Burns turned over the multitudes. Not so common is this of Talleyrand, and his friend Montrond: "Do you know," said Talleyrand, one day, why I esteem M. Montrond? It is because he has so few prejudices." This being repeated to Montrond himself, "Do you know," he replied, "why I love M. de Talleyrand? Because he has none at all." Another epigram ascribed to Talleyrand is this of the Bourbons, or French Emigrants: "They have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing." A circle of savants one day discussing the vexed question of the antiquity of the globe, Voltaire reserved his opinion: but presently launched at them this bon mot For my part, gentlemen, I believe the world is like an old coquette, who conceals her age." Many epigrams have been aimed books and reading, as this: Heaps of knowledge load our shelves, Or this from Punch: at A very poor writer who was perpetually fishing for compliments, was gravely assured by Charles Lamb that his works would be admired when Shakspeare and Milton were forgotten, but not till then. And it was said of a certain dignitary who always wore a look of profound wisdom, but printed a shallow book, that "if he had not published himself for a fool, he might have passed for a philosopher." As too much eating does not make a man healthy, so it is very certain that too much reading will not make him wise. "If I had read as many books as other men," said Hobbes of Malmesbury, "I should have been as ignorant as they." But does it never occur to those who are always quoting with approval, Pope's well-worn line A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Through and through the inspired leaves, Here is an epigram on a wretched psalm singer, who dealt out Sternhold and Hopkins with a strong nasal accompaniment, much to the disgust of a hearer who revenged himself by writing the following on the pew door: Sternhold and Hopkins had great qualms; To make the heart full glad. If it had been poor David's fate To hear you sing and them translate, We are often told of some wonderful man who has forgotten more than most other men ever knew, but here is a saying more paradoxical still and yet a veritable truth: "There is no man knows so much as some men are ignorant of." This sounds like a metaphysical conundrum and has proved a choke-pear to some small wits. But it is plain that some men are ignorant of almost all that can be known, and of all that can not be: and as no man lives who can pretend to know even the half of what is knowable, of course there is no one who knows as much as some men are ignorant of. Pope has hit off the empty-headedness of many would-be wits in the following epigram: You beat your pate and fancy wit will "I vow," quoth Roger, "so you do, And with the self-same weapon, too." Coleridge wrote the following on a bad singer : Swans sing before they die; 't were no bad thing Would certain singers die before they sing. Here is an epigram upon the paucity of wise men in the world: The world of fools has such a store, That he who would not see an ass Must bide at home, and bolt his door, And break his looking-glass. And here is Pope's rejoinder to one of the heroes of the Dunciad, who charged that all poets are fools: Sir, I admit your general rule, A MERRY THOUGHT. They cannot be complete in aught Who are not humorously prone; A man without a merry thought Can hardly have a funny bone. Epigram on a poor poem : His work now done, he'll publish it no doubt, For sure it is that murder will come out. Here is an epigram founded on a wellknown passage in Macbeth: Shakspeare has said in his immortal way, That when the brains were out, the man would die; I do not like to say he tells a lie, But I saw Nincompoop alive to-day. Perhaps the larger number of epigrams which find favor, have grown out of the difference of the sexes, and the relations between them. Inexhaustible themes as they are for the moralist, the philosopher, and the reformer, the conditions of social and domestic life furnish yet more fruitful ground for the satirist to work upon. Here is an epigram aimed at the femi A woman of gallantry, becoming old, and dangerously ill, sent for her confessor, who came and said to her, "Madam, it is now time for you to forget your past life, and to think upon loving God alone." Alas!" replied she, "at my age, how can I think of any new amours.' Professional epigrams abound, and the Which a woman has well enough an- clergy, the bar, and the medical professwered by the following: 'Tis said that we caused man to grieve; The jest is somewhat stale: The devil it was who tempted Eve, And is not he a male? sion furnish perpetual quarries for the savers of sharp things. When Brougham, Lord Chancellor of England, was in the zenith of his manysided career, writing books for the Society for diffusion of useful knowledge, presiding Dean Swift was guilty of the following over Social Science conventions, harangugood thing: Said Celia to a reverend Dean, "What reason can be given, Since marriage is a holy thing, That they have none in heaven?" "They have," said he, "no women there:" She quick returns the jest, "Women there are, but I'm afraid, They cannot find a priest!" "As instruments sound sweetest when they be touched softest: so women are the best when they be used mildest;" for which bit of quaint philosophy we are beholden to Clement of Alexandria. The question of woman's suffrage is not without its epigrams, as witness this: Should women sit in Congress halls, Would be Miss-represented. deed. Here is a hint for ladies who are late risers: Myrtilla, rising with the dawn, ing Parliament, contributing to the Encyclopædia and the Edinburgh Review, and attending to law cases by the dozen, a witty barrister said of him one day--" What a splendid fellow Brougham would be, if he only knew a little law!" The poet, Saxe, thus relieves the dryness of law cases: My wonder is really boundless, That among the queer cases we try, A land-case should often be groundless, And a water-case always be dry! Two lawyers pleading on different sides of a case, defined the land in dispute between their respective clients, by a map, which they exhibited to the judge with "my Lord, we lie on this side;"-and my Lord, we lie on this side" whereupon his Honor broke out with-" What, what, if you lie on both sides I can believe neither of you." During the trial of Thelwall for high treason, he wrote the following note, and handed it to Lord Erskine, his counsel: "I am determined to plead my cause myself." Mr. Erskine wrote under it-"If you do, you'll be hanged:" to which Thelwall instantly returned the reply, "I'll be hanged, then, if I do." A certain lawyer's definition of a prima facie case characterized it as a case And here is one on the philosophy of which is very good in front, but very bad kissing, by John G. Saxe: When Sarah Jane, the moral miss, Declares 't is very wrong to kiss, I'll bet a shilling I see through it; in the rear." "A lawyer," said Lord Brougham, in a facetious mood, "is a learned gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies, and-keeps it himself." Voltaire's definition of metaphysics ran thus: "When he that hears doesn't know what he that speaks means, and when he that speaks doesn't know what he means himself that is metaphysics." Here is a rhymed story upon absolution: Here is an epigram rather harder upon It blew a hard storm and in utmost confuthe bar than the cloth: Parsons and lawyers both you'll find By mourning suits are known, One for the sins of all mankind, sion The sailors all hurried to get absolution; Which done, and the weight of the sins they confessed Was transferred, as they thought, from themselves to the priest; Daniel Defoe has the following in his To lighten the ship and conclude their de"True Born Englishman:" votion, They tossed the poor parson souse into the ocean. About doctrine and belief the poets have been busy as well as the theologians. Here is a volume of divinity in a couplet : Our God requireth the whole heart or none: And yet he will accept a broken one. John Godfrey Saxe on an ill-read lawyer. An idle attorney besought a brother For something to read-some novel or other That was really fresh and new. "Take Chitty!" replied his legal friend, "There isn't a book that I could lend Would prove more 'novel' to you." And the learned Swift has the following confession of faith, in an epigram translated by him from the French: Who can believe with common sense Cambridge, that "omniscience was his forte, and science his foible." Erasmus, the great philosopher and theologian, being taken to task for feeding more generously in Lent than the The poet Shelley, who had a horror of soupe maigre, in favor with Churchmen, bigots and utilitarians fully equal to their wittily replied to the reproof-"Ah! may detestation of him, used to say that he it please your Grace, I have a Catholic" would rather be damned with Plato soul, but unhappily a Protestant stomach." and Lord Bacon, than go to heaven with The same great writer had a long dis- Malthus and Dr. Paley." pute with Sir Thomas More, the virtuous chancellor of England, upon the doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist. At the end of the debate Erasmus borrowed More's horse, and did not return the animal for a day or two. Becoming impatient, More sent to Erasmus requesting his return, to which the latter rejoined in Latin verse as follows: Quod mihi dixisti De tuo palfrido Crede quod habeas et habes." Which has been translated: Of the body in the bread An English essayist tells us of the whole body of theologians, that" they do not aim so much to discover truth as to defend opinions." The bigots of Queen Elizabeth's day got a severe rap in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays: "You that would sell no man mustard to his beef on the Sabbath, and yet sold hypocrisy all your life-time." A firm believer in the doctrine of the total depravity of human nature summed up his creed sententiously in these five words: "Sir, 'Mankind is a damned rascal." James Garth Wilkinson says of the Rationalists, that "they have arrived at nothing, as punctually as if nothing had been their aim." Byron tells us of the once fashionable test of truth which consisted in roasting the unbelievers: Christians have burned each other, quite persuaded That all the apostles would have done as they did. SWIFT'S LAST EPIGRAM. During his mental disorder and while he was taking exercise, the building of a magazine for arms was pointed out to him, on which he wrote: Behold a proof of Irish sense! When nothing's left that's worth defence, The medical profession have always come in for a liberal share of epigrammatic censure, and it is but fair to them to say that no class of men bear it more goodhumoredly or retort it more wittily. The village physician of an extensive parish having paid the debt of nature, discussions arose as to a suitable inscription for his epitaph. A wag present solved the doubt by dryly recommending that the deceased doctor be interred in the centre topher Wren's well-known epitaph be of the churchyard, and that Sir Chrisplaced over his remains : Si monumentum quæris, circumspice." Here is an epigram on the terrors of doctors, from the Greek of Nicarchus : No, blame not the Doctor, no physic he gave me, He ne'er felt my pulse, never reached my bedside; A certain class of modern reformers have been hit off as "those fussy individuals who consider themselves personally responsible for the obliquity of the earth's But as I lay sick, my friends, anxious to axis." It was Sydney Smith who said of Dr. Whewell, the learned philosopher of save me, In my hearing just mentioned his name -and I died. |