EPIGRAMS, KINDLY AND STINGING.

InR. SEDLEY TAYLOR has done well in vindicating his friend the late Master of Trinity from the accusa- tion that he almost always used his wit to tomahawk those

who were the subjects of it, and in producing one or two of his bright sayings which were as genial as they were bright. Dr. Johnson defined the word " epigram " as "a short poem ter- minating in a point." We have long ago given up the limi- tation of epigram to verse, though undoubtedly verse lends an extra beauty and polish to the point in which epigrams should end. But tbe mere reminder that a perfect epigram was originally always expressed in verse, should be useful to us in showing that an epigram was then regarded as embodying imaginative insight in a graceful and symmetrical setting, showing that the essence of epigram is not satire, but point, polish, what in relation to a jewel we call flash. Of course that does not exclude satire ; indeed, very much of the best and some of the bitterest satire has taken the form of verse. But it does exclude the notion that an epigrammatist should aim exclusively at satire. Indeed, there is all the more, not the less point, if the epigram sparkles with an intrinsic beauty that is as remarkable as its incisiveness. Pope and Dryden, no doubt, took most pains with the epigrams which were meant to transfix a foe; but such as these are not, we think, the finest epigrams. For our own part, we should go to Goldsmith for the most perfect epigrams, and Goldsmith hardly ever failed to give a lambent rather than a cruel vividness to the play of his epigrammatic wit. We doubt if there was ever an epigram written which surpassed Goldsmith's on Sir Joshua Reynolds, which, far from tomahawking him, irradiated his figure with an exquisite beauty :— "Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,

He has not left a wiser or better behind;

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart.

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,—

When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing!

When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff."

Or take the still better-known epigram on Burke, which had as many facets as a diamond, and which certainly did not transfix at all "Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much ; Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind ; Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote ;

Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining.

And thought of convincing when they thought of dining; Though equal to all things, for all things unfit, Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit ; For a patriot, too cool ; for a drudge, disobedient ; And too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient; In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, Sir, To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor."

No one could deny there that the praise is far warmer than the censure, and that the " short poem " brings far more light

to converge on the beauties than on the weaknesses of Burke's character. It is not a good omen for any age that in it epigram has come to be closely connected with the idea of tomahawking a foe. And we are glad to have Mr. Sedley Taylor's evidence that the late Master of Trinity could be, and sometimes was, as genial as at times also he was caustic. It does not seem that Mr. Sedley Taylor has discovered any of Dr. Thompson's more genial epigrams that equal in brilliancy the one on a rather foppish and indolent young College tutor; "All the time that Mr. — can spare from the adornment of his person, he conscientiously devotes to the neglect of his duties ;" still, it is evident, from the kind description which he gave of the Trinity chapel organist, who was at once so brilliant and so eccentric,—" This is Mr. Stanford, organist of the College; Mr. Stanford's playing always charms, and occa- sionally astonishes; and I may add that the less it astonishes the more it charms,"—that Dr. Thompson took as much pleasure in indicating how vastly one man's merits exceeded his faults, as he did on occasion in indicating how vastly another's faults exceeded his merits.

Of course there is always this temptation to the tomahawk- ing kind of epigram, that an arrow which has transfixed another, proves the sharpness of its point by the mere wound which it makes, and that there is no other way so easy and effective of demonstrating that sharpness. Goldsmith's epigrams, which hardly wound at all, and certainly do more to pour balm into the wounds which the world's criticisms have made, than to enforce those criticisms, are all the more brilliant for their kindliness and justice ; but then, they are all the more difficult to make for that very reason. The epi- grammatist who condenses scorn into a terse sentence must be a man of genius, but his genius consists chiefly in finding the most telling words for his contempt or dislike. He has not to vary his mood. He has only to give himself up to it, to throw the reins on to the neck of that active dislike which finds him eloquence as well as an interesting subject for his eloquence.

But the epigrammatist who merges his censure in his praise, as did Goldsmith, cannot sharpen his wits by fostering his ill-temper, and cannot even avail himself of the rather

mean satisfaction which the world is apt to feel in seeing a palpable hit at the expense of another. He has to justify his praise much more carefully than it is at all needful to justify

scorn, for the world is quite satisfied with a merely plausible justification of the latter, but looks for something like an ade- quate justification of the former. It is odd, but it is undeniable,

that the truth of a taunt should always seem so much more self-evident than the truth of a generous tribute of admira- tion. Indeed, the latter needs a much more careful and pointed expression to carry the reader away, than does the keen thrust of an impatient scorn. There is something in a sting that necessarily suggests a point, while there is nothing of necessary

point in the mere sparkle of a luminous surface. That is, we suppose, why epigram tends so much to sting, though the forked epigram is by no means one of the highest kind. The epigram which illuminates a half-discerned beauty, is not only much more beneficent, but much more difficult of achievement, than the epigram which illuminates a half-discerned flaw. Gold- smith's epigrammati3 description of the good clergyman,—

" At church, with meek and unaffected grace,

His looks adorned the venerable place, Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man With steady zeal each honest rustic ran, Even children followed, with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile ;"

was both more of a literary boon to mankind and more difficult to write, than Pope's brilliant epigrammatic description of the insincere and insidious critic (whom he identified with Addison),—one of those who

"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ; Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

Alike reserved to blame or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend, Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged."

That is bright and sharp as a scimitar ; yet it is not only less interesting, but less truly poetic and imaginative than Gold- smith's exquisite etching.

It seems to us a great mistake for epigrammatists to aim as much as they now do at what Mr. Sedley Taylor calls the tomahawking type. The benignant epigram is a higher kind of production than the scathing -epigram. It strives after a larger effect of truth, for the deadly epigram almost always suppresses the credit side of the account. And when it succeeds, it produces an imperishable picture, while the other, even at best, only immortalises the meanness, or gibbets the vanity and folly, of a particular temperament and par- ticular mood. It takes a creative mind to write sunny epi- grams, and only a genius for antipathy to deliver blows such as Pope aimed at Addison on the strength of a suspicion more groundless than any which he imputed to the critic he attacked.