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Eyck in painting, and in this sense he challenges admiration and respect.

He proposed that some plan should be taken to open up his favourite district by giving visitors the means of accommodation. Recent pilgrims to the Trossachs will perhaps be amused by the modest bound within which he retained his suggestions. "It has often," he says, "occurred to the writer of this sketch, that it might well reward the trouble and expense of the innkeepers of Callander, or of the occupier of the farm of Brenchyle, on which the northern part of this celebrated scenery lies, to build a cottage either at the eastern extremity of the lake, or in a small neck of land which runs into it about a mile to the west. Two comfortable bedrooms, with a kitchen and an open shade, with some provisions for horses, would be enough. There from the 1st of May to the 1st of November should a servant be kept, and a supply of provisions sent from time to time from the inn at Callander or Aberfoyle."

Worthy Mr. Graham was not aware of the splendid destiny that awaited the spot on which he had bestowed his affections. Had Scott, before he wrote the Lady of the Lake, "invested" in a handsome hotel at the Trossachs, it would have been a better speculation than many he indulged in. There have been quack doctors who have acted in this managing way, setting up establishments on the chance of a system of cure to be promulgated by them becoming famous. Nature has a balance, however, in the distribution of her gifts, and perhaps the genius that could invent and perfect such a scheme is not the same as that which can create a great poem. No productions of the present day, not even Macaulay's History, created such a wild sensation as the great works which were the successive steps in fame to Scott and Byron. There are those alive who remember the astonishment of the country folks at the impetuous influx of all peoples, nations, and languages to their wild solitudes. The poem was a great wonder in its fresh novelty of social life as well as of scenery. We have seen how the same subject, the life and social condition of a reiver,-was treated by an author, his contemporary. That author would doubtless have thought it just as impossible to make a hero out of a Roderic Dhu, as we would now think it impossible to make a hero out of any prowling thief who casts a furtive squint at the policeman as he skulks away.

H

ART. II.-Epigrams, Ancient and Modern: Humorous, Witty,
Satirical, Moral, Panegyrical, Monumental. Edited, with an
Introductory Preface, by the Rev. JOHN BOOTH, B.A., Cam-
bridge. London: Longman. 1863.

A BOOK of English epigrams, original and translated, was a desideratum in our literature; but the want has not been supplied by the volume before us, which is a poor production. As a collection, it is neither select, complete, nor correct. It omits many good epigrams; it has a great preponderance of bad ones. It gives bad editions of some of the best; and it contains many things that are not epigrams at all. Take a few examples of its faults:-

"NOBILITY OF BLOOD.

"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow,
The rest is all but leather and prunella;
What can ennoble fools, or knaves, or cowards?
Nothing; not all the blood of all the Howards.

DRYDEN."

Here we have two disconnected couplets from Pope's Essays, well enough known to be hackneyed, forced into union so as to do service as an epigram, the fourth line spoiled in the transcription, and the whole ascribed to Dryden.

One of Prior's best epigrams is the following, said to have been made extempore:

"Nobles and heralds, by your leave,

Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;

The son of Adam and of Eve.

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?"

This spirited and harmonious verse is thus transmuted in Mr Booth's collection :

"Gentlemen, here, by your leave,

Lie the bones of Matthew Prior:

A son of Adam and Eve,

Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher ?"

Take another, in a different style of blundering :

"ON TWO BEAUTIFUL ONE-EYED SISTERS.
"Give up one eye, and make your sister's two,
Venus she then would be, and Cupid you."

With half an eye one may see that a one-eyed
becoming wholly blind, could not be a Cupid.
are, in truth, an abridged translation of the

sister, even by But the lines elegant Latin

epigram on a one-eyed brother and sister, by Hieronymus Amaltheus, which is to be found in Pope's Selecta Poemata Italorum, as well as in other collections:

"Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro;

Et potis est formâ vincere uterque Deos.
Blande puer, lumen, quod habes, concede sorori:
Sic tu cæcus Amor, sic erit illa Venus."

It is somewhat curious to trace this blunder of Mr. Booth's to its source, as we think we can do. The German poet Kleist had condensed this Latin epigram into a couplet, and to make it intelligible, had prefixed to it what the critics call a lemma, being a clumsy contrivance by which the title of the epigram furnishes a part of the explanation which the epigram itself should give. Kleist's title is thus given in German:-" An zwei sehr schöne, aber einäugige Geschwister." Mr. Booth, or the authority from whom he borrows, has translated Kleist's production, but seems to have supposed that Geschwister meant sisters, whereas it here means a sister and brother.

We subjoin two translations of the original epigram, one of them by Charles Cotton, but neither, we fear, very successful:

:

"Acon his right, Leonilla her left eye

Doth want; yet each in form the Gods outvie.
Sweet boy, with thine thy sister's light improve,
So shall she Venus be, and thou blind Love."

"Acon his right eye, Leonilla mourns

Her left; yet each a god-like grace adorns.
Let but your eye, sweet boy, your sister's be;
Blind Cupid you'll become, bright Venus she."

Malone, in his Life of Dryden, has given us another version by George Russell, which is more elegant, but more diffuse :

"But one bright eye young Acon's face adorns,
For one bright eye fair Leonilla mourns.
Kind youth, to her thy single orb resign,
To make her perfect, and thyself divine;

For then, should Heaven the happy change allow,
She would fair Venus be, blind Cupid thou."

So much for the execution of Mr. Booth's task. Let us now offer some remarks on the subject of the book.

Except in the single article of length, or rather of shortness, the Epigram presented to us in the Garland of Meleager is essentially different from the Epigram of Martial and of the modern school. The Greek model is chiefly marked by simplicity

and unity, and its great beauties are elegance and tenderness. The other form of Epigram is, for the most part, distinguished by a duality or combination of objects or thoughts, and its excellence chiefly lies in the qualities of wit and pungency. The one kind sets forth a single incident or image, of which it details the particulars, in a natural and direct sequence. The other deals with a diversity of ideas, which it seeks to connect together by some unexpected bond of comparison or contrast. To minds familiar exclusively with the later style of Epigram, its more ancient namesake appears at first sight tame and insipid; but a better acquaintance with the beautiful epigrams of the Anthology reveals by degrees their true merit, and their high place in literature.

In what way these two different forms of composition came to pass under the same name, is not very easily understood; but perhaps the best explanation of it is that which has been suggested by Lessing. The original epigram was merely an inscription, and presupposed some column, statue, or other visible. monument on which it was inscribed. The object thus presented was necessarily such as to excite attention and interest, and the inscription was framed to answer the inquiry to which the object gave rise. The more recent epigram is not properly an inscription, and has no visible or external counterpart to which it corresponds. But it supplies this want by something within itself. It sets out with some proposition calculated to excite curiosity, and to call for an answer or solution, which, after a short suspense, the close of the epigram proceeds to supply. From the nature of the case, the tendency of such a composition must be, to seek out relations of thought which will produce surprise; and hence it will come to deal chiefly with those ingenious analogies which are the essence of wit: a paradox stated, and reconciled to common sense; a groundless reproach turned into a compliment, or a compliment into a banter; a foolish jest exposed and refuted by a clever repartee; any difficulty propounded and dexterously evaded, these, and similar developments of ideas, seem to constitute the true epigram of the more recent school. This view of Lessing's has been the subject of controversy, and it must be owned, that many things pass for epigrams that scarcely comply with his definition or description. Many a mere bon-mot receives, when versified, a name that it does not deserve. So also may a short story, or anecdote, or epitaph. But the model epigram of this class must, we think, consist of the two parts to which we have referred, and which may be termed the preparation and the point. Its best merits are exhibited in the startling or perplexing enunciation of the subject, in the unexpected and yet complete expli

cation of the mystery or difficulty raised, in the dexterity with which the solution is for a time kept out of sight, and in the perfect propriety and felicity of the language employed throughout. The true epigram-whether serious or comic-whether sentimental or satirical-must always be short; for its object is to be quite portable, easily remembered, easily repeated, and easily understood, so as to pass freely from mouth to mouth, and fasten readily in every memory.

The respective merits of the pointed and the pointless epigram will always be differently estimated by different tastes. A man, celebrated in his time, Navagerio or Naugerius, a Venetian senator of high classical attainments, had such a dislike to the style of Martial, that he kept, with solemn observance, a day in the year, when he committed to the flames three copies of that author, as a sacrifice to the manes and memory of Catullus, of whom he was an ardent admirer. Perhaps, however, this exhibition of feeling on his part had not reference merely or mainly to the epigrammatical style of the two poets. It was connected. probably with the known preference which Navagerio gave to the pre-Augustan Latin writers, over those even of the Augustan age. The best poems of Catullus are far superior in delicacy and tenderness to any of Martial's; and if the address to Sirmio is to be called an epigram, Catullus is about the first epigrammatist that ever wrote. But according to modern ideas, few even of his minor poems can properly be called epigrams; and anything that he has written in that epigrammatic style seems to us of no very high order. There is scarcely room, therefore, for a comparison between the two poets, and men of catholic taste will be content to admire both writers in their several spheres without seeking to disparage either. In the pointed epigram, it seems undeniable that Martial was eminently successful, and that his best specimens abound, not only with wit and ingenuity, but with good sense and good feeling.

We do not intend here to enter on the consideration of the Greek Anthology. That subject was, in our own time, and at our own door, so admirably and exhaustively illustrated by one whose genius as a poet was most conspicuous in his criticisms on poetry, that it would be unpardonable in us to re-open the theme without having some ideas to offer more new or more striking than any we can hope to bring to the task. Neither shall we attempt to travel over the wide extent to which Epigram has been diffused through all modern literatures, whether clothed in classical or in vernacular language. That field, though hitherto but little explored, is too large and comprehensive, and the relations of its different parts are too complex and recondite to be embraced in any discussion of ordinary dimensions.

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