ENGLISH EPIGRAPHS.

The student of English poetry must often have been struck by its
richness in that form of verse which may best be called the
Epigraph--the brief sententious effort, answering somewhat to the
epigram as understood and practised by the Greeks, but unlike the Latin,
French, and English epigram in being sentimental instead of witty, and
aiming rather at all-round neatness than at pungency or point. Our
language abounds, of course, in examples of short lyrical compositions,
such (to name familiar instances) as Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Lay a
garland on my hearse,' Congreve's 'False though she be to me and love,'
Goldsmith's 'When lovely woman stoops to folly,' Shelley's 'Music, when
soft voices die,' and MacDonald's 'Alas, how easily things go
wrong!'--all of these being only eight lines long. There are, indeed,
plenty of lyrical performances even more brief than this; such as Mr.
Marzials' 'tragedy' in quatrain:

'She reach'd a rosebud from the tree,
And bit the tip and threw it by;
My little rose, for you and me
The worst is over when we die!'

But, then, the epigraph is never lyrical. It belongs to the order of
reflective poetry, and consists of a single thought, expressed with as
much brevity and grace as possible. A common form of it is the epitaph;
another is the inscription; while at other times the poets have used it
for the purpose of enshrining some occasional or isolated utterance.

The thoroughly successful epitaphs--at once short, and wholly poetical
in expression--are among the most famous and popular things in
literature. Who does not remember the admirable tribute to 'Sidney's
sister, Pembroke's mother'--usually ascribed to Ben Jonson, but
sometimes attributed to Browne? Jonson penned an epitaph on 'Elizabeth
L. H.,' which would have been exquisite had it consisted only of the
following:

'Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which, in life, did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.'

Even as they stand, the lines, as a whole, may fairly compare with those
on Lady Pembroke. How happy Pope was in his epitaphs is familiarly
known. The art was just that in which he might naturally be expected to
excel. The time-honoured couplet on Newton need not be quoted: the
'octave' on Sir Godfrey Kneller is most notable for the final bit of
hyperbole:

'Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works, and, dying, fears hers