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the days of good Queen Anne and the Ger- This, again, has escaped Mr. Booth, though man Georges. Dr. (afterwards Sir John) he has given his readers another, on the subHill, one of those universal geniuses whom the public is apt to mistrust, is the hero of some of the best of these medical squibs. He wrote plays as well as prescriptions.

"For physic and farces, his equal there scarce is; His farces are physic, his physic a farce is." There is a little series of epigrams upon him which we cannot resist quoting here from Mr. Booth's book, though they must be already old acquaintances (as most of the best epigrams are) to all whose reading is not wholly of a modern kind. Some of the wits of the Literary Club, of which Garrick, Johnson, Burke, etc., were members, began upon the unlucky physician as follows:"Thou essence of dock, and valerian, and sage, At once the disgrace and the pest of your age, The worst that we wish thee, for all thy sad crimes,

Is to take thine own physic, and read thine own rhymes."

ject of Sir Richard's unfortunate poem of "Job "—a kind of poetical paraphrase of the Scripture original :

"Poor Job lost all the comforts of his life,
Yet Job blest Heaven; and Job again was blest;
And hardly saved a potsherd and a wife;
His virtue was assayed, and bore the test.
But,-had Heaven's wrath poured out its fiercest
vial-

The patient man had yielded to the trial;
Had he been thus burlesqued,-without denial,
His pious spouse, with Blackmore on her side,
Must have prevailed-Job had blasphemed and
died."

We do not know where the compiler got this from, nor does he give any author's name: there were a whole volley of contemporary squibs flying about the head of this unfortunate translator, who had got himself into bad odor with the licentious wits of his day by employing his pen against the immoralities of the stage. This drew upon him the wrath of Dryden, Sedley, Swift, and others; and

To which is replied, by a sort of semi-chorus his reputation has suffered rather unfairly

of the members,

"The wish should be in form reversed,
To suit the Doctor's crimes;
For if he takes the physic first,

He'll never read his rhymes."

Dr. Hill himself is supposed to rejoin in answer) and if it were really his, the doctor would have had the best of it),—

"Whether gentlemen scribblers or poets in jail;
Your impertinent wishes shall certainly fail;
I'll take neither essence, nor balsam of honey,-
Do you take the physic, and I'll take the money.'

The anonymous quatrain on Dr. John Lettsom, the Quaker, is one of the very best of punning epigrams; its brevity may excuse its reappearance here :—

"If anybody comes to I,

I physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em ;
If, after that, they like to die,
Why, what care I?

I. LETTS'M."

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in consequence; for the jests against his professional skill were unfounded, whatever may be thought of his poetry. A volume was actually published in 1700, in which the squibs upon him were all collected under the title of " Commendatory Poems, etc." Here is another of them which we have met with, as good, perhaps, also anonymous:—

When Job contending with the devil I saw, It did my wonder, but not pity, draw ; For I concluded that, without some trick, A saint, at any time, could match Old Nick. I mean his wife, with her infernal clack; Next came a fiercer fiend upon his back-But still I did not pity him, as knowing A crab-tree cudgel soon would send her going. But when this quack engaged with Job I spied, Why, Heaven have mercy on poor Job, I cried; What wife and Satan did attempt in vain, The quack will compass with his murdering pen, And on a dunghill leave poor Job again; With impious doggrel he'll pollute his theme, And make the saint against his will blaspheme."

Coleridge's epigram upon Job's wife is printed in the book before us, and is perhaps less generally known than some others :— "Sly Beelzebub took all occasions

To try Job's constancy and patience;
He took his honors, took his health,
He took his children, took his wealth,
His camels, horses, asses, cows,
Still, the sly devil did not take his spouse.

"But Heaven, that brings out good from evil, And loves to disappoint the devil, Had predetermined to restore Twofold of all Job had beforeHis children, camels, asses, cows;Short-sighted devil, not to take his spouse!" The germ of this lies where very many good things lie unsuspected, and are occasionally dug out and made use of with very little acknowledgement-in the writings of St. Augustine; and has been used by Donne in one of his remarkable sermons, where Coleridge probably found it. The old divine's "improvement" of the passage beats any epigram that ever was founded on it :

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"Misericordem putatis Diabolum,' says that father, qui ei reliquit uxorem? Do you think that Job lighted upon a merciful and good-natured devil, or that Job was beholden to the Devil for this that he left him his wife? Noverat per quam deceperat Adam,' says he; suam reliquit adjutricem, non marito consolationem;' he left Job a helper, but a helper for his own ends."*

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We must have done with the physicians, only quoting some more recent lines, neat but not over complimentary, upon the trio who were in attendance on poor George III. :—

"The king employs three doctors daily,
Willis, Heberden, and Baillie;
All exceedingly skilful men,
Baillie, Willis, and Heberden;

But doubtful which most sure to kill is,
Baillie, Heberden, or Willis."

"Mr. Parker made the case darker,

Which was dark enough without;
Mr. Cooke quoted his book,

And the Chancellor said- I doubt." "

Of course the chancellor was Lord Eldon.
But the editor should have given the sequel.
His lordship soon after decided a case against
Rose, and, looking waggishly at him, said,
"In this case, Mr. Rose, the chancellor does
not doubt!" Mr. Booth has omitted one (or
rather two) of the very best epigrams which
touch upon the gentlemen of the long robe.
We thought the lines were very well known,
and they have certainly appeared more than
once in print, as a proposed "Inscription for
the Gate of the Inner Temple " :—

"As by the Templars' holds you go,
The Horse and Lamb, displayed
In emblematic figures, show

The merits of their trade.
"That clients may infer from thence
How just is their profession-
The Lamb sets forth their innocence,
The Horse their expedition.

666

"O happy Britons! happy isle!'
Let foreign nations say,
Where you get justice without guile,
And law without delay."

The reply is equally good :-
"Deluded men, these holds forego,

Nor trust such cunning elves;
These artful emblems serve to show
Their clients not themselves.
""Tis all a trick; these are but shams

By which they mean to cheat you;
But have a care-for you're the Lambs,
And they the wolves that eat you.
"Nor let the hope of no delay

To these their courts misguide you ; 'Tis you're the showy Horse, and they

Law escapes these satiric rhymers better than physic. No doubt the lawyers were able to hold their own against the world in this as in other matters. Two or three clever things of Sir George Rose are given in Mr. Booth's book; but there are, we suspect, some still better in private circulation, perhaps rather too personal on contemporaries to be suitable for publication. The following; their butts in at least as great abundance as though it deals with names well known at the courts of law. Especially was this likely the bar, is good-humored enough as well as clever. It purports to be "The History of to be the case in a society like Oxford, which a Case shortly reported by a Master in Chan-maintained upon its staff, for many years, a

cery":

"Mr. Leach made a speech,

Angry, neat, but wrong; Mr. Hart, on the other part, Was prosy, dull, and long.

"Mr. Bell spoke very well,

Though nobody knew what about;

Mr. Trower talked for an hour,

Sat down fatigued and hot.

The jockeys that would ride you."

The universities have had their wits and

sort of licensed jester, under the name Terræ Filius, whose office was, at the "Bachelor's Commencement," to satirize, with the most unbounded license, all the recognized authorities. We feel sure that the Oxford social records might have supplied a collector of this literary smallware with some very tolerable specimens: and we hardly think that Mr. Booth can have availed himself as fully

* Donne's Works, vol. iii. p. 332 (Alford's Edition). as he might have done of the current witti

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"The Germans in Greek

Are sadly to seek ;

Not five in five-score,
But ninety-five more;
All, except Hermann-

And Hermann's a German."

Of Oxford epigrams, we have a single modern specimen, by a living professor of wellknown conversational powers, and a more ancient one, we suppose by a wit of the same college, on Dr. Evans (he was Bursar of St. John's, as the editor should have explained) cutting down a row of fine trees there :

"Indulgent Nature on each kind bestows
A secret instinct to discern its foes;
The goose, a silly bird, avoids the fox;

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All these are, we believe, from the same "well-known hand," as the old collectors would have phrased it; flashes of the pleasant humor which, in all generations, has marked the lighter hours of scholars. As these are the latest, so the following is among the earliest which has come down to us: it will be found amongst the epigrams of John

Lambs fly from wolves, and sailors steer from Heywood, of Broadgate Hall (now Pembroke

rocks:

Evans the gallows as his fate foresees,
And bears the like antipathy to trees."

These, with Dean Aldrich's" Five Reasons for Drinking," are all that he has gathered from the banks of Isis. There must surely be others of modern date current in the Oxford Common-Rooms, which might have been recovered, without much trouble, for a publication like this, and which would have been

better worth printing than some which have found a place there. We subjoin two or three which may be new to non-academical readers. It was suggested, some little time ago, to alter the cut of the commoners' gowns -proverbially ugly. This produced the following:

"Our gownsmen complain ugly garments oppress them;

We feel for their wrongs, and propose to re-dress

them."

An alteration having been made in the statutory exercises for divinity degrees, by which two theological essays were required in future from the candidates, the following was circulated in "congregation":

"The title D.D. 'tis proposed to convey

To an A double S for a double S A."

The honorary degree of D.C.L. having been declined by a distinguished officer, on account of the heavy fees at that time demanded, his refusal was thus set forth :

College), circa 1550. He is said to have been the only person who could draw a smile from gloomy Queen Mary. So far as the point of the epigram is concerned, it might have been written yesterday.

To house them no door i' the citie is meete ;
"Alas! poor fardingales must lie i' the streete,
Synce at our narrow doors they in cannot win,
Send them to Oxforde, at Broadgate to get in.”

The following can scarcely be reckoned amongst collegiate witticisms, its birth having been extra-academic. It is given by the editor with just enough of its history to give it interest-a course which, if adopted in the case of some other epigrams in the book, would have well repaid in value the addition

to its bulk:

"George II. having sent a regiment of horse to Oxford, and at the same time a collection of books to Cambridge, Dr. Trapp wrote the following epigram :

"Our royal master saw with heedful eyes

The wants of his two Universities;

Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why, That learned body wanted loyalty: But books to Cambridge gave, as well discerning That that right loyal body wanted learning.' "An epigram which Dr. Johnson, to show his contempt of the Whiggish notions which prevailed at Cambridge, was fond of quoting; but having done so in the presence of Sir William Browne, the physician, was answered by him thus :

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This book is poor, too, in those scholastic epigrams of which a good many were in circulation in more scholarly days. We have, indeed, Porson's upon poor Dido-" Di-dodum,"

,"-which is rather schoolboyish, after all; but there is a much better one upon the same lady, which we remember to have seen somewhere in print, with the name of the reputed author :

"Virgil, whose magic verse enthralls
(And where is poet greater?),
Sometimes his wandering hero calls
Now Pius, and now Pater;

"But when, prepared the worst to brave
(An action that must pain us),
He leads fair Dido to the cave,

He calls him Dux Trojanus.'
"Why did the poet change the word?
The reason plain is, sure;
'Pius Æneas' were absurd,

And Pater' premature." Some sort of historical arrangement of epigrams might (like a good collection of caricatures) throw an amusing light upon contemporary history; and we should like to see a careful collection attempted on this principle. One of the best of these quasi-historical jeux d'esprit in the collection before us is new to and may be so to many of our readers :"ON THE ROYAL MARRIAGE ACT, PASSED 1772.

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These kind of gatherings, trifling as they are, are pleasant dalliance for the student of national history, and may even help to impress the dry facts upon his memory. We

remember Addington's short-lived Administration all the better, if we chance to associate with it the witty French epitaph suggested for him,

"Ministre soi-disant, Medecin malgre lui." It would be very easy to add to the few given in this little book. That of the Anti-Jacobin, on the Paris "Loan upon England," should at least have found a place :"The Paris cits, a patriotic band, Advance their cash on British freehold land; But let the speculating rogues beware; They've bought the skin-but who's to kill the

bear?"

The times that followed the Revolution of 1688 were perhaps the great age of what we may call historical epigrams. The bitterness of political hostility found vent in satirie verse, as well as in other less harmless outlets; and those who concealed their Orange or Jacobite feelings from motives of self-interest, often indulged themselves with handing about this kind of political weapon, which was sometimes claimed by the authors in safer days. William on the one hand, and good Queen Anne on the other, were unfailing subjects. But the epigrams of that day had more rancor than wit; and even in the best, their coarseness generally forbids quotation. Swift's were, of course, the wittiest, and the least decent. None were so happy, and few so delicate, as that little epigram of his in prose, when it was suggested for the new king's coronation motto," Recepi, non rapui,” and the dean rejoined that he supposed the translation was, "The receiver is as bad as the thief." The Duke of Marlborough with his wavering allegiance, his penurious habits, and his uxorious fondness for his termagant Sarah, came in for a large share of this questionable literary homage. Swift's epitaph upon him (Booth, p. 58) is too long for quotation, and there are more serious objections to some others which do not want for point. His new palace of Blenheim was ridiculed in strings of couplets, bad and good. One of the best is not in this collection; on the high arch built over the little brook in the park,"The lofty arch his high ambition shows;

The stream an emblem of his bounty flows."

In order to understand the violence displayed in the language of some of these effusions, it is necessary to understand thoroughly the relations between the parties, and the provocation

which has been sometimes given. An epi- | quite a different thing as Mr. Booth observes; gram on Lord Cadogan by Bishop Atterbury, it was merely an inscription, usually short, given in the collection before us, will strike the reader as mere rabid abuse, unless he remembers the circumstances which called it forth which should certainly have accompanied it by way of explanation. It ends well-known inscription at Thermopyla was

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inasmuch as it was to be engraved on an altar, temple, or monumental tablet; and far from being bitter or personal, it was usually laudatory or simply commemorative. The

one of the earliest and best which have come

Ungrateful to th' ungrateful men he grew by-down to us: "Go, traveller, tell it in Sparta A bold, bad, boisterous, blustering, bloody that we lie here in obedience to her laws." booby."

Atterbury had been imprisoned in the Tower on a very well-founded charge of treason. Such cases were embarrassing to the ruling powers; and in the royal drawing-room the question had been mooted, "What was to be done with the man?" Cadogan was present, and replied, "Throw him to the lions." The brutality of the suggestion may excuse the Bishop's retaliation.

A contemporary epitaph on Bishop Burnet shows how the rancorous spirit of party pursued the dead with a bitterness which is really horrible, even if we charitably hope it was meant half for jest :

"If Heaven is pleased when sinners cease to sin, If Hell is pleased when sinners enter in, If men are pleased at parting with a knave, Then all are pleased—for Burnet's in his grave." Perhaps the best of the Jacobite epigrams is one which Mr. Booth has not given :— "God bless the King! God bless the Faith's

Defender!

The devil take the Pope and the Pretender!Who the Pretender is, and who the KingGod bless us all! is quite another thing."

The modern definition of an epigram implies that it should have a spice of malice. We have adopted the Roman notion of it, contained in the Latin distich which the editor takes as the motto for his preface.

"Omne epigramma sit instar apis; sit aculeus illi,

Sint sua mella, sit et corporis exigui.”

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Even when the Greeks extended the term to something more like our modern use of it -a few short pithy verses with some special point in view-they did not consider that a sting was any necessary part of it. Few of the Greek epigrams, except the latest, are satirical. But the Roman satirists adopted the form, and degraded the use, in which our English writers have followed them. But though popular to a certain extent in our minor literature, the epigram is not a thoroughly English thing: it hardly suits the genius of the language. The Greek, the Latin, and even the French, preserve its point and neatness in a degree which our writers can rarely imitate. The Spartan brevity, the Attic salt, the neat turn of the Latin distich, are of the very elements of its excellence; though there seems no need for quite so strict a limitation as Boileau's—“ un bon mot de deux rimes orné." The Romans

gave it the most pungency; but for simple clegance it has never been surpassed in its natural home, the Greek. Mr. Booth in this collection gives a good many translations from the Greek anthology—not always of the best specimens to be found there; though nothing can be more beautiful than this free version by Lord Nugent, fully worthy of the original :

:

"I loved thee beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow; So altered are thy face and mind, "Twere perjury to love thee now."

Of which he adds a rather washy translation, Or this again, which has no author's name, and which is perhaps rather difficult to trans--" On a statue of Niobe": late; sooner than risk the attempt ourselves, we will give one which we find in an old miscellany, and which is at least more concise than Mr. Booth's :

"The qualities three in a bee that we meet,

In an epigram never should fail ;

The body should always be little and sweet, And a sting should be left in its tail."

"To stone the gods have changed her ;-but in vain;

The sculptor's art gave her to breathe again." But comparatively few of us are aware of the extent of the obligations in this way to the Greek writers, of whom the very names are lost. Many which pass as English originals in this collection, as in others, are really only

But the original meaning of an epigram is adaptations of the classical Greek idea. How

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