EPIGRAM, which originally meant "an inscription," has in the course of time come to mean any pithy (and usually pungent) saying in prose or verse. We find that the name has been given— first, in strict accordance with its Greek etymology, to any actual inscription on monument, statue or building; secondly, to verses never intended for such a purpose, but assuming for artistic reasons the epigraphical form ; thirdly, to verses expressing with something of the terseness of an inscription a striking or beauti ful thought ; and fourthly, by unwarrantable restriction, to a little poem ending in a "point," especially of the satirical kind. The last has obtained popularity from the "The qualities rare 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"— which represent the older Latin of some unknown writer : "Omne epigramma sit instar apis: sit aculeus illi ; Sint sua mella ; sit et corporis exigui." Scaliger, in the third book of his Poetics, gives a fivefold division of epigrams which displays a certain ingenuity in the nomenclature but is very superficial : the first class takes its name from mel, or honey, and consists of adulatory specimens ; the second from fel, or gall ; the third from acetum, or vinegar ; and the fourth from sal, or salt ; while the fifth is styled the condensed, or multi plex. This classification is adopted by Nicolaus Mercerius in his De conscribendo epigrammate (Paris, 1653) ; but he supplemented it by another of much more scientific value, based on the figures of the ancient rhetoricians. Lessing, in the preface to his own epi grams, gives an interesting treatment of the theory, his principal doctrine being that there ought to be two parts more or less clearly distinguished—the first awakening the reader's atten tion in the same way as an actual monument might do, and the other satisfying his curiosity in some unexpected manner.
The verse epigram is one of the most catholic of literary forms, and lends itself to the expression of almost any feeling or thought. It may be an elegy, satire, or love-poem, an embodiment of the wisdom of the ages, or a bon-mot set off with rhymes.
From its very brevity there is no small danger of the epigram passing into childish triviality. For proof of this there is unfortu nately no need to look far ; but perhaps the reader could not find a better collection ready to his hand than the second 25 of the Epigrammatum centuriae of Samuel Erichius ; by the time he reaches No. 1 i of the 47th century, he will be quite ready to grant the appropriateness of the identity maintained between the German Seele, or soul, and the German Esel, or ass.
Of the epigram as cultivated by the Greeks an account is given in the article ANTHOLOGY. As regards Latin literature, the epi grammatists whose work has been preserved are comparatively few, and though several of them, as Catullus and Martial, are men of high literary genius, too much of what they have left behind is vitiated by brutality and obscenity. On the subsequent history of the epigram, indeed, Martial has exercised an in fluence as baneful as it is extensive. Nearly all the learned Latinists of the 16th and 17th centuries may claim admittance into the list of epigrammatists. Melanchthon, who succeeded in combining so much of Pagan culture with his Reformation Christianity, has left us some graceful specimens, but his editor, Joannes Major Joachimus, has so little idea of what an epigram is, that he includes in his collection some translations from the Psalms. The Latin epigrams of Etienne Pasquier were among the most admirable which the Renaissance produced in France. John Owen, a Cambro-Briton, attained unusual celebrity in this depart ment, and is regularly distinguished as Owen the Epigrammatist. The tradition of the Latin epigram has been kept alive in England by such men as Porson, Vincent Bourne and Walter Savage Landor.
In English literature proper there is no writer like Martial in Latin or Logau in German, whose fame is entirely due to his epigrams. Epigram, however, is used by earlier English writers with laxity, and given or withheld without apparent reason. Weever's collection (1599) is of interest mainly because of its allusion to Shakespeare. Ben Jonson furnishes several noble ex amples in his Underwoods; and one or two of Spenser's little poems and a great many of Herrick's are properly classed as epigrams. Cowley, Waller, Dryden, Prior, Parnell, Swift, Addison, Johnson, Goldsmith, Young, Burns, Blake, Shelley and Landor have all been at times successful in their epigrammatical attempts ; but perhaps none of them has proved himself so much "to the manner born" as Pope, whose name indeed is almost identified with the epigrammatical spirit in English literature. Among con temporary poets, Sir William Watson, W. B. Yeats, Hilaire Belloc and J. C. Squire have all written brilliant epigrams.
The French are undoubtedly the most successful cultivators of the "salt" and the "vinegar" epigram ; and from the 16th century downwards many of their principal authors have earned celebrity in this department. The epigram was introduced into French literature by Mellin de St. Gelais and Clement Marot. It is enough to mention the names of Boileau, J. B. Rousseau, Lebrun, Voltaire, Marmontel, Piron, Rulhiere, and M. J. Chenier. In spite of Rapin's dictum that a man ought to be content if he succeeded in writing one really good epigram, those of Lebrun alone number upwards of 600, and a very fair proportion of them would doubtless pass muster even with Rapin himself.
While any fair collection of German epigrams will furnish examples that for keenness of wit would be quite in place in a French anthology, the Teutonic tendency to the moral and didac tic has given rise to a class but sparingly represented in French. The very name of Sinngedichte bears witness to this peculiarity, which is exemplified equally by the rude priameln or proeameln, of the 13th and 14th centuries, and the polished lines of Goethe and Schiller. Logau published his Deutsche Sinngedichte Drey Tausend in 1654, and Wernicke no fewer than six volumes of Ueberschriften oder Epigrammata in 1697 ; Kastner's Sinngedichte appeared in 1782, and Haug and Weissen's Epigrammatische Antliologie in 1804. Kleist, Opitz, Gleim, Hagedorn, Klopstock and A. W. Schlegel all possess some reputation as epigrammatists; Lessing is facile princeps in the satirical style ; and Herder has enriched his language from Oriental and classical sources.