EPIGRAM

(Gr. l^iy^oe.f.c/Mee., an inscription.) In Poetry, a short poem or piece in verse, which has only one subject, and finishes by a witty or ingenious turn of thought; or, to use a more general definition, an interesting thought represented happily in a few words. The first of these definitions, although tolerably correct as to the modern epigram, differs, as it will be seen, widely from the original sense of the word in Greek. The Greek epigram was, in the first instance, a short collection of lines actually inscribed on a monument, statue, fountain, .; and the word was thence transferred to such short poems as might serve for inscriptions: of such the collection termed the Greek Epigrams is almost wholly composed. Their general characteristic is perfect simplicity, and the seemingly studied absence of that point which characterizes the modern epigram. They are almost wholly in one form of metre, the elegiac. In the poetry of cla ical Rome, the term epigram was still somewhat indiscriminately used to designate short pieces in verse; but the works of Catullus, and still more the well-known collection of the Epigrams of Martial, contain a great number which present the modern epigrammatic character; and Martial has, in fact, afforded the model on which the modem epigram has been framed. In this cla of composition, and especially where the turn of thought is satirical, the French writers have been far more succe ful than those of any other nation; and the term "piquant" seems expre ly invented to designate the peculiar force of those epigrammatic sallies of fancy of which their literature is full. ( See Dr. Johnson's learned E ay on Epigrams.) EPIGRAPH (Gr. efr/y^aipa;, I inscribe), also termed Motto. In Literature, a citation from some author, or a sentence framed for the purpose, placed at the commencement of a work or of its separate divisions. [s. 420]