A favourable specimen of the Epigrams is the following from the first book:—
"How Difficult a Thing it is to tread in the Pathes of Vertue.
"The way to vertue's hard, uneasie, bends
Aloft, being full of steep and rugged alleys;
For never one to a higher place ascends,
That always keeps the plaine, and pleasant valleyes:
And reason in each human breast ordaines
That precious things be purchased with paines."
Or take this from the opposite page:—
"When a true Friend may be best knowne.
"As the glow-worme shines brightest in the darke
And frankincense smells sweetest in the fire;
So crosse adventures make us best remarke
A sincere friend from a dissembled lyer;
For some, being friends to our prosperity,
And not to us, when it failes, they decay."
The fault of obscurity, of which the poet Browning has been accused, could not be laid to the charge of Sir Thomas Urquhart. Nor can it be said of him that he neglects truths that are obvious, and occupies himself in discovering and bringing forward those that are recondite. The sentiments to which he gives utterance seem those which spontaneously occur to the average mind; on reading the subject of the poem, as given in the title, and then the poem itself, we think
"A said whot a owt to 'a said,"
and we come away without any feverish mental agitation or accelerated movement of pulse.[156]