The
Syrinx
of Theocritus consists of twenty verses, so arranged that the length of each pair is less than that of the pair before, and the whole resembles the ten reeds of the mouth organ or Pan pipes
. The Egg is, by tradition, called Anacreon's. Simmias of Rhodes, who lived about B.C. 324, is said to have been the inventor of shaped verses. Butler in his
Character of a Small Poet
said of Edward Benlowes:
'As for Altars and Pyramids in poetry, he has outdone all men that way; for he has made a gridiron and a frying-pan in verse, that besides the likeness in shape, the very tone and sound of the words did perfectly represent the noise that is made by those utensils.'