. 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.'
But a devout earnestness gave elevation to George Herbert's ingenious conceits. Joshua Sylvester's dedication to King James the First of his translation of the Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas has not this divine soul in its oddly-fashioned frame. It begins with a sonnet on the Royal Anagram 'James Stuart: A just Master;' celebrates his Majesty in French and Italian, and then fills six pages with verse built in his Majesty's honour, in the form of bases and capitals of columns, inscribed each with the name of one of the Muses. Puttenham's
Art of Poetry,
published in 1589, book II., ch. ii. contains the fullest account of the mysteries and varieties of this sort of versification.