39
THE COMPLIMENT QUALIFIED
To wed a fool, I really cannot see
Why thou, Eliza, art so very loth;
Still on a par with other pairs you'd be,
Since thou hast wit and sense enough for both.
First published in Morning Post, Dec. 26, 1801. First collected 1893. The title referred to an epigram published in M. P. Dec. 24, 1801.
40
[The twenty-one 'Original Epigrams' following were printed in the Morning Post, in September and October, 1802, over the signature 'ΕΣΤΗΣΕ'. They were included in Essays, &c., iii. 978-86, and were first collected in P. and D. W., 1877, ii. 171-8.]
What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
First published in Morning Post, Sept. 23, 1802. Included in Poetical Register, 1802 (1803), ii. 253; and in The Friend, No. 12, Nov. 9, 1809. Cf. Wernicke's Beschaffenheit der Überschriften (i. e. The Nature of the epigram), Bk. I, No. 1.