The epigram lends itself with tolerable readiness to the service of the joking guild, and the rhythmical form often communicates an elegance of turn and a happiness of finish not reachable in prose. The distich of Dr. Joseph Warton on the aphorism of his friend Dr. Balguy, that wisdom was sorrow, is to the point here:—
“If what you advance, dear Doctor, be true,
That wisdom is sorrow, how wretched are you!”
where in a couplet we see combined jest, sentiment, and philosophy: a sparkling antithesis and a compliment worthy of Pope.
Sometimes the epigrammatic jest of later days confines itself to mere verbal quibble; as, for instance:—
“The French have taste in all they do,
Which we are quite without;
For nature, which to them gave goût,
To us gave only gout.”
A small thesis on international pronunciation, for which its metric dress partly helps as a passport: how lamely it would read in prose!