In the couplet and quatrain of pure sentiment and reflection, some of the most delightful of our poetry is embodied. Herrick was conspicuously fond of this species of verse, and his works abound in gems of style and fancy, the difficulty being, not to find them, but to select from them. The beauty of one is apt to be rivalled by that of its neighbour. Thus we find on one page:
'When words we want, Love teaches to indite; And what we blush to speak, she bids us write.'
'Love's of itself too sweet; the best of all Is when love's honey has a dash of gall.'
Then there is Lord Lyttelton's distich about 'Love can hope when reason would despair;' there are Aaron Hill's famous lines on 'modest ease in beauty,' which, though it 'means no mischief, does it all.' There are Sir William Jones's 'To an Infant Newly Born;' Wolcot's 'To Sleep;' Luttrell's 'On Death;' and many, many others.
Of nineteenth-century writers, the most admirable composer of the epigraph has been Landor, who in this, as in some other respects, may be placed in the same category with Herrick. What, for instance, could be prettier than this?
'Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass, Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever; From you, Ianthe, little troubles pass Like little ripples in a sunny river.'
'Various the roads of life; in one All terminate, one lonely way. We go; and "Is he gone?" Is all our best friends say.'
Among living authors, Mr. Aubrey de Vere can lay claim to a quatrain which is entirely faultless:
'For me no roseate garlands twine, But wear them, dearest, in my stead; Time has a whiter hand than thine, And lays it on my head.'
To this, Sir Henry Taylor wrote a pendant scarcely less fortunate in idea and wording. Lord Tennyson has in his day written several epitaphs, inscriptions, and other trifles; but none of them have quite the perfection which might have been looked for from so great a master of poetic form. Mr. Matthew Arnold produced, with others, this excellent epigraph:
'Though the Muse be gone away, Though she move not earth to-day, Souls erewhile who caught her word, Ah! still harp on what they heard.'
Finally, the reader may be recommended to glance at Mr. William Allingham's little book of 'Blackberries,' in which they will find a large number of such 'snatches of song,' many of them fresh in conception and finished in execution.