The peculiar embellishments of the critical writer are epigram, paradox,
and satire. An _epigram_ is a very short phrase or sentence which is
so full of implied meaning or suggestion that it catches the attention
at once, and remains in the memory easily. The _paradox_ is something
of the same sort on a larger scale. It is a statement that we can
hardly believe to be true, since it seems at first sight to be
self-contradictory, or to contradict well known truths or laws;
but on examination we find that in a peculiar sense it is strictly true.
_Satire_ is a variation of humor peculiarly adapted to criticism,
since it is intended to make the common idea ridiculous when compared
with the ideas which the critic is trying to bring out: it is a sort of
argument by force of stinging points. We may find an example of satire
in its perfection in Swift, especially in his "Gulliver's Travels"---
since these are satires the point of which we can appreciate
to-day. Oscar Wilde was peculiarly given to epigram, and
in his plays especially we may find epigram carried to the same
excess that the balanced structure is carried by Macaulay.
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