Who, in the long run, benefits mankind more? Is it the deviser of a new literary form or the inventor of a new machine? If the answer is the deviser of a new literary form, then Edmund Clerihew Bentley has served mankind more enduringly than the inventor of the motor car.

E C Bentley, a political and literary journalist who died in 1956 was a remarkable man— remarkable in the sense that he preferred to make a casual, almost humourous use of his many gifts.

His lifelong friend and companion, G K Chesterton, has left us the best portrait of the man— “It was a poetic delight to see him walking down the street, a bit pompously, and then suddenly climb a lamp post with the alleged intention of lighting a cigarette and then drop down and resume his walk with an unchanged expression of serenity.” (Charles Dickens had this same talent for clowning).

Bentley is the inventor of the ‘clerihew’, an irregular form of humourous verse on biographical topics. When he was a school boy of sixteen, he wrote the first clerihew on Humphrey Davy, which was a great hit with his friends. (Sir Humphrey Davy was a British chemist and physicist).

Sir Humphrey Davy
detested gravy
He lived in the Odium
Of having discovered Sodium.

In the course of his well-spent life. Bentley wrote many more such capsule biographies— indeed three small volumes of them— Biography for beginners (1897). More biography (1899) and Baseless biography (1903). The range of Bentley’s biographical research is as notable as the originality of his findings.

In the author’s omnibus volume, Clerihews Complete, this introductory clerihew may be found—

The art of Biography
is different from Geography
Geography is about Maps.
But biography is about Chaps.

Bentley has thrown light on so many famous people that one is at a loss to choose amidst so much wealth, but three examples will throw light on Bentley and his elegant art.

The best known clerihew is perhaps his treatment of Sir Christopher Wren. (Sir Christopher Wren was a 17th century English designer, astronomer, geometer, and the greatest English architect of his time. He designed 53 London churches, including St Paul’s Cathedral.

Sir Christopher Wren said,
"I'm going out to dine with some men"
"If anyone calls,"
"Say I'm designing the St Paul's."
Another sample of the clerihew is about Christopher Columbus’s life...
"I quite realised," said Columbus
"That the earth is not a Rhombus"
"But I'm a little annoyed,"
"To find it an oblate spheroid."

Bentley lives in part by his own cleri-humour, but even more splendidly in the inspiration provided to thousands of happy followers. When he died, one of them, ‘Otto Watteau’ said about him—

Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Gently enthroned himself
By setting the world
To work on a quirk.