The clerihew is named for Edmund Clerihew Bentley, who invented it. To make a clerihew, you take a famous person's name for the first line, rhyme the second line with it, and add two more rhyming lines that are supposed to have some relevance to the person named in the first. The meter and line length are variable, but on the whole, the shorter the better.

            The art of Biography
            Is different from Geography.
            Geography is about maps,
            But Biography is about chaps.

            Sir Christopher Wren
            Said, 'I am going to dine with some men.
            If anyone calls
            Say I am designing St. Paul's.'

            Sir Humphrey Davy
            Abominated gravy.
            He lived in the odium
            Of having discovered sodium.

            John Stuart Mill,
            By a mighty effort of will,
            Overcame his natural bonhomie
            And wrote 'Principles of Economy.'

            What I like about Clive
            Is that he is no longer alive.
            There is a great deal to be said
            For being dead.

            Edward the Confessor
            Slept under the dresser.
            When that began to pall,
            He slept in the hall.

            Chapman & Hall
            Swore not at all.
            Mr Chapman's yea was yea,
            And Mr Hall's nay was nay.
                   --all above by  Edmund Clerihew Bentley
 

                                       Dante Gabriel Rossetti
                                       Ate more shepherd's pie than spaghetti.
His favorite animal was the wombat.
He painted knights in armor, but was never in combat.
                            --H. T. Kirby-Smith
 
 

Ludwig Wittgenstein
Hardly ever went out to dine.
Be the menu never so abundant,
He found "green leafy lettuce salad" tautological and redundant.
                                            --H. T. Kirby-Smith 

John Milton
Never stayed in a Hilton
Hotel.
It was just as well.
                --W. H. Auden
 
 

     From: Khalil Ayoub:
 
     Poor Bertrand Russell;
     Life was a tussle.
     He got sciatica
     Writing Principia Mathematica.
 

Here is a link to some very clever philosophical clerihews

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