despise. For this reafon we often find them endeavouring at works of fancy, which cost them infinite pangs in the production. The truth of it is, a man had better be a gally-flave than a wit, were one to gain that title by those elaborate trifles which have been the inventions of fuch Authors as were often masters of great learning, but no genius.

In my last paper I mentioned some of thefe falfe wits among the ancients, and in this fhall give the Reader two or three other species of them that flourished in the fame early ages of the world. The first I fhall pro-, duce are the Lipogrammatifts or Letter-droppers of antiquity, that would take an exception, without any reason, against some particular letter in the alphabet, so as not to admit it once into a whole Poem. One Tryphiodorus was a great master in this kind of writing. He compofed an Odyffey or epick Poem on the adventures of Vlyffes, confifting of four and twenty books, having entirely banished the letter A from his first book, which was called Alpha (as lucus a non lucendo) because there was not an Alpha in it. His fecond book was infcribed Beta, for the fame reason. In fhort, the Poet excluded the whole four and twenty letters in their turns, and fhewed them, one after another, that he could do his business without them.

It must have been very pleasant to have feen this Poet avoiding the reprobate letter, as much as another would a falfe quantity, and making his escape from it through the feveral Greek dialects, when he was preffed with it in any particular fyllable. For the most apt and elegant word in the whole language was rejected, like a diamond with a flaw in it, if it appeared blemished with a wrong letter. I fhall only obferve upon this head, that if the work I have here mentioned had been now extant, the Odyfey of Tryphiodorus, in all probability, would have been oftner quoted by our learned Pedants, than the Odyffey of Homer. What a perpetual fund would it have been of obsolete words and phrases, unusual barbarifms and rufticities, abfurd fpellings and complicated dialects? I make no queftion but it would have been looked upon as one of the most valuable treafuries of the Greek tongue.

I find likewise among the ancients that ingenious kind of conceit, which the moderns diftinguish by the name of a Rebus, that does not fink a letter but a whole word, by fubftituting a picture in its place. When Cafar was one of the mafters of the Roman mint, he placed the figure of an Elephant upon the reverfe of the publick mony; the word Cafar fignifying an Elephant in the Punick language. This was artifici ally contrived by Cæfar, because it was not lawful for a private man to

flamp

ftamp his own figure upon the coin of the Common-wealth. Cicero, who was fo called from the founder of his family, that was marked on the nofe with a little wenn like a vetch (which is cicer in Latin) instead of Marcus Tullius Cicero, ordered the words Marcus Tullius with the figure of a vetch at the end of them to be infcribed on a publick monument. This was done probably to fhew that he was neither afhamed of his name or family, notwithstanding the envy of his competitors had often reproached him with both. In the fame manner we read of a famous building that was marked in several parts of it with the figures of a Frog and a Lizard: those words in Greek having been the names of the architects, who by the laws of their country were never permitted to infcribe their own names upon their works. For the fame reason it is thought, that the forelock of the horse in the antique-equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, represents at a distance the shape of an Owl, to intimate the country of the ftatuary, who, in all probabiliay, was an Athenian. This kind of wit was very much in vogue among our own country-men about an age or two ago, who did not practise it for any oblique reafon, as the ancients abovementioned, but purely for the fake of being witty. Among innumerable inftances that may be given of this nature, I fhall produce the device of one Mr. Newberry, as I find it mentioned by our learned Camden in his Remains. Mr. Newberry, to represent his name by a picture, hung up at his door the fign of a Yew-tree, that had feveral berries upon it, and in the midst of them a great golden N hung upon a bough of the tree, which by the help of a little false spelling made up the word N-ew-berry.

I shall conclude this topick with a Rebus, which has been lately hewn out in free-stone, and erected over two of the portals of Blenheim houfe, being the figure of a monstrous Lion tearing to pieces a little Cock. For the better understanding of which device, I must acquaint my English reader that a Cock has the misfortune to be called in Latin by the fame word that fignifies a French-man, as a Lion is the emblem of the English nation. Such a device in fo noble a pile of building looks like a Punn in an heroick Poem; and I am very forry the truly ingenious architect would fuffer the ftatuary to blemish his excellent plan with fo poor a conceit: But I hope what I have faid will gain quarter for the Cock, and deliver him out of the Lion's paw.

I find likewife in ancient times the conceit of making an Echo talk sensibly, and give rational answers. If this could be excufable in any writer, it would be in Ovid, where he introduces the Echo as a Nymph,

before

before she was worn away into nothing but a voice. The learned Erafmus, though a man of wit and genius, has composed a Dialogue upon this filly kind of device, and made use of an Eccho who feems to have been a very extraordinary linguist, for she answers the perfon fhe talks with in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, according as the found the fyllables which she was to repeat in any of those learned languages. Hudibras, in ridicule of this false kind of wit, has described Bruin bewailing the lofs of his Bear to a folitary Echo, who is of great use to the Poet in feveral disticks, as she does not only repeat after him, but helps out his verse, and furnishes him with Rhymes.

He raged, and kept as heavy a coil as
Stout Hercules for lofs of Hylas ;
Forcing the vallies to repeat
The accents of his fad regret ;
He beat his breast, and tore his hair,
For lofs of his dear crony Bear,
That Echo from the hollow ground
His doleful wailings did refound
More wiftfully, by many times,

Than in Small Poets play-foot Rhymes,
That make her in their rueful stories,
To answer to Int'rogatories,
And most unconscionably depofe
Things of which he nothing knows:
And when he has faid all he can say,
'Tis wrefted to the Lover's fancy.
Quoth he, O whither, wicked Bruin,
Art thou fled to my.
Echo, Ruin?

I thought th'hadft fcorn'd to budge a ftep
For fear. (Quoth Echo) Marry guep.
Am I not here to take thy part!

Then what has quell'd thy stubborn heart?
Have thefe bones ratled, and this head.
So often in thy quarrel bled?

Nor did I ever winch or grudge it,

For thy dear fake. (Quoth fhe) Mum budget..
Think' ft thou 'twill not be laid i'th' difh

Thou turnd'ft thy back? quoth Echo, Pish.

To run from thofe th' hadft overcome
Thus cowardly? quoth Echo, Mum.
But what a-vengeance makes thee fly
From me too, as thine enemy?
Or if thou hadst no thought of me,
Nor what I have endur'd for thee,
Tet fhame and honour might prevail
To keep thee thus from turning tail:
For who wou'd grudge to spend his blood in
His honour's caufe? quoth fhe, A pudding.

N° 60.

Wednesday, May 9.

Hoc eft quod palles? cur quis non prandeat, hoc eft?

St

of

EVERAL kinds of falfe wit that vanished in the refined ages the world, discovered themselves again in the times of monkih ig

norance.

As the Monks were the masters of all that little learning which was then extant, and had their whole lives entirely difengaged from bufinefs, it is no wonder that feveral of them, who wanted genius for higher performances, employed many hours in the compofition of fuch tricks in writing as required much time and little capacity. I have seen half the Eneid turned into Latin rhymes by one of the Beaux Efprits of that dark age; who says in his preface to it, that the Eneid wanted nothing but the fweets of rhyme to make it the most perfect work in its kind. I have likewise seen an Hymn in Hexameters to the Virgin Mary, which filled a whole book, tho' it confifted but of the eight following words;

Tot, tibi, funt, Virgo, dotes, quot, fidera, cœlo.

Thou haft as many virtues, O Virgin, as there are fars in Heaven. The Poet rung the changes upon these eight several words, and by that means made his verfes almost as numerous as the virtues and the stars which they celebrated. It is no wonder that men who had fo much time

upon

upon their hands, did not only restore all the antiquated pieces of falfe wit, but enriched the world with inventions of their own. It was to this age that we owe the production of Anagrams, which is nothing else but a tranfmutation of one word into another, or the turning of the fame fet of letters into different words; which may change night into day, or black into white, if Chance, who is the Goddefs that prefides over these sorts of compofition, shall so direct. I remember a witty Author, in allusion to this kind of writing, calls his Rival, who (it seems) was di- ́ storted, and had his limbs fet in places that did not properly belong to them, The Anagram of a man.

When the Anagrammatist takes a name to work upon, he confiders it at first as a Mine not broken up, which will not fhew the treasure it contains till he fhall have spent many hours in the fearch of it: For it is his bufinefs to find out one word that conceals it felf in another, and to examine the letters in all the variety of stations in which they can poffibly be ranged. I have heard of a Gentleman who, when this kind of wit was in fashion, endeavoured to gain his Mistress's heart by it. She was one of the finest women of her age, and known by the name of the Lady Mary Boon. The Lover not being able to make any thing of Mary, by certain liberties indulged to this kind of writing converted it into Moll; and after having fhut himself up for half a year, with indefatigable industry produced an Anagram. Upon the presenting it to his Miftrefs, who was a little vexed in her heart to fee her felf degraded into Moll Boon, she told him, to his infinite furprize, that he had mistaken her Sirname, for that it was not Boon but Bobun.

Ibi omnis
Effufus labor

The Lover was thunder-struck with his misfortune, infomuch that in a little time after he loft his fenfes, which indeed had been very much impaired by that continual application he had given to his Anagram.

The Acroftick was probably invented about the fame time with the Anagram, though it is impoffible to decide whether the inventor of the one or the other were the greater blockhead. The Simple Acrostick is nothing but the name or title of a perfon or thing made out of the initial letters of several verses, and by that means written, after the manner of the Chinese, in a perpendicular line. But befides these there are Compound Acrofticks, when the principal Letters stand two or three deep. I have seen fome of them where the Verses have not only been edged

VOL. II.

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