complicated dialects? I make no queftion but it would have been looked apon as one of the most valuable treafaries of the Greek tongue.

I find likewife among the ancients that ingenious kind of conceit, which the moderns diftinguifh by the name of a Rebus, that does not fink a letter but a whole word, by fubftituting a picture in it's place. When Cæfar was one of the matters of the Roman mint, he placed the figure of an elephant upon the reverfe of the public money; the word Cæfar fignifying an elephant in the Punic language. This was artificially contrived by Cæfar, because it was not lawful for a private man to ftamp kis own figure upon the coin of the commonwealth. Cicero, who was fo called from the founder of his family, that was marked on the nofe with a little wen like a vetch, which is Cicer in Latin, inftead of Marcus Tulllus Cicero, ordered the words Marcus Tullius, with the figure of a vetch at the end of them, to be infcribed on a public 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 feveral 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 reafon it is thought, that the forelock of the horfe, in the antique equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, reprefents at a distance the fhape of an owl, to intimate the country of the ftatuary, who, in all probability, was an Athenian. This kind of wit was very much in vogue among our own countrymen 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. Anong 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 Cambden in his remains. Mr. Newberry, to reprefent 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 midft of them a great golden N hung upon a bough of

the tree, which by the help of a little falfe fpelling made up the word N-ewberry.

I shall conclude this topic with a Rebus, which has been lately hewn out of free-ftone, 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 underftanding 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 Frenchman, as a lion is an emblem of the English nation. Such a device in fo noble a pile of building looks like a pun in an heroic 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 anfwers. If this could be excufable in any writer, it would be in Ovid, where he introduces the echo as a nymph, before fhe was worn away into nothing but a voice. The learned Erafmus,though a man of wit and genius,, has compofed a dialogue upon this filly kind of device, and made ufe of an echo who seems to have been a very extraor dinary linguift, for the anfwers the perfon fhe talks with in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, according as the found the fyllables which the was to repeat in any of thofe learned languages. Hudibras, in ridicule of this falfe kind of wit, has defcribed Orfin bewailing the lofs of his bear to a folitary echo, who is of great ufe to the poet in feveral diftichs, as the does not only repeat after him, but helps out his verfe, and furnishes him with hymes.

He rag'd, 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 breaft, 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,
Then in fmall poets fplay-foot rhymes,
That make her, in their rueful ftories,
To answer to int rogatories,
And most unconscionably depofe
Things of which the nothing knows:

And

And when he has faid all she 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' hadit fcorn'd to budge a ftep
For fear, quoth echo, Marry guep.
Am not I here to take thy part?

Then what has quell'd thy ftubborn heart?
Have thefe bones rattled, and this head
So often in thy quarrel bled?
Nor did I ever winch or grudge it,
For thy dear fake?

budget.

Quoth he, Mum

Think'st thou 'twill not be laid i' th' dish
Thou tuin't 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 not thought of me,
Nor what I have endur'd for thee,
Yet fhame and honour might prevail
To keep thee thus from turning tail:
For who would grudge to spend his blood in
His honour's caufe? Quoth the, a Pudding.

SEVER

EVERAL kinds of falfe wit that vanished in the refined ages of the world, difcovered themfelves again in the time of monkish ignorance.

As the monks were the matters of all that little learning which was then extant, and had their whole lives difengaged from bufinefs, it is no wonder that feveral of them, who wanted gemus for higher performances, employed many hours in the compofition of fuch tricks in writing as required much time and little capacity. I have feen half the Æneid turned into Latin rhymes by one of the Beaux-Efprits of that dark age; who fays in his preface to it, that the Eneid wanted nothing but the fweets of rhyme to make it the most perfect work in it's kind. I have likewife feen an hymn in hexameters to the Virgin Mary, which filled a whole book, though it confifted but of the eight following

words.

T.:, tibi, funt, Virgo, dotes, quot, fidera, Cals.

Thou haft as many virtues, O Virgin, as there are ftars in Heaven.

The poet rung the changes upon thefe eight feveral words, and by that means made his verfes almoft as numerous as the virtues and the ftars which they celebrated. It is no wonder that men who had fo much time 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 elfe but a tranf

PERS. SAT. iii. 85.

mutation of one word into another, or the turning the same set of letters into different words; which may change night into day, or black into white, if Chance, who is the goddefs that prefides over thefe forts of compofition, fhall fo direct. I remember a witty author, in allufion to this kind of writing, calls his rival, who, it feems, was distorted and had his limbs fet in places that did not properly belong to them, the anagram of a man.

When the anagramatist takes a name to work upon, he confiders it at first as a mine not broken up, which will not fhew the treafure it contains till he fhail have spent many hours in the fearch of it; for it is his bufinefs to find out one word that conceals itself in another, and to examine the letters in all the variety of ftations 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 miftreis's heart by it. She was one of the finest women of her age, and known by the name of the Lady Mary Bon. 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 himfelf up for half a year, with indefatigable induftry produced an anagram. Upon the prefenting it to his miftrefs, who was a little vexed in her heart to fee herfelf degraded into Moll Boon, the told him, to his infinite furprife, that he had mistaken her furname, for that it was not Boon but Bohun.

Effufus labor

Ibi omnis

The lover was thunder-ftruck 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 acroftic was probably invented about the fame time with the anagram, though it is impoffible to decide whether the inventor of one or the other were the greater blockhead. The fimple acroftic is nothing but the name or title of a perfon or thing made out of the initial letters of feveral verfes, and by that means written after the manner of the Chinefe, in a perpendicular line. But befides thefe there are Compound acroftics, when the principal letters and two or three deep. I have feen fome of them where the verfes have not only been edged by a name at each extremity, but have had the fame name running down like a feam through the middle of the

poem.

There is another near relation of the anagrams and acroftics, which is commonly called a chronogram. This kind of wit appears very often on many modern medals, especially thofe of Germany, when they reprefent in the infcription the year in which they were coined. Thus we fee on a medal of Gustavus Adolphus the following words

CHRISTVS DUX ERGO TRIVM

PHVS. If you take the pains to pick the figures out of the feveral words, and range them in their proper order, you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the year in which the medal was ftamped; for as fome of the letters diftinguish themfelves from the reft, and over-top their fellows, they are to be confidered in a double capacity, both as letters and as figures. Your laborious German wits will turn over a whole dictionary for one of thefe inge nious devices. A man would think they were fearching after an apt claffical term, but instead of that they are looking out a word that has an L, an M, or a D in it. When, therefore, we meet with any of thefe inferiptions, we are not fo much to look in them for the thought, as for the year of the Lord.

The Bouts Rimez were the favourites of the French nation for a whole age together, and that at a time when it

abounded in wit and learning. They were a lift of words that rhyme to one another, drawn up by another hand, and given to a poet, who was to make a poem to the rhymes in the fame order that they were placed upon the lift; the more uncommon the rhymes were, the more extraordinary was the genius of the poet that could accommodate his verfes to them. I do not know any greater inftance of the decay of wit and learning among the French, which generally follows the declenfion of empire, than the endeavouring to restore this foolish kind of wit. If the reader will be at the trouble to fee examples of it, let him look into the new Mercure Ga lant; where the author every month gives a lift of rhymes to be filled up by the ingenious, in order to be cominunicated to the public in the Mercure for the fucceeding month. That for the month of November last, which now lies before me, is as follows.

One would be amazed to fee fo learned a man as Menage talking feriously on this kind of trifle in the following paffage

Monfieur de la Chambre has told me that he never knew what he was going to write when he took his pea into his hand; but that one fentence always produced another. For my own part, I never knew what I fhould 'write next when I was making verses. In the first place I got all my rhymes < together, and was afterwards perhaps three or four months in filling them up. I one day fhewed Monteur Gombaud a compofition of this nature, in which among others I had • made use of the four following rhymes, Amaryllis, Phillis, Marne, Arne, dering him to give me his opinion of it. He told me immediately, that my verfes were good for nothing. And upon my asking his reafon, he faid, because the rhymes are too common; and for that reafon eafy to be 6 put

" put into verfe. "Marry," fays I, "if it be fo, I am very well rewarded "for all the pains I have been at." But by Monfieur Gombaud's leave, notwithstanding the feverity of the ⚫ criticism, the verfes were good.' Vid. MENAGIANA. Thus far the learned Menage, whom I have tranflated word for word.

The first occafion of thefe Bouts Rimez made them in fome manner excuf

able, as they were talks which the French ladies used to impofe on their lovers. But when a grave author, like him above-mentioned, tasked himself, could there be any thing more ridiculous? Or would not one be apt to believe that the author played booty, and did not make his lift of rhymes till he had finished his poem?

I fhall only add, that this piece of falfe wit has been finely ridiculed by Monfieur Sarafin, in a poem intituled, 'La Defaite des Bouts-Rimez-The

Rout of the Bouts-Rimez.'

I must fubjoin to this laft kind of wit the double rhymes, which are used in doggerel poetry, and generally applauded by ignorant readers. If the thought of the couplet in fuch compofitions is good, the rhyme adds little to it; and if bad, it will not be in the power of the rhyme to recommend it. I am afraid that great numbers of thofe who admire the incomparable Hudibras, do it more on account of thefe doggerel rhymes, than of the parts that really deferve admiration. I am fure I have heard

the

Palpit, drum ecclefiaftic,
Was beat with fift instead of a stick-

and

There was an ancient fage philofopher Who had read Alexander Rofs over

more frequently quoted, than the finest pieces of wit in the whole poem.

C

THE

HERE is no kind of false wit which has been fo recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which confifts in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of Punning. It is indeed impossible to kill a weed, which the foil has a natural difpofition to produce. The feeds of punning are in the minds of all men; and though they may be fubdued by reafon, reflection, and good fenfe, they will be very apt to fhoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art. Imitation is natural to us, and when it does not raise the mind to poetry, painting, music, or other more noble arts, it often breaks out in puns and quibbles.

Ariftotle, in the eleventh chapter of his book of Rhetoric, describes two or three kinds of Puns, which he calls Paragrams, among the beauties of good writing, and produces inftances of them out of fome of the greatest authors in

PERS. SAT. V. 19.

DRYDEN.

the Greek tongue. Cicero has fprinkled feveral of his works with Puns, and in his book, where he lays down the rules of oratory, quotes abundance of sayings as pieces of wit, which also upon examination prove arrant Puns. But the age in which the Pun chiefly flourifhed, was the reign of King James the Firft. That learned monarch was himfelf a tolerable Puntter, and made very few bifhops or privy-counsellors that had not fome time or other fignalized themfelves by a clinch, or a conundrum. It was therefore in this age that the Pun appeared with pomp and dignity. It had before been admitted into merry fpeeches and ludicrous compofitions, but was now delivered with great gravity from the pulpit, or pronounced in the moft folemn manner at the council-table. The greatest authors, in their moft ferious works, made frequent use of Puns. The fermons of Bishop Andrews, and the tragedies of Shakee

speare,

peare, are full of them. The finner was punned into repentance by the former; as in the latter nothing is more ufual than to fee a hero weeping and quibbling for a dozen lines together.

I must add to thefe great authorities, which feem to have given a kind of fanction to this piece of falfe wit, that all the writers of rhetoric have treated of Punning with very great respect, and divided the feveral kinds of it into hard names, that are reckoned among the figures of speech, and recommended as ornaments in difcourfe. I remember a country schoolmaster of my acquaintance told me once, that he had been in company with a gentleman whom he looked upon to be the greateft Paragrammatit among the moderns. Upon inquiry, I found my learned friend had dined that day with Mr. Swan, the famous Punfter; and defiring him to give me fome account of Mr. Swan's converfation, he told me that he generally talked in the Paranomafia, that he fometimes gave into the Plocè, but that in his humble opinion he fhined most in the Antanaclafis.

I must not here omit, that a famous university of this land was formerly very much infefted with Puns; but whether or no this might not arife from the fens and marshes in which it was fituated, and which are now drained, I must leave to the determination of more fkilful naturalists.

After this fhort history of Punning, one would wonder how it should be fo entirely banished out of the learned world as it is at prefent; efpecially fince it had found a place in the writings of the most ancient polite authors. To account for this we muft confider, that the first race of authors, who were the great heroes in writing, were deftitute of all rules and arts of criticifm; and for that reason, though they excel later writers in greatnefs of genius, they fall fhort of them in accuracy and correctnefs. The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections. When the world was furnished with these authors of the first eminence, there grew up another fet of writers, who gained themselves a reputation by the remarks which they made on the works of those who preceded them. It was one of the employments of these fecondary authors to diftinguish the feveral kinds of wit by terms of art, and to confider them as more or lefs perfect,

according as they were founded in truth. It is no wonder, therefore, that even fuch authors as Ifocrates, Plato, and Cicero, fhould have fuch little blemishes as are not to be met with in authors of a much inferior character, who have written fince thofe feveral blemishes were difcovered. I do not find that there was a proper separation made between Puns and true wit by any of the ancient authors, except Quintilian and Longinus. But when this diftinction was once fettled, it was very natural for all men of fenfe to agree in it. As for the revival of this falfe wit, it happened about the time of the revival of letters; but as foon as it was once detected, it immediately vanished and disappeared. At the fame time there is no question, but as it has funk in one age and rofe in another, it will again recover itself in fome diftant period of time, as pedantry and ignorance fhall prevail upon wit and fenfe. And, to speak the truth, I do very much apprehend, by fome of the last winter's productions, which had their fets of admirers, that our pofterity will in a few years degenerate into a race of Punters; at leaft, a man may be very excufable for any apprehenfions of this kind, that has feen Acroftics handed about the town with great fecrecy and applaufe; to which I muft alfo add a little epigram called the Witches Prayer, that fell into verse when it was read either backward or forward, excepting only that it cursed one way and bleffed the other. When one fees there are actually fuch painstakers among our British wits, who can tell what it may end in? If we must lash one another, let it be with the manly ftrokes of wit and fatire; for I am of the old philofopher's opinion, that if I muft fuffer from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a lion, than the hoof of an afs. I do not speak this out of any spirit of party. There is a moft crying dulnefs on both fides. I have feen Tory Acroftics and Whig Anagrams, and do not quarrel with either of them, because they are Whigs or Tories, but because they are Anagrams and Acroftics.

But to return to Punning. Having purfued the hiftory of a Pun, from it's original to it's downfal, I fhall here define it to be a conceit arifing from the use of two words that agree in the found, but differ in the fenfe, The only way,

therefore,