C.

PERS. Sat. 8. v. 85.

SEVERAL kinds of false wit that vanished in the refined age the world, discovered themselves again in the times of monk ignorance.

As the monks were the masters of all that little learni which was then extant, and had their whole lives entirely dis gaged from business, it is no wonder that several of them, w wanted genius for higher performances, employed many hours the composition of such tricks in writing as required much ti and little capacity. I have seen half the Eneid turned i Latin rhymes by one of the Beaux Esprits of that dark ag who says in his preface to it, that the Æneid wanted nothing the sweets of rhyme to make it the most perfect work in its kin I have likewise seen an hymn in hexameters to the virgin Ma which filled a whole book, though it consisted but of the eig following words

Tot, tibi, sunt, Virgo, dotes, quot, sidera, Calo. 'Thou hast as many virtues, O virgin, as there are stars in heaven.'

The poet rung the changes upon these eight several word

and by that means made his verses almost as numerous as the virtues and the stars which they celebrated. It is no wonder that men who had so much time upon their hands, did not only restore all the antiquated pieces of false 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 transmutation of one word into another, or the turning of the same set of letters into different words; which may change night into day, or black into white, if chance, who is the goddess that presides over these sorts of composition, shall so direct. I remember a witty author, in allusion to this kind of writing, calls his rival, who (it seems) was distorted, and had his limbs set in places that did not properly belong to them, 'The Anagram of a Man.'

When the anagrammatist takes a name to work upon, he considers it at first as a mine not broken up, which will not shew the treasure it contains till he shall have spent many hours in the search of it; for it is his business to find out one word that conceals itself in another, and to examine the letters in all the variety of stations, in which they can possibly 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 shut himself up for half a year, with indefatigable industry produced an anagram. Upon presenting it to his mistress, who was a little vexed in her heart to see herself degraded into Moll Boon, she told him, to his infinite surprise, that he had mistaken her surname, for that it was not Boon, but Bohun.

The lover was thunder-struck with his misfortune, insom that in a little time after he lost his senses, which, indeed, been very much impaired by that continual application he given to his anagram.

The acrostic was probably invented about the same time the anagram, though it is impossible to decide whether inventor of the one or the other were the greater blockh The simple acrostic is nothing but the name or title of a pe or thing made out of the initial letters of several verses, and that means written, after the manner of the Chinese, in a pendicular line. But besides these there are compound ac tics, when the principal letters stand two or three deep. I l seen some of them where the verses have not only been edged a name at each extremity, but have had the same name run down like a seam through the middle of the poem.

There is another near relation of the anagrams and acros which is commonly called a chronogram. This kind of wit pears very open on many modern medals, especially those Germany, when they represent in the inscription the year which they were coined. Thus we see on a medal of Gusta Adolphus the following words, CHRISTVS DUX ERGO VMPHVS. If you take the pains to pick the figures out of several words, and range them in their proper order, you find them amount to MDCXVVVII., or 1627, the year which the medal was stamped. For as some of the letters tinguish themselves from the rest, and over-top their fello they are to be considered in a double capacity, both as let and as figures. Your laborious German wits will turn ove whole dictionary for one of these ingenious devices A would think they were searching for an apt classical term,

instead of that, they are looking out a word that has au 1. an M, or D in it. When, therefore, we meet with any of these inscriptions, we are not so 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 list 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 same order that they were placed upon the list: the more uncommon the rhymes were, the more extraordinary was the genius of the poet that could accommodate his verses to them. I do not know any greater instance of the decay of wit and learning among the French (which generally follows the declension of empire) than the endeavouring to restore this foolish kind of wit. If the reader will be at the trouble to see examples of it, let him look into the new Mercure Gallant, where the author every month gives a list of rhymes to be filled up by the ingenious, in order to be communicated to the public in the Mercure for the succeeding month. That for the month of November last, which now lies before me, is as follows:

One would be amazed to see so learned a man as Menage talking

seriously on this kind of trifle in the following passage.

'Monsieur de la Chambre has told me, that he never 1 what he was going to write when he took his pen into his h but that one sentence always produced ancther. For my part, I never knew what I should write next when I was ma verses. In the first place, I got all my rhymes together, was afterwards, perhaps, three or four months in filling them 1 one day shewed Monsieur Gombaud a composition of nature, in which among others I had made use of the four fol ing rhymes, Amaryllis, Phyllis, Marne, Arne, desiring him give me his opinion of it. He told me immediately that verses were good for nothing. And upon my asking his rea he said, because the rhymes are too common; and for that rea easy to be put into verse. Marry, says I, if it be so, I am well rewarded for all the pains I have been at. But by Mons Gombaud's leave, notwithstanding the severity of the critic the verses were good.' Vid MENAGIANA. Thus far the lear Menage, whom I have translated word for word.

The first occasion of these Bouts Rimez made them in s manner excusable, as they were tasks which the French la used to impose on their lovers. But when a grave author, him above-mentioned, tasked himself, could there be any th more ridiculous? or would not one be apt to believe that author played booty, and did not make his list of rhymes till had finished his poem ?

I shall only add, that this piece of false wit has been fin ridiculed by Monsieur Sarasin, in a poem entituled, La Défe des Bouts-Rimez, 'The rout of the Bouts-Rimez.'

I must subjoin to this last kind of wit the double rhym which are used in doggerel poetry, and generally applauded ignorant readers. If the thought of the couplet in such comp

1 Tom. 1, p. 174, &c. Ed. Amst. 1713.-C.