initial letters of feveral verfes, and by that means written, after the manner of the Chinese, in a perpendicular line. But befides these there are compound acroftics when the principal letters stand two or three deep: I have seen 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, efpecially the fe 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 DVX ERGO TRIVMPHVS. If you take the pains to pick out the figures 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 themselves from the rest, and overtop 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 ingenious 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 infcriptions, 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 em

Y 2

pire,

pire, than the endeavouring to reftore 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 Galant; where the author every month gives a lift of rhymes to be filled up by the ingenious, in order to be communicated to the public in the Mercure for the fucceeding month. That for the month of November laft, 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 6 pen 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 verfes. 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 Monfieur Gombaud a compofition of this nature, in which, among others, I had made ufe of the four following rhymes, Amaryllis, Phillis, Marne, Arne, defiring him to give me his opinion of it: he told me immediately, that my verses were good for nothing: and upon my asking his reafon, he faid, becaufe the rhymes are too common; and for that reafon eafy to be 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 criticifin,

'the

the verfes were good.' Vid. MENAGIANA. Thus far the learned Menage, whom I have tranflated word for

word.

The firft occafion of these Bouts Rimez made them in fome manner excufable, as they were tasks which the French ladies ufed to impofe on their lovers. But when a grave author, like him above-mentioned, tasked himfelf, 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 entitled, La Defaite des Bouts Rimez, The Rout of the Bouts Rimez.

I muft 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 those who admire the incomparable Hudibras, do it more on account of thefe dogge el rhymes than of the parts that really deferve admiration. I am fure I have heard the

Pulpit, 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 fineft pieces of wit in the whole poem.

C,

No. LXI. THURSDAY, MAY 10.

Non equidem ftudeo, bullatis ut mihi nugis
Pagina turgefcat, dare pondus idonea fumo.
'Tis not indeed my talent to engage
In lofty trifles, or to fwell my page
With wind and noife.
DRYDEN.

PERS.

THERE is no kind of falfe wit which has been so 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 impoffible 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 shoot 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, mufic, 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 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 fayings as pieces of wit, which alfo upon examination prove arrant puns: but the age in which the pun chiefly flourished was the reign of King James the First. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punfter, and made very few bishops or privy-counfellers that had not fome time or other fignalized themselves 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

or pronounced in the moft folemn manner at the counciltable. The greatest authors, in their most serious works, made frequent ufe of puns. The fermons of Bishop Andrews, and the tragedies of Shakespear, 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 these 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 refpect, and divided the feveral kinds of it into hard names, that are reckoned among the figures of fpeech, and recommended as ornaments in difcourfe. I remember a country fchoolmafter of my acquaintance told me once, that he had been in company with a gentleman whom he looked upon to be the greatest Paragrammatift 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 Plocé, but that in his humble opinion he fhined moft in the Antanaclafis.

I must not here omit, that a famous Univerfity of this land was formerly very much infefted with puns; but whether or no this might not arise from the fens and marshes in which it was fituated, and which are now drained, I muft leave to the determination of more skilful naturalifts.

After this short 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 must confider, that the first race of authors, who were the great heroes in writing, were deftitute of all rules and arts of criticism; and for that reafon, though they excel later writers in greatness 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 furnish

ed