time with poetical tippets, handkerchiefs, fnuff-boxes, and the like female ornaments. I fhall therefore conclude with a word of advice to those admirable Englib authors who call themselves Pindaric writers, that they would apply themselves to this kind of wit without lofs of time, as being provided better than any other poets with verfes of all fizes and dimenfions. C No. 59. TUESDAY, MAY 8. Operofe nihil agunt. Bufy about nothing. SENECA. THE HERE is nothing more certain than that every man would be a wit if he could, and notwithftanding pedants of a pretended depth and folidity are apt to decry the writings of a polite author, as Flafb and Froth, they all of them fhew upon occafion that they would spare no pains to arrive at the character of those whom they seem to despise. For this reason we often find them endeavouring at works of fancy, which coft them infinite pangs in the production. The truth of it is, a man had better be a galley-flave than a wit, were one to gain that title by thofe elaborate trifles, which have been the inventions of fuch authors as were often masters of great learning but no genius. In my laft paper I mentioned fome of thofe falfe wits among the ancients, and in this fhall give the reader two or three other fpecies of them, that flourished in the same early ages of the world. The firft I fhall produce are the Lipogrammatifts or Letter-droppers of antiquity, that would take an exception, without any reafon, against fome particular letter in the alphabet, fo as not to admit it once into a whole poem. One Tryphiodorus was a great mafter mafter in this kind of writing. He compofed an Odyfey or epic poem on the adventures of Ulyffes, 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 bufiness without them. It must have been very pleafant 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 Odyssey of Tryphiodorus, in all probability, would have been oftener quoted by our learned pedants, than the Odyffey of Homer. What a perpetual fund would it have been of obfolete words and phrafes, unufual 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 likewife 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 matters of the Roman mint, he placed the figure of an elephant upon the reverse of the public money: the word Cafar lignifying an elephant in the Punic language. This was artificially contrived by Cafar, because it was not lawful for a private man to ftamp his own figure upon the coin of the commonwealth. Cicero, Y 3 who 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) 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 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: thofe words in Greek having been the names of the architects who by the laws of their country were never permitted to inscribe their own names upon their works. For the fame reason it is thought, that the forelock of the horse in the ancient equeftrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, reprefents at a diftance 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 reason, 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 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 midst 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-ew-berry. I fhall conclude this topic with a Rebus which has been lately hewn out in free ftone, and erected over two of the portals of Blenheim Houfe, being the figure of a monftrous lion tearing to pieces a little cock. For the better understanding of which device, I must acquaint my English reader that a cock 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 so 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 fenfibly, 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 he 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 use of an echo who seems to have been a very extraordinary linguift, for fhe answers the perfon fhe talks with in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, according as the found the fyllables which fhe was to repeat in any of those learned languages. Hudibras, in ridicule of this false kind of wit, has defcribed Bruin bewailing the lofs of his bear to a folitary echo, who is of great ufe to the poet in feveral diftiches, as he does not only repeat after him, but helps out his verfe, and furnishes him with rhymes. He rag'd, and kept as heavy a coil as The accents of his fad regret : And And most unconscionably dopofe To things of which he nothing knows; Then what has quell'd thy stubborn heart? Nor did I ever winch or grudge it, For thy dear fake. Quoth fhe, Mum budget. No. 60. WEDNESDAY, MAY 9. Hoc eft quod palles? Cur quis non prandeat, hoc eft? PERS. Sat. iii. ver. 85. Is it for this you gain those meagre looks, EVERAL kinds of falfe wit, that vanifhed in the S refined ages the world, difcovered themfelves again in the times of monkith ignorance. As |