his own figure upon the coin of the commonwealth. Cicero, who was so called from the founder of his family, that was marked on the nose 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 inscribed on a public monument. This was done probably to shew that he was neither ashamed of his name or family, notwithstanding the envy of his competitors had often reproached him with both. In the same manner we read of a famous building 10 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 inscribe their own names upon their works. For the same 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 statuary, 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 20 above mentioned, but purely for the sake of being witty. Among innumerable instances that may be given of this nature, I shall produce the device of one Mr. Newberry, as I find it mentioned by our learned Cambden in his remains. Mr. Newberry, to represent his name by a picture, hung up at his door the sign of a yew tree, that had several 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 topic with a Rebus, which has been lately hewn out in free-stone, and erected over two of the portals of 30 Blenheim house, 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 same word that signifies a Frenchman, as a lion is an emblem of the English nation. Such a device, in so noble a pile of buildings, looks like a pun in an heroic poem; and I am very sorry the truly ingenious architect would suffer the statuary to blemish his excellent plan with so poor a conceit: but I hope what I have said will gain quarter for the cock, and deliver him out of the lion's paw. 40 I find likewise in ancient times the conceit of making an echo If this could be excus talk sensibly, and give rational answers. able in any writer, it would be in Ovid, where he introduces the echo as a nymph, because she was worn away into nothing but a voice". The learned Erasmus, though a man of wit and genius, has composed a dialoguen upon this silly kind of device, and made use of an Echo, who seems to have been a very extraordinary linguist, for she answers the person she talks with in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, according as she found the syllables which she was to repeat in any of those learned languages. Hudi10 bras, in ridicule of this false kind of wit, has described Bruin bewailing the loss of his bear to a solitary Echo, who is of great use to the poet in several distichs, as she does not only repeat after him, but helps out his verse, and furnishes him with rhymes". He rag'd, and kept as heavy a coil as He beat his breast, and tore his hair, And most unconscionably depose Things of which she nothing knows1: I thought th'hadst scorn'd to budge a step Then what has quell'd thy stubborn heart? So often in thy quarrel bled? Nor did I ever winch or grudge it, For thy dear sake: (quoth she) Mum budget. ANAGRAMS. Or if thou hadst not thought of me, For who would grudge to spend his blood in No. 60. False Wit; Anagrams, Acrostics, Bouts Rimés. Is it for this you gain those meagre looks, And sacrifice your dinner to your books? 327 C. Several kinds of false wit that vanished in the refined ages of the world, discovered themselves again in the times of monkish ignorance. As the monks were the masters of all that little learning which was then extant, and had their whole lives entirely disengaged from business, it is no wonder that several of them, who wanted genius for higher performances, employed many hours in the composition of such tricks in writing as required much time and little capacity. I have seen half the Æneid turned into Latin rhymes 10 by one of the beaux esprits of that dark agen; who says, in his preface to it, that the Æneid wanted nothing but the sweets 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, though it consisted but of the eight following words: Tot, tibi, sunt, virgo, dotes, quot, sidera, cælo. Thou hast as many virtues, O virgin, as there are stars in heaven. The poet rung the changes upon these eight several words, 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 20 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 angaram 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. 10 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 up himself for half a year, with indefatigable industry produced an anagram. Upon the 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 20 sirname, for that it was not Boon, but Bohun. Effusus labor. Ibi omnis The lover was thunderstruck with his misfortune; insomuch that in a little time after he lost his senses, which indeed had been very much impaired by that continual application he had given to his anagram. The acrostic was probably invented about the same time with the anagram, though it is impossible to decide whether the inventor of the one or the other were the greater blockhead. The simple acrostic is nothing but the name or title of a person or thing made out of the initial letters of several verses, and 30 by that means written, after the manner of the Chinese, in a perpendicular line. But besides these, there are compound acrostics, when the principal letters stand two or three deep. I have seen some of them where the verses have not only been edged by a name at each extremity, but have had the same name running down like a seam through the middle of the poem. There is another near relation of the anagrams and acrostics, which is commonly called a chronogram. This kind of wit appears very often on many modern medals, especially those of Germany, when they represent in the inscription the year in which they were coined. Thus we see on a medal of Gustavus Adolphus the following words, CHRISTVS DUX ERGO TRIVMPHVS. If you take the pains to pick the figures out of the several words, and range them in their proper order, you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the year in which the medal was stamped: for as some of the letters distinguish themselves from the rest, and overtop their fellows, they are to be considered in a double capacity, both as letters and as o figures. Your laborious German wits will turn over a whole dictionary for one of these ingenious devices. A man would think they were searching after an apt classical 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 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 o 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 Galant; where the author every month 30 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. Lauriers Guerriers Musette Lisette Cesars Etendars Houlette Folette |