how to dissemble, knows not how to reign:' and I desire you would receive it as mine, that 'he who knows not how to riddle, knows not how to live.'

But besides the general usefulness of this art, it will have a further recommendation to all true admirers of antiquity, as being practised by the most considerable personages of early times. It is almost three thousand years ago since Samson proposed his famous riddle so well known; though the advocates for ancient learning must forgive me, if, in this article, I attribute the superiority to the moderns; for if we may judge of the skill of the former in this profound art by that remarkable specimen of it, the geniuses of those early ages were by no means equal to those which our times have produced. But as a friend of mine has lately finished, and intends very shortly to publish, a most learned work in folio, wherein he has fully proved that important point, I will not anticipate the pleasure you will receive by perusing this curious performance. In the mean while let it be remembered, to the immortal glory of this art, that the wisest man, as well as the greatest prince that ever lived, is said to have amused himself and a neighbouring monarch in trying the strength of each other's talents in this way; several riddles, it seems, having passed between Solomon and Hiram, upon condition, that he who failed in the solution should incur a certain penalty. It is recorded likewise of the great father of poetry, even the divine Homer himself, that he had a taste of this sort; and we are told by a Greek writer of his life, that he died with vexation for not being

able to discover a riddle which was proposed to him by some fishermen at a certain island called Jo. Melmoth.

ON PUNS AND OTHER SUBSTITUTES FOR WIT.

Ir is a great convenience to those who want wit to furnish out a conversation, that there is something or other, in all companies where it is wanted, substituted in its stead, which, according to their taste, does the business as well. Of this nature is the agreeable pastime in country-halls of cross purposes, questions and commands, and the like. A little superior to these are those who can play at crambo, or cap verses. Then above them are such as can make verses, that is, rhyme; and among those who have the Latin tongue, such as use to make what they call golden verses. Commend me also to those who have not brains enough for any of these exercises, and yet do not give up their pretensions to mirth. These can slap you on the back unawares, laugh loud, ask you how you do with a twang on your shoulders, say you are dull to-day, and laugh a voluntary to put you in humour; not to mention the laborious way among the minor poets, of making things come into such and such a shape, as that of an egg, a hand, an axe, or any thing that nobody had ever thought on before for that purpose, or which would have cost a great deal of pains to accomplish it if they did. But all these methods, though they are mechanical, and may be arrived at with the smallest capacity, do not serve an honest gentleman who wants wit

for his ordinary occasions; therefore it is abso. lutely necessary that the poor in imagination should have something which may be serviceable to them at all hours, upon all common occurrences. That which we call punning is therefore greatly affected by men of small intellects. These men need not be concerned with you for the whole sentence; but if they can say a quaint thing, or bring in a word which sounds like any one word you have spoken to them, they can turn the discourse, or distract you so that you cannot go on, and by consequence, if they cannot be as witty as you are, they can hinder your being any wittier than they are. Thus, if you talk of a candle, he can deal' with you; and if you ask him to help you to some bread, a punster should think himself very illbred' if he did not; and if he is not as 'well-bred' as yourself, he hopes for grains' of allowance. If you do not understand that last fancy, you must recollect that bread is made of grain; and so they go on for ever, without possibility of being exbausted.

There is another kind of people of small faculties, who supply want of wit with want of breeding; and because women are both by nature and education more offended at any thing which is immodest than we men are, these are ever harping upon things they ought not to allude to, and deal mightily in double meanings. Every one's own observation will suggest instances enough of this kind, without my mentioning any; for your double meaners are dispersed up and down through all parts of town or city, where there are any to offend,

in order to set off themselves. These men are mighty loud laughers, and held very pretty gentlemen with the sillier and unbred part of womankind. But above all already mentioned, or any who ever were, or even can be in the world, the happiest and surest to be pleasant, are a sort of people whom we have not indeed lately heard much of, and those are your biters.'

A biter is one who tells you a thing you have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and perhaps has given you, before he bit you, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it; and if you give him credit, laughs in your face, and triumphs that he has deceived you. In a word, a biter is one who thinks you a fool, because you do not think him a knave. This description of him one may insist upon to be a just one; for what else but a degree of knavery is it, to depend upon deceit for what you gain of another, be it in point of wit, or interest, or any thing else?

This way of wit is called 'biting,' by a metaphor taken from beasts of prey, which devour harmless and unarmed animals, and look upon them as their food, wherever they meet them. The sharpers about town very ingeniously understood themselves to be to the undesigning part of mankind what foxes are to lambs, and therefore used the word biting, to express any exploit wherein they had over-reached any innocent and inadvertent man of his purse. These rascals of late years have been the gallants of the town, and carried it with a fashionable haughty air, to the discouragement of modesty, and all honest arts. Shal

low fops, who are governed by the eye, and admire every thing that struts in vogue, took up from the sharpers the phrase of biting, and used it upon all occasions, either to disown any nonsensical stuff they should talk themselves, or evade the force of what was reasonably said by others. Thus, when one of these cunning creatures was entered into a debate with you, whether it was practicable in the present state of affairs to accomplish such a proposition, and you thought he had let fall what destroyed his side of the question, as soon as you looked with an earnestness ready to lay hold of it, he immediately cried,' Bite,' and you were immediately to acknowledge all that part was in jest. They carry this to all the extravagance imaginable; and if one of these witlings knows any particulars which may give authority to what he says, he is still the more ingenious if he imposes upon your credulity. I remember a remarkable instance of this kind. There came up a shrewd young fellow to a plain young man, his countryman, and taking him aside with a grave concerned countenance, goes on at this rate: 'I see you here, and have you heard nothing out of Yorkshire?-You look so surprised you could not have heard of it—and yet the particulars are such that it cannot be false: I am sorry I am got into it so far that now I must tell you; but I know not but it may be for your service to know. On Tuesday last, just after dinner-you know his manner is to smoke-opening his box, your father fell down dead in an apoplexy.' The youth showed the filial sorrow which he ought— Upon which the witty man cried, 'Bite, there is nothing in all this.'