The
Shepherd's Pipe may be said to be full of Musick, for it is composed of nine different Kinds of Verses, which by their several Lengths resemble the nine Stops of the old musical Instrument,
that
2
is likewise the Subject of the Poem
3
.
The Altar is inscribed with the Epitaph of
Troilus
the Son of
Hecuba
; which, by the way, makes me believe, that these false Pieces of Wit are much more ancient than the Authors to whom they are generally ascribed; at least I will never be perswaded, that so fine a Writer as
Theocritus
could have been the Author of any such simple Works.
It was impossible for a Man to succeed in these Performances who was not a kind of Painter, or at least a Designer: He was first of all to draw the Out-line of the Subject which he intended to write upon, and afterwards conform the Description to the Figure of his Subject. The Poetry was to contract or dilate itself according to the Mould in which it was cast. In a word, the Verses were to be cramped or extended to the Dimensions of the Frame that was prepared for them; and to undergo the Fate of those Persons whom the Tyrant
Procrustes
used to lodge in his Iron Bed; if they were too short, he stretched them on a Rack, and if they were too long, chopped off a Part of their Legs, till they fitted the Couch which he had prepared for them.
Mr.
Dryden
hints at this obsolete kind of Wit in one of the following Verses,
in hisMac Flecno
; which an
English
Reader cannot understand, who does not know that there are those little Poems abovementioned in the Shape of Wings and Altars.
...Chuse for thy CommandSome peaceful Province in Acrostick Land;There may'st thou Wings display, andAltarsraise,And torture one poor Word a thousand Ways.
This
Fashion of false Wit was revived by several Poets of the last Age, and in particular may be met with among
Mr. Herbert's
Poems; and, if I am not mistaken, in the Translation of
Du Bartas
.
4
— I do not remember any other kind of Work among the Moderns which more resembles the Performances I have mentioned, than that famous Picture of King
Charles
the First, which has the whole Book of
Psalms
written in the Lines of the Face and the Hair of the Head. When I was last at
Oxford
I perused one of the Whiskers; and was reading the other, but could not go so far in it as I would have done, by reason of the Impatience of my Friends and Fellow-Travellers, who all of them pressed to see such a Piece of Curiosity. I have since heard, that there is now an eminent Writing-Master in Town, who has transcribed all the
Old Testament
in a full-bottomed Periwig; and if the Fashion should introduce the thick kind of Wigs which were in Vogue some few Years ago, he promises to add two or three supernumerary Locks that shall contain all the
Apocrypha
. He designed this Wig originally for King
William
, having disposed of the two Books of
Kings
in the two Forks of the Foretop; but that glorious Monarch dying before the Wig was finished, there is a Space left in it for the Face of any one that has a mind to purchase it.
But to return to our ancient Poems in Picture, I would humbly propose, for the Benefit of our modern Smatterers in Poetry, that they would imitate their Brethren among the Ancients in those ingenious Devices. I have communicated this Thought to a young Poetical Lover of my Acquaintance, who intends to present his Mistress with a Copy of Verses made in the Shape of her Fan; and, if he tells me true, has already finished the three first Sticks of it. He has likewise promised me to get the Measure of his Mistress's Marriage-Finger, with a Design to make a Posy in the Fashion of a Ring, which shall exactly fit it. It is so very easy to enlarge upon a good Hint, that I do not question but my ingenious Readers will apply what I have said to many other Particulars; and that we shall see the Town filled in a very little time with Poetical Tippets, Handkerchiefs, Snuff-Boxes, and the like Female Ornaments.
I
shall therefore conclude with a Word of Advice to those admirable
English
Authors who call themselves Pindarick Writers
5
, that they would apply themselves to this kind of Wit without Loss of Time, as being provided better than any other Poets with Verses of all Sizes and Dimensions.
C.
Footnote 1:
Not a new paragraph in the first issue.
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
which
return
Footnote 3:
The
Syrinx
of Theocritus consists of twenty verses, so arranged that the length of each pair is less than that of the pair before, and the whole resembles the ten reeds of the mouth organ or Pan pipes
Greek: syrigx
. The Egg is, by tradition, called Anacreon's. Simmias of Rhodes, who lived about B.C. 324, is said to have been the inventor of shaped verses. Butler in his
Character of a Small Poet
said of Edward Benlowes:
'As for Altars and Pyramids in poetry, he has outdone all men that way; for he has made a gridiron and a frying-pan in verse, that besides the likeness in shape, the very tone and sound of the words did perfectly represent the noise that is made by those utensils.'
return
Footnote 4:
But a devout earnestness gave elevation to George Herbert's ingenious conceits. Joshua Sylvester's dedication to King James the First of his translation of the Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas has not this divine soul in its oddly-fashioned frame. It begins with a sonnet on the Royal Anagram 'James Stuart: A just Master;' celebrates his Majesty in French and Italian, and then fills six pages with verse built in his Majesty's honour, in the form of bases and capitals of columns, inscribed each with the name of one of the Muses. Puttenham's
Art of Poetry,
published in 1589, book II., ch. ii. contains the fullest account of the mysteries and varieties of this sort of versification.
return
Footnote 5:
When the tyranny of French criticism had imprisoned nearly all our poetry in the heroic couplet, outside exercise was allowed only to those who undertook to serve under Pindar.
return
Contents
Operose Nihil agunt.Seneca.translation
There is nothing more certain than that every Man would be a Wit if he could, and notwithstanding Pedants of a pretended Depth and Solidity are apt to decry the Writings of a polite Author, as
Flash
and
Froth
, they all of them shew upon Occasion 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 cost them infinite Pangs in the Production. The Truth of it is, a Man had better be a Gally-Slave than a Wit, were one to gain that Title by those Elaborate Trifles which have been the Inventions of such Authors as were often Masters of great Learning but no Genius.
In my last Paper I mentioned some of these false Wits among the Ancients, and in this shall give the Reader two or three other Species of them, that flourished in the same early Ages of the World.
The
first I shall produce are the
Lipogrammiatists
1
or
Letter-droppers
of Antiquity, that would take an Exception, without any Reason, against some particular Letter in the Alphabet, so as not to admit it once into a whole Poem. One
Tryphiodorus
was a great Master in this kind of Writing. He composed an
Odyssey
or Epick Poem on the Adventures of
Ulysses
, consisting 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 second Book was inscribed
Beta
for the same Reason. In short, the Poet excluded the whole four and twenty Letters in their Turns, and shewed them, one after another, that he could do his Business without them.
It must have been very pleasant to have seen this Poet avoiding the reprobate Letter, as much as another would a false Quantity, and making his Escape from it through the several
Greek
Dialects, when he was pressed with it in any particular Syllable. 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 shall only observe 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 oftner quoted by our learned Pedants, than the
Odyssey
of
Homer
. What a perpetual Fund would it have been of obsolete Words and Phrases, unusual Barbarisms and Rusticities, absurd Spellings and complicated Dialects? I make no question but it would have been looked upon as one of the most valuable Treasuries of the
Greek
Tongue.
I
find likewise among the Ancients that ingenious kind of Conceit, which the Moderns distinguish by the Name of a
Rebus
2
, that does not sink a Letter but a whole Word, by substituting a Picture in its Place. When
Cæsar
was one of the Masters of the
Roman
Mint, he placed the Figure of an Elephant upon the Reverse of the Publick Mony; the Word
Cæsar
signifying an Elephant in the
Punick
Language. This was artificially contrived by
Cæsar
, because it was not lawful for a private Man to stamp 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
, order'd the Words
Marcus Tullius
with the Figure of a Vetch at the End of them to be inscribed on a publick Monument
3
. 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 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 abovementioned, 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 Topick with a
Rebus
, which has been lately hewn out in Free-stone, and erected over two of the Portals of
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 the Emblem of the
English
Nation. Such a Device in so noble a Pile of Building looks like a Punn in an Heroick 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.
I find likewise in ancient Times the Conceit of making an Eccho talk sensibly, and give rational Answers. If this could be excusable in any Writer, it would be in
Ovid
, where he introduces the Eccho as a Nymph, before she was worn away into nothing but a Voice.
The
learned
Erasmus
, tho' a Man of Wit and Genius, has composed a Dialogue
4
upon this silly kind of Device, and made use of an Eccho 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 one of those learned Languages.
Hudibras
, in Ridicule of this false kind of Wit, has described
Bruin
bewailing the Loss of his Bear to a solitary Eccho, who is of great used to the Poet in several Disticks, 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 asStout Hercules for loss ofHylas;Forcing the Valleys to repeatThe Accents of his sad Regret;He beat his Breast, and tore his Hair,For Loss of his dear Crony Bear,That Eccho from the hollow GroundHis Doleful Wailings did resoundMore wistfully, but many times,Then in small Poets Splay-foot Rhymes,That make her, in her rueful StoriesTo answer to Introgatories,And most unconscionably deposeThings of which She nothing knows:And when she has said all she can say,'Tis wrested to the Lover's Fancy.Quoth he, O whither, wickedBruin,Art thou fled to my — Eccho, Ruin?I thought th' hadst scorn'd to budge a Stepfor Fear. (Quoth Eccho)Marry guep.Am not I here to take thy Part!Then what has quell'd thy stubborn Heart?Have these Bones rattled, and this HeadSo often in thy Quarrel bled?Nor did I ever winch or grudge it,For thy dear Sake. (Quoth she)Mum budget.Think'st thou 'twill not be laid i' th' Dish.Thou turn'dst thy Back? Quoth Eccho, Pish.To run from those th' hadst overcomeThus cowardly? Quoth Eccho, Mum.But what a-vengeance makes thee flyFrom me too, as thine Enemy?Or if thou hadst not Thought of me,Nor what I have endur'd for Thee,Yet Shame and Honour might prevailTo keep thee thus for turning tail;For who will grudge to spend his Blood inHis Honour's Cause? Quoth she, A Pudding.
Footnote 1:
From
Greek: leíp_o
, I omit,
Greek: grámma
, a letter. In modern literature there is a Pugna Porcorum (pig-fight) of which every word begins with a p, and there are Spanish odes from which all vowels but one are omitted. The earliest writer of Lipogrammatic verse is said to have been the Greek poet Lasus, born in Achaia 538 B.C. Lope de Vega wrote five novels, each with one of the five vowels excluded from it.
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
This French name for an enigmatical device is said to be derived from the custom of the priests of Picardy at carnival time to set up ingenious jests upon current affairs, 'de
rebus
quæ geruntur.'
return
Footnote 3:
Addison takes these illustrations from the chapter on
Rebus or Name devises,
in that pleasant old book, Camden's
Remains
, which he presently cites. The next chapter in the
Remains
is upon Anagrams.
return
Footnote 4:
Colloquia Familiaria
, under the title Echo. The dialogue is ingeniously contrived between a youth and Echo.
return
Contents
Hoc est quod palles? Cur quis non prandeat, Hoc est?Per.Sat. 3.translation
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 by one of the
Beaux Esprits
of that dark Age; 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, tho' 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
1
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 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
2
, 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 it self 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
3
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 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 Sirname, for that it was not
Boon
but
Bohun
.
... Ibi omnisEffusus labor ...
The lover was thunder-struck 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
Acrostick
4
was probably invented about the same time with the Anagram, tho' it is impossible to decide whether the Inventor of the one of the other
were
5
the greater Blockhead. The
Simple
Acrostick is nothing but the Name or Title of a Person or Thing made out of the initial Letters of several Verses, and by that Means written, after the Manner of the