fhort Reflections, or in general declamatory Flourishes, without entring into the Bottom of the Matter. I hope therefore I fhall perform an acceptable Work to my Countrymen, if I treat at large upon this Subject; which I fhall endeavour to do in a Manner fuitable to it, that I may not incur the Cenfure which a famous Critick beftows upon one who had written a Treatife upon the Sublime in a low groveling Style. I intend to lay afide a whole Week for this Undertaking, that the Scheme of my Thoughts may not be broken and interrupted; and I dare promife my felf, if my Readers will give me a Week's Attention, that this great City will be very much changed for the better by next Saturday Night. I fhall endeavour to make what I fay intelligible to ordinary Capacities; but if my Readers meet with any Paper that in fome Parts of it may be a little out of their Reach, I would not have them difcouraged, for they may affure themselves the next fhall be much clearer.

AS the great and only End of these my Speculations is to banish Vice and Ignorance out of the Territories of Great Britain, I fhall endeavour as much as poffible to establish among us a Taste of polite Writing. It is with this View that I have endeavoured to fet my Readers right in feveral Points relating to Opera's and Tragedies; and fhall from Time to Time impart my Notions of Comedy, as I think they may tend to its Refinement and Perfeation. I find by my Bookfeller that these Papers of Criti cifm, with that upon Humour, have met with a more kind Reception than indeed I could have hoped for from such Subjects; for which Reason I fhall enter upon my prefent. Undertaking with greater Chearfulness.

IN this, and one or two following Papers, I fhall trace out the History of falfe Wit, and diftinguifh the feveral Kinds of it as they have prevailed in different Ages of the World. This I think the more neceffary at prefent, because I obferved there were Attempts on Foot laft Winter to revive some of thofe antiquated Modes of Wit that have been long exploded out of the Common-wealth of Letters. There were feveral Satyrs and Panegyricks handed about in Acroftick, by which Means fome of the most arrant undisputed Blockheads about the Town began to entertain ambitious. Thoughts, and to fet up for Police Authors.

K 5

Authors. I fhall therefore defcribe at length thofe many Arts of falfe Wit, in which a Writer does not fhew himfelf a Man of a beautiful Genius, but of great Industry.

THE firft Species of falfe Wit which I have met with is very venerable for its Antiquity, and has produced fe veral Pieces which have lived very near as long as the Iliad it felf: I mean those short Poems printed among the minor Greek Poets, which resemble the Figure of an Egg, a Pair of Wings, an Ax, a Shepherd's Pipe, and an Altar.

AS for the first, it is a little oval Poem, and may not improperly be called a Scholar's Egg. I would endeavour to hatch it, or, in more intelligible Language, to tranflate it into English, did not I find the Interpretation of it very difficult, for the Author feems to have been more intent upon the Figure of his Poem, than upon the Sense of it.

THE Pair of Wings confift of twelve Verses, or rather Feathers, every Verfe decreafing gradually in its Measure according to is Situation in the Wing. The Subject of it (as in the rest of the Poems which follow) bears fome remote Affinity with the Figure, for it defcribes a God of Love, who is always painted with Wings.

THE AX methinks would have been a good Figure for a Lampoon, had the Edge of it confifted of the most Satyrical Parts of the Work; but as it is in the Original, I take it to have been nothing else but the Pofie of an Ax which was confecrated to Minerva, and was thought to have been the fame that Epeus made ufe of in the building of the Trojan Horfe; which is a Hint I fhall leave to the Confideration of the Criticks. I am apt to think that the Pofie was written originally upon the Ax, like those which our modern Cutlers infcribe upon their Knives; and that therefore the Pofie ftill remains in its ancient Shape, tho' the Ax it felf is loft.

THE Shepherd's Pipe may be faid to be full of Mufick, for it is compofed of nine different Kinds of Verses, which by their feveral Lengths resemble the nine Stops of the old mufical Inftrument, that is likewife the Subject of the Poem.

THE Altar is infcribed with the Epitaph of Troilus the Son of Hecuba; which, by the way, makes me believe, that thefe falfe Pieces of Wit are much more antient than the Authors to whom they are generally afcribed; a

leaft

fuch fim

leaft I will never be perfwaded, that fo fine a Writer as Theocritus could have been the Author of any ple Works.

IT was impoffible for a Man to fucceed in thefe Performances who was not a kind of Painter, or at least a Defigner: He was firft of all to draw the Out-line of the Subject which he intended to write upon, and afterwards conform the Defcription to the Figure of his Subject. The Poetry was to contract or dilate it felf according to the Mould in which it was caft. In a Word, the Verfes were to be cramped or extended to the Dimensions of the Frame that was prepared for them; and to undergo the Fate of thofe Perfons whom the Tyrant Procruftes ufed to lodge in his Iron Bed; if they were too fhort, 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 obfolete kind of Wit in one of the following Verfes in his Mac Flecno; which an English Reader cannot understand, who does not know that there are thofe little Poems abovementioned in the Shape of Wings and Altars.

Chufe for thy Command

Some peaceful Province in Acroftick Land;

There may'ft thou Wings difplay, and Altars raife,
And torture one poor Word a thousand Ways.

THIS Fashion of falfe Wit was revived by feveral Poets of the laft Age, and in particular may be met with among Mr. Herbert's Poems; and, if I am not mistaken, in the Tranflation of Du Bartas. 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 Firft, which has the whole Book of Pfalms written in the Lines of the Face and the Hair of the Head. When I was last at Oxford I perufed one of the Whiskers; and was reading the other, but could not go fo far in it as I would have done, by reafon of the Impatience of my Friends and Fellow-Travellers, who all of them preffed to see fuch a Piece of Curiofity. I have fince heard, that there is now an eminent Writing-Mafter in Town, who has transcribed all

the

the Old Teftament in a full-bottomed Perriwig; and if the Fashion fhould introduce the thick kind of Wigs which were in Vogue fome few Years ago, he promises to add two or three fupernumerary Locks that fhall contain all the Apocrypha. He defigned this Wig originally for King William, having difpofed 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 propofe, for the Benefit of our modern Smatterers in Poetry, that they would imitate their Brethren among the Ancients in thofe ingenious Devices. I have communicated this Thought to a young Poetical Lover of my Acquaintance, who intends to prefent his Miftrefs with a Copy of Verses made in the Shape of her Fan; and, if he tells me true, has already finished the three firft Sticks of it. He has likewife promised me to get the Measure of his Miftrefs's Marriage Finger, with a Defign to make a Pofie in the Fashion of a Ring, which fhall exactly fit it. It is fo very eafie to enlarge upon a good Hint, that I do not queftion but my ingenious Readers will apply what I have faid to many other ParticuJars, 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 fhall therefore conclude with a Word of Advice to those admirable English Authors who call themselves Pindarick Writers, that they would apply themselves to this kind of Wit without Lofs of Time, as being provided better than ony other Poets with Verses of all Sizes and Dimensions. C

N°

Tuesday, May 8.

N@ 59.
Operosè Nihil agunt.

T

Sen.

RERE is nothing more certain than that every Man would be a Wit if he could, and notwithstanding Pedants of pretended Depth and Solidity are apt to decry the Writings of a polite Author, as Flash and Froth,

they

they all of them fhew upon Occafion that they would fpare no Pains to arrive at the Character of those whom they feem to despise. For this Reafon 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 Gally-Slave than a Wit, were one to gain that Title by thofe Elaborate Trifles which have been the Inventions of fuch Authors as were often Mafters of Great Learning but no Genius.

IN my laft Paper I mentioned fome of these falfe Wits among the Ancients, and in this fhall give the Reader two or three other Species of them, that flourished in the fame 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 Reason, against some particular Letter in the Alphabet, fo as not to admit it once into a whole Poem. One Tryphiodorus was a great Mafter in this kind of Writing. He composed an Odiffey or Epick Poem on the Adventures of Ulyffes, confifting of four and twenty Books, having entirely banished the Letter A from his firft 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 Business without them.

IT muft have been very pleasant 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 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 fhall only obferve upon this Head, that if the Work I have here mentioned had been now extant, the Odiffey of Tryphiodorus, in all Probability, would have been oftner quoted by our learned Pedants, than the Odiffey of Homer. What a perpetual Fund would it have been of obfolete Words and Phrafes, unusual Barbarifms and Rufticities, abfurd 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