Addison

No. 59

Tuesday, May 8, 1711

Operose Nihil agunt.

Seneca.

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

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

, 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

. 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

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 as
Stout Hercules for loss of Hylas;
Forcing the Valleys to repeat
The 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 Ground
His Doleful Wailings did resound
More wistfully, but many times,
Then in small Poets Splay-foot Rhymes,
That make her, in her rueful Stories
To answer to Introgatories,
And most unconscionably depose
Things 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, wicked Bruin,
Art thou fled to my — Eccho, Ruin?
I thought th' hadst scorn'd to budge a Step
for 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 Head
So 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 overcome
Thus cowardly? Quoth Eccho, Mum.
But what a-vengeance makes thee fly
From 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 prevail
To keep thee thus for turning tail;
For who will grudge to spend his Blood in
His Honour's Cause? Quoth she, A Pudding.

Footnote 1:

From

, I omit,

, 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.'

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.

Footnote 4:

Colloquia Familiaria

, under the title Echo. The dialogue is ingeniously contrived between a youth and Echo.

Contents
Contents p.3