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LETTER IX.

To TIMOCLEA.

July 29, 1748.

T is with wonderful fatisfaction I find you are grown such an adept in the occult arts, and that you take a laudable pleasure in the antient and ingenious study of making and solving Riddles. It is a science, undoubtedly, of most necessary acquirement, and deserves to make a part in the education of both sexes. Those of yours may by this means very innocently indulge their usual curiosity of discovering and disclofing a fecret; whilst such amongst ours who have a turn for deep speculations, and are fond of puzzling themselves and others, may exercise their faculties this way with much private fatisfaction, and without the least disturbance to the public. It is an art indeed, which I would recommend to the encouragement of both the universities, as it affords the easiest and shortest method of conveying fome of the most useful principles of logic, and might therefore be introduced as a very proper D 3 fubsubstitute in the room of those dry systems, which are at present in vogue in those places of education. For, as it consists in discovering truth under borrowed appearances, it might prove of wonderful advantage in every branch of learning, by habituating the mind to feparate all foreign ideas, and confequently preserving it from that grand fource of error, the being deceived by false connections. In short, Timoclea, this your favorite science contains the fum of all human policy; and as there is no paffing thro' the world without sometimes mixing with fools and knaves; who would not choose to be master of the enigmatical art, in order, on proper occafions, to be able to lead afide craft and impertinence from their aim, by the convenient artifice of a prudent disguise: It was the maxim of a very wife prince, that "he "who knows not how to dissemble, knows "not how to reign:" and I defire 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 farther recommen

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dation to all true admirers of antiquity, as being practised by the most confiderable personages of early times. It is almost three thousand years ago since Samson proposed his famous riddle; 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 his curious performance. In the mean while let it be remembred to the immortal glory of this art, that the wisest man, as well as the greatest prince that ever lived, is faid to have amused himself and a neighboring 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 D 4 failed failed in the solution should incur a certain penalty. It is recorded likewife of the great father of poetry, even the divine Homer himself, that he had a taste of this fort; 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 Io.

I AM inclined to think, indeed, that the antients in general were such admirers of this art, as to inscribe riddles upon their tomb-ftones, and that not satisfied with puzzling the world in their life-time, they bequeathed enigmatical legacies to the public after their decease. My conjecture is founded upon an ancient inscription, which I will venture to quote to you, though it is in Latin, as your friend and neighbor the antiquarian will, I am perfuaded, be very glad of obliging you with a dissertation upon it. Be pleased then to ask him, whether he does not think that the following infcription favors my fentiments:

VIATORES. OPTIΜΙ.

HIS. NVGIS. GRYPHIS. AMBAGIBVSQVE. MEIS. CONDONARE. POSCIMUS.

However

However this may be, it is certain that it was one of the great entertainments of the pastoral life, and therefore, if for no other reason, highly deserving the attention of our modern Arcadians. You remember, I dare say, the riddle which the shepherd Dametas proposes to Mænalcas in Dryden's Virgil:

Say where the round of heav'n, which allcontains,

To three short ells on earth our fight restrains: Tell That, and rise a Phœbus for thy pains. This ænigma, which has exercised the guesses of many a learned critic, remains yet unexplained: which I mention, not only as an instance of the wonderful penetration which is necessary to render a man a complete adept in this most noble science, but as an incitement to you to employ your skill in attempting the solution.-And now, Timoclea, what will your grave friend say, who reproached you, it seems, for your riddling genius, when he shall find you are thus able to defend your favorite study by the sublime examples of kings, commentators, and poets? I am, &c.

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