for from such subjects; for which reason I shall enter upon my
present undertaking with greater cheerfulness.

In this, and one or two following papers, I shall trace out the
history of false wit, and distinguish the several kinds of it as
they have prevailed in different ages of the world. This I think
the more necessary at present, because I observed there were
attempts on foot last winter to revive some of those antiquated
modes of wit that have been long exploded out of the commonwealth of
letters. There were several satires and panegyrics handed about in
an acrostic, by which means some of the most arrant undisputed
blockheads about the town began to entertain ambitious thoughts, and
to set up for polite authors. I shall therefore describe at length
those many arts of false wit, in which a writer does not show
himself a man of a beautiful genius, but of great industry.

The first species of false wit which I have met with is very
venerable for its antiquity, and has produced several pieces which
have lived very near as long as the "Iliad" itself: I mean, those
short poems printed among the minor Greek poets, which resemble the
figure of an egg, a pair of wings, an axe, 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 translate it into English, did not I
find the interpretation of it very difficult; for the author seems
to have been more intent upon the figure of his poem than upon the
sense of it.