conundrum. It was, therefore, in this age that the pun appeared
with pomp and dignity. It had been before admitted into merry
speeches and ludicrous compositions, but was now delivered with
great gravity from the pulpit, or pronounced in the most solemn
manner at the council-table. The greatest authors, in their most
serious works, made frequent use of puns. The sermons of Bishop
Andrews, and the tragedies of Shakespeare, are full of them. The
sinner was punned into repentance by the former; as in the latter,
nothing is more usual than to see a hero weeping and quibbling for a
dozen lines together.

I must add to these great authorities, which seem to have given a
kind of sanction to this piece of false wit, that all the writers of
rhetoric have treated of punning with very great respect, and
divided the several kinds of it into hard names, that are reckoned
among the figures of speech, and recommended as ornaments in
discourse. I remember a country schoolmaster of my acquaintance
told me once, that he had been in company with a gentleman whom he
looked upon to be the greatest paragrammatist among the moderns.
Upon inquiry, I found my learned friend had dined that day with Mr.
Swan, the famous punster; and desiring him to give me some account
of Mr. Swan's conversation, he told me that he generally talked in
the Paranomasia, that he sometimes gave in to the Ploce, but that in
his humble opinion he shone most in the Antanaclasis.

I must not here omit that a famous university of this land was
formerly very much infested with puns; but whether or not this might
arise from the fens and marshes in which it was situated, and which
are now drained, I must leave to the determination of more skilful
naturalists.