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 [4] 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.