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with a new dictionary, undertaken with that view, and adapted to answer several other valuable purposes; a work now in great forwardness.

1749, Feb.

W. S.

V. The sense of IMPROBUS as used in Virgil.

Labor omnia vicit

Improbus. Virg. Geo. I. 145. SCARCELY any passage in Virgil is more commonly quoted, and yet none seems to be so little understood. It has passed almost into a proverb; and the verb is usually expressed in the present tense, and the sense affixed to it by all the commentators, and all the translators that I have seen, is, Hard labour surmounts all difficulties. Upon the single authority of this place, all our dictionaries likewise have agreed to render IMPROBUS, hard, excessive, constant.

To justify this sense of the word, Dr. Trapp refers his reader to another passage in Virgil, Æneid xii. 687.

Fertur in abruptum magno mons improbus actu,
Exultatque solo.

Here, says he, mons improbus is the huge mountain.
But why may not improbus be used here in one of its or-
dinary significations for destructive, mischievous, pernicious?
The following words,

Sylvas, armenta, virosque

Involvens secum,

describing the mischiefs occasioned by its fall, prove that it ought to be so understood. Thus improbus anser. Georg.. I. 118. Improbus anguis. Georg. III. L. 431. are the mischievous gander and snake.

In the passage before us, improbus is the same as impius, wicked, as will be evident to any one that will but read the foregoing lines, beginning at the line 121,

pater ipse colendi

Haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda;

where Jupiter is represented by the poet as designing to

render husbandry a work of difficulty. Before his time the ground stood in no need of culture:

Ante Jovem nulli subigebant arva coloni, &c.

Ille malum virus serpentibus addidit atris.

To relieve themselves from these mischiefs brought upon them by Jupiter, mankind had recourse to various inventions:

Tum variæ venere artes.

And this their opposition to the will of Jupiter, which, in the opinion of the poet, was no less than impious, prevailed over all obstacles, and made the art of tillage easier than Jupiter, at first, intended it should be.

Labor omnia vicit

Improbus.

Parallel to this, is that

passage of Horace,

Necquicquam Deus abscidit

Prudens oceano dissociabiles

Terras, si tamen impia

Non tangenda rates transiliant vada.

The sailors are here called impious, because in passing the seas they opposed the will of Jupiter, who designed they should have been non tangenda, impassable.

1749, March.

VI. On the Rebus and Enigma.

MR. URBAN,

MARONIDES.

No small number of your friends and correspondents, 1 observe, are employed about that species of the Ænigma, or Riddle, called a Rebus; for no sooner has one part of them been racking their invention to invelope some plain name in a dark and puzzling colour; but others are immediately exerting their sagacity to decypher it, and trying to crack the shell: and you, sir, from the benignity of your temper, are disposed to gratify both parties, at least so far as you are able, by inserting in your monthly entertainment their innocent amusements, for amusements they are, and innocent, which surely is saying a great deal, but I may add, for the pleasure and satisfaction of their admirers, that they are

withal very ancient. For passing by the monkish ages, which hardly deserve the name of antiquity, and that large harvest which the heralds afford, and of which enough may be read in Camden's Remains, there want not instances of these allusions, this sporting with words, this mixture of words and things, even in the remotest times. To give a few examples:

History tells us, that Cyrus the Great was nursed by a bitch, that is, as I apprehend it, his nurse's name was Spaco, which, in the language of the Medes, as Herodotus informs us, signified a bitch; and so it does at this day in the Hyrcanian tongue, according to Tanaq. Faber, in his commentary upon Justin, Lib. i. We have a similar example, and much better known, in the Roman History; the two brothers Ro mulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf. See Livy, Lib. i. the truth was, that the good woman's name who took them to her breast was Lupa. "Sunt," says Livy, "qui Larentiam vulgato corpore Lupam inter pastores vocatam putent: unde locum fabulæ ac miraculo datum." Lactantius makes great use of this confession of Livy, and thereupon reports the following Grecian story, very much to our purpose, of one Leana, who had been instrumental in destroying Hipparchus: she was a strumpet, and because it was improper to erect a statue of a woman of her character in the temple, the Athenians placed the effigy of a lioness there, according to the import of her name.

Nobody needs desire a truer Rebus, than that of Virgil, Eclog. III.

Dic quibus in terris inscripti nomina regum
Nascantur flores;

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alluding to the hyacinth, which takes its name, as the fables relate, from Hyacinthus, a favourite youth, accidentally killed by Apollo. See Ruæus, or Dr. Martin, from whom it appears that the flower bore both the character of Hyacinth and of Ajax.

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There is another as clear in the second book of that masterly piece, the Ethiopics of Heliodorus, a work which certainly deserves a better edition. It is the story of Chariclea and Theagenes, and the author very appositely introduces the priestess of Apollo delivering an oracle, (and no thing could be better adapted to the manner of the ancient oracles) in these artificial and ambiguous terms, alluding to the composition of their respective names its mang

Τὴν χάριν ἐν πρώτοις, αὐτὰς κλέος ὑσατ' έχεσαν,
Φράζεσθ ὦ Δελφοί, τόν τε θεᾶς γενέτην
3

Xagis, xλeós, Chariclea.

Θεᾶς γενέτης. Theogenes.

Sigonius has engraved and explained a coin of Julius Cæsar's, (which is indeed common enough) with an elephant upon it, because the word Cæsar in the Punic language, as is testified both by Servius and Spartian, denoted an elephant.

But what is most remarkable, some of the fathers of the church, called our Saviour is, piscis, Tertullianus de Baptismo, p. 124, the letters of which word are severally the initials of Ιησές Χριστὸς θεῖ ὑιὸς σωτήρα

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And to name no more, of the same kind is that expression of the number of the beast, Rev. xiii. 18, which ch. xv. 2, is called the number of his name, where the sublime author follows the ancient custom of representing the name by numerals, as on the contrary number was often expressed by artificial names. Thus the technical words Μέιθρας and Αβράξας meant the sun, because the component letters numerically taken amounted to 365, that is,365 days, in which the sun finished his annual course. The Greek word Nos, the river Nile, in like manner expresses the number 365, as is particularly taken notice of by the admirable author above-mentioned. Heliodorus, Lib. ix. This was according to the Greeks; for otherwise Migas and Neños, had an etymology and signification of their own. The Basilidian heretics were fond of these fictitious names, and were the coiners of that barbarous word Abraxas, by which, as St. Hierome thinks, they meant Mithras, and which, with its companions Migas and Neo is to be resolved thus:

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MR. URBAN,

WHEREAS the Spectator* of glorious and immortal memory, has tried and convicted the Rebus of a complication of crimes, of ignorance, false taste, and folly; and condemned it for a spurious and unnatural excrescence of wit; in pursuance of which condemnation it ought immediately to have been banished these kingdoms, and never to have appeared here again.

And whereas, notwithstanding the censure and comdemnation it then received, it begins to make a fresh appearance and to meet with a kind reception and visible encouragement in your Magazine: it is therefore high time, in order to curb and restrain this growing evil, and to prevent the further effusion of all such spurious wit, and elaborate trifles, to enter into an inquiry after the origin and name, as well as the nature of a Rebus; and to bring it once more forth, and to expose it to open view, and to make a public example of it, that so they who are guilty of such a profanation of wit may be ashamed any longer to persist therein, and they who are yet innocent, may, by their example, learn to beware.

The word Rebus is taken from the ablative case plural of the noun Res, and in its literal sense denotes the intimation, or signification, a man gives of his opinion, affection, or intention, by things, instead of words, and the making material and visible objects the interpreters of our hearts, and the signs and tokens of the ideas which (without words) we would communicate to any of our fellow creatures.

Where words are wanting, or where men of two different languages meet together; or where words either spoken or written are liable to be fished out, or intercepted; or where we are inclined to convey our minds in a manner more especially striking and emphatical; on these and all such like occasions, significant emblems and expressive signs are either absolutely necessary or highly convenient; and it many times so falls out that a visible model, a rude sketch, or imperfect delineation, causes a quicker apprehension, a deeper impression, and a stronger conviction than the most literal descriptions, or florid metaphors are able to produce. In any such case a Rebus was proper and beautiful, and fully answered the above-mentioned etymology of the word and end, and design for which it was made use of, and herein

* Vol. I. No. 59.

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