CANNING’S RIDDLE. There is a word of plural number, A foe to peace and human slumber: Now, any word you chance to take, By adding S, you plural make; But if you add an S to this, How strange the metamorphosis! Plural is plural then no more, And sweet, what bitter was before. THE PRIZE ENIGMA. The following enigma was found in the will of Miss Anna Seward (the Swan of Lichfield), with directions to pay £50 to the person who should discover the solution. When competition for the prize was exhausted, it was discovered to be a curtailed copy of a rebus published in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, March, 1757, and at that time attributed to Lord Chesterfield. The noblest object in the works of art, The brightest scenes which nature can impart; The well-known signal in the time of peace, The point essential in a tenant’s lease; The farmer’s comfort as he drives the plough, A soldier’s duty, and a lover’s vow; A contract made before the nuptial tie, A blessing riches never can supply; A spot that adds new charms to pretty faces, An engine used in fundamental cases; A planet seen between the earth and sun, A prize that merit never yet has won; A loss which prudence seldom can retrieve, The death of Judas, and the fall of Eve; A part between the ankle and the knee, A papist’s toast, and a physician’s fee; A wife’s ambition, and a parson’s dues, A miser’s idol, and the badge of Jews. If now your happy genius can divine The correspondent words in every line, By the first letter plainly may be found An ancient city that is much renowned. QUINCY’S COMPARISON. Josiah Quincy, in the course of a speech in Congress, in 1806, on the embargo, used the following language:— They who introduced it abjured it. They who advocated it did not wish, and scarcely knew, its use. And now that it is said to be extended over us, no man in this nation, who values his reputation, will take his Bible oath that it is in effectual and legal operation. There is an old riddle on a coffin, which I presume we all learned when we were boys, that is as perfect a representation of the origin, progress, and present state of this thing called non-intercourse, as it is possible to be conceived:—