equestrian statute 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 above mentioned, 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 Camden, 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 the bough of the tree, which by the help of a little false spelling made up the word N-ew-berry." Addison disproved of that severity and malice which was too common among the writers of his age. He refers to it in his essays on wit, in allusion, as it is thought, to Swift. "There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation; lampoons and satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable. For this reason I am very much troubled when I see the talents of humour and ridicule in the possession of an ill-natured man.... It must indeed be confessed, that a lampoon or a satire does not carry in it robbery or murder; but at the same time, how many are there that would rather lose a considerable sum of money, or even life itself, than be set up as a mark of infamy and derision." He goes on to notice how various persons behaved under the ordeal--