Dryden, Chaucer, Lope-de-Vega, Xantippe, Virgil.

The word comes from _Chronos_, time, and _gramma_, a letter.

[BEGIN WELL AND END BETTER.]

56. Conundrums.

These are simple catches, in which the sense is playfully cheated, and
are generally founded upon words capable of double meaning. The
following are examples:

Where did Charles the First's executioner dine, and what did he
take?
_He took a chop at the King's Head._

When is a plant to be dreaded more than a mad dog?
_When it's madder._

What is majesty stripped of its externals?
It is _a jest_.
[The _m_ and the _y_, externals, are taken away.]

Why is hot bread like a caterpillar?
_Because it's the grub that makes the butter fly._

Why did the accession of Victoria throw a greater damp over England
than the death of King William?
_Because the King was missed_ (mist) _while the Queen was reigning_
(raining).

Why should a gouty man make his will?
_To have his legatees_ (leg at ease).

Why are bankrupts more to be pitied than idiots?
_Because bankrupts are broken, while idiots are only cracked._

Why is the treadmill like a true convert?
_Because it's turning is the result of conviction._

When may a nobleman's property be said to be all feathers?
_When his estates are all entails_ (hen-tails).

[EVERY MAN KNOWS WHERE HIS OWN SHOE PINCHES.]

57. Cryptography, or secret writing

from the Greek _cryptos_, a secret, and _graphein_, to write--has been
largely employed in state despatches, commercial correspondence, love
epistles, and riddles. The telegraphic codes employed in the
transmission of news by electric wire, partakes somewhat of the
cryptographic character, the writer employing certain words or
figures, the key to which is in the possession of his correspondent.
The single-word despatch sent by Napier to the Government of India,
was a sort of cryptographic conundrum--_Peccavi_, I have sinned
(Scinde); and in the agony column of the 'Times' there commonly appear
paragraphs which look puzzling enough until we discover the key-letter
or figure. Various and singular have been the devices adopted--as, for
instance, the writing in the perforations of a card especially
prepared, so as only to allow the real words of the message to be
separated