The herald., 1896-01-05

Guessing ri tidles has been favorite
amusement wi tn mankind from the first
syllable of rec Vrded time" One of the
earliest of the scriptures contains SAM
sons riddle
Out of the eater car ie forth mea',
And out OF the ron & came forth sweetness.
Nor could the yo, ing men or even the eld-
ers guess it, so they got Samson wife to
belray it, And wh, sn they then delivered
him the answer, his reply was; 3" ye had
not plowed with my heifer ye had not
guessed my riddle" an experience that
many a husband since has had to his cost.
The famous riddle OF the >ph ink belongs
to Greek history or radltion. "What is
that animal which in tn morning goes on
four feet, at noon goes on NV aud in the
evening goes on three feet?' Oedipus
solved it and thus beca ma king. for the
answer is man, who in nfan cy crawls on
all fours, in manhood 'aiks erect and in
the evening of life uses stall for support.
Josephus tells us that 'olo mo was fond
both of making and so wing riddles and
that he once won a bet fl on Hiram. king
of Tyre, in a riddle cont ss's. The ques-
tions that the queen of Sh ell "a put to solo
mon were in the nature OF riddles. In
fact, the people of oriental countries nave
always been fond of tn .'e puzzles, and
they may be found in the soran as well as
in the Bibe, while Arat nc and Persian
literature is full of them Greek legend
has it that Homer, creates OF bards, died
of vexation because he co lid not solve
riddle proposed to him by nme fishermen
Asking them what luck liiev had, they
answered: "What we ca lght we threw
away. and what we could not catch we
kept ), They meant fleas, while he was
thinking of fish all the time.
A more modern form of mis- same riddle
is"ue loves her; she has repugnance to
him, and yet she tries to ca teh him, and If
she succeeds, she will be the death of
him."
another, tried their hands at riddles,
though ot many of them iiave chosen to
acknowledge this sort of han diwork, Some
years ago quite an interest ing discussion
arose over a riddle ascribed to Alexander
Pope, but which nowhere appears in his
collected writings. correspondent adj
dressed Notes and Queries as follows:
Ipossess the following original poem, in
autograph OF Pop which ! believe Is un-
known Can so1,e reader OF Noles and Quer-
les discover the usWeT?
A RIDDLE
Behold this Lillipu tian throng,
Nor male nor femal ., old nor young;
Six inches tall, OF 81 nder size,
With neither mouth. nor nose. nor eyes;
They never from eac otner stray,
But stan in order nj ght ana day,
Like soldiers marshal d in Array;
A bloody ensign each uoes bear
Tho not traind up to leafs OF War
Their actions ge 'tler rs l"ns move
or fan or quench the IL nnes OF love-
soften the unrele nting talr,
And SCOT e the pen>lve stat sman's care;
Nimble as thought, they skip and dance,
But meier ire. nor e'er advance,
Nor order chang, like the worlds frame,
Alway. unchangeaby the tame;
Tho active and TO motion .Tee,
Yet never move they willngly;
But in their silent ctverns Nieep
Time without en- {, nor stir nor peep,
Until some heav n-born geni us comes
10 rouse the . from their 81 ent tombs
BY pow'rs uns en-; then up they spring,
Without the help of Leg or wlug
They mount: and as they fly they sing
There is evidence to prove that the MS was
al one time in the possession OF sheridan
Naturally enough this awakened wide
spread interest,", for apart from the riddle
itself an unpublished poem by Pope, who
died in 17i4, first brought to light in 1886,