REBUS an enigmatical representation of some name or thing, by using figures or pictures instead of words or parts of words. Camden mentions an instance of this kind of wit in a gallant who expressed his love to a woman named Rose Hill by painting in the border of his gown a rose, a hill, an eye, a loaf, and a well; this, in the style of the rebus, reads “Rose Hill I love well.” This kind of wit was long practised by the great, who took the pains to find devices for their names. It was, however, happily ridiculed by Ben Jonson in the humorous description of Abel Drugger’s device in the Alchemist and by the Spectator in the device of Jack of Newberry. The name is also applied to arrangements of words in which the position of the several vocables is to be taken into account in divining the meaning. Thus “I understand you undertake to overthrow my undertaking” makes the rebus stand take to taking

I you throw my; or in French pir vent venir un vient d’un may be read “un soupir vient souvent d’un souvenir.” The original use of the word, which’ comes to us from France, was, however, wider: any equivoque or satirical pleasantry might be so named, and the origin of the term is ascribed by Ménage to the clerks of Picardy, who at carnival time used to put out satirical squibs called “De rebus quae geruntur.” “Rebus,” in heraldry, is a coat of arms which bears an allusion to the name of the person,— as three castles for Castleton, three cups for Butler, three conies for Coningsby.