A Verbal ENIGMA, is a witty, artful, and abstruse description of any thing.—In a general sense, every dark saying, every difficult question, every parable, may pass for an enigma. Hence obscure laws are called Enigmata Juris. The alchemists are great dealers in the enigmatic language, their processes for the philosopher's stone being generally wrapt up in riddles: e. g. Fac ex mare et fœmina circulum, inde quadrangulum hinc triangulum, fac circulum, et habebis lapidem philosophorum.—F. Menestrier has attempted to reduce the composition and resolution of enigmas to a kind of art, with fixed rules and principles, which he calls the philosophy of enigmatic images.