ACROSTICS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Allow me a little egotism, or what may seem like it. Though a would-be solver intermittently for years past, I have never been a competitor, my . education not having been sufficiently " all-round " to qualify me for success. For wide and varied knowledge is needed in both the corn- poser and the solver of these pretty puzzles. Literature— English, classical and foreign—history, geography, natural history and other sciences, all may be and sometimes are useful. You refer with something of a sniff to the search for knowledge in a book of reference. Well, some real and useful knowledge can be found in books of reference, and some can't. A useful book of reference, though not well compiled, and though I have always felt half ashamed to use it, is the Acrostic Dictionary, which gives a certain number of the words of the English language in alphabetical order, with a difference : that is in the alphabetical order of the initials and finals, thus a-a, a-b, a-c, and so on with each letter. The book I refer to was written by a lady ; it would have been more useful had she taken more pains.
The " acrosticker " may be either a solitary hunter or one of a pack. It is better to be hi company. I recall how a certain clergyman, and Mrs. Parson, used to keep the acrostic of the week pinned to the sort of curtain—I forget the name —in front of the fire, at a convenient height for immediate reference. Thus they could themselves look at it in the intervals of parish work, and also ask aid of every likely visitor.
The true acrostic should be, if Heaven has not enabled the writer to make it a poem, at least a copy of verses. Once and only once was I inspired to write such an one myself— a birthday address to an artist who was both painter and engraver, and the whole was a tribute to him and his abilities. No copy of it now remains, but it has at least impressed on my memory the fact that a burin is a tool and not, as I used to suppose, an acid.—I am, Sir, &c., ACE.
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