Mr. Dryden hints at this obsolete kind of Wit in one of the following Verses, [in his Mac Flecno;] which an English Reader cannot understand, who does not know that there are those little Poems abovementioned in the Shape of Wings and Altars.

... Chuse for thy Command Some peaceful Province in Acrostick Land; There may’st thou Wings display, and Altars raise, And torture one poor Word a thousand Ways.

This Fashion of false Wit was revived by several Poets of the last Age, and in particular may be met with among Mr. Herbert’s Poems; and, if I am not mistaken, in the Translation of Du Bartas. [4]—­I do not remember any other kind of Work among the Moderns which more resembles the Performances I have mentioned, than that famous Picture of King Charles the First, which has the whole Book of Psalms written in the Lines of the Face and the Hair of the Head.  When I was last at Oxford I perused one of the Whiskers; and was reading the other, but could not go so far in it as I would have done, by reason of the Impatience of my Friends and Fellow-Travellers, who all of them pressed to see such a Piece of Curiosity.  I have since heard, that there is now an eminent Writing-Master in Town, who has transcribed all the Old Testament in a full-bottomed Periwig; and if the Fashion should introduce the thick kind of Wigs which were in Vogue some few Years ago, he promises to add two or three supernumerary Locks that shall contain all the Apocrypha.  He designed this Wig originally for King William, having disposed of the two Books of Kings in the two Forks of the Foretop; but that glorious Monarch dying before the Wig was finished, there is a Space left in it for the Face of any one that has a mind to purchase it.

But to return to our ancient Poems in Picture, I would humbly propose, for the Benefit of our modern Smatterers in Poetry, that they would imitate their Brethren among the Ancients in those ingenious Devices.  I have communicated this Thought to a young Poetical Lover of my Acquaintance, who intends to present his Mistress with a Copy of Verses made in the Shape of her Fan; and, if he tells me true, has already finished the three first Sticks of it.  He has likewise promised me to get the Measure of his Mistress’s Marriage-Finger, with a Design to make a Posy in the Fashion of a Ring, which shall exactly fit it.  It is so very easy to enlarge upon a good Hint, that I do not question but my ingenious Readers will apply what I have said to many other Particulars; and that we shall see the Town filled in a very little time with Poetical Tippets, Handkerchiefs, Snuff-Boxes, and the like Female Ornaments.  I shall therefore conclude with a Word of Advice to those admirable English Authors who call themselves Pindarick Writers, [5] that they would apply themselves to this kind of Wit without Loss of Time, as being provided better than any other Poets with Verses of all Sizes and Dimensions.