The Acrostick [4] was probably invented about the same time with the Anagram, tho’ it is impossible to decide whether the Inventor of the one of the other [were [5]] the greater Blockhead.  The Simple Acrostick is nothing but the Name or Title of a Person or Thing made out of the initial Letters of several Verses, and by that Means written, after the Manner of the Chinese, in a perpendicular Line.  But besides these there are Compound Acrosticks, where the principal Letters stand two or three deep.  I have seen some of them where the Verses have not only been edged by a Name at each Extremity, but have had the same Name running down like a Seam through the Middle of the Poem.

There is another near Relation of the Anagrams and Acrosticks, which is commonly [called [6]] a Chronogram.  This kind of Wit appears very often on many modern Medals, especially those of Germany, [7] when they represent in the Inscription the Year in which they were coined.  Thus we see on a Medal of Gustavus Adolphus the following Words, CHRISTVS DUX ERGO TRIVMPHVS.  If you take the pains to pick the Figures out of the several Words, and range them in their proper Order, you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the Year in which the Medal was stamped:  For as some of the Letters distinguish themselves from the rest, and overtop their Fellows, they are to be considered in a double Capacity, both as Letters and as Figures.  Your laborious German Wits will turn over a whole Dictionary for one of these ingenious Devices.  A Man would think they were searching after an apt classical Term, but instead of that they are looking out a Word that has an L, and M, or a D in it.  When therefore we meet with any of these Inscriptions, we are not so much to look in ’em for the Thought, as for the Year of the Lord.

The Boutz Rimez [8] were the Favourites of the French Nation for a whole Age together, and that at a Time when it abounded in Wit and Learning.  They were a List of Words that rhyme to one another, drawn up by another Hand, and given to a Poet, who was to make a Poem to the Rhymes in the same Order that they were placed upon the List:  The more uncommon the Rhymes were, the more extraordinary was the Genius of the Poet that could accommodate his Verses to them.  I do not know any greater Instance of the Decay of Wit and Learning among the French (which generally follows the Declension of Empire) than the endeavouring to restore this foolish Kind of Wit.  If the Reader will be at the trouble to see Examples of it, let him look into the new Mercure Galant; where the Author every Month gives a List of Rhymes to be filled up by the Ingenious, in order to be communicated to the Publick in the Mercure for the succeeding Month.  That for the Month of November [last], which now lies before me, is as follows.