Irish Jesuit Province

Clavis Acrostica. A Key to "Dublin Acrostics". Part XIIISource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 26, No. 297 (Mar., 1898), pp. 164-165Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20499261 .

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( 164 )

CLAVIS ACROSTICA.

A KEY TO " DUBLIN ACROSTICS."

PART XIII.

I begin before No. 26 of our Acrostics, the only one that we left to be solved in our February instalment, has reached our readers; and any remarks suggested by the correspondence that

may come on the subject can be added later on. Some day, thirty odd years ago, when this intellectual pastime

of puzzling one another with clever double acrostics amused a knot chiefly of Dublin barristers, the word doit occurred as a proper subject for this ingenious trick to " 0 " -who

was then John O'Hagan, Q.C.-perhaps when walking home tired from the Four Courts. It splits nicely, small as it is, into two words of equal length, Do it, which we may take as a translation of the word of command given by the Centurion of the

Domine non sum dignMs: " Fac hoc, et facit " (Matth. viii., 10). The word doit itself seems to come from digitus and doigt, and is nearly the same in Dutch and German as in French; and old Skinner explains this derivation by pretending that the coin con tained "as much brass as could be covered by the tip of the

finger." We are told that it was a small Datch coin valued at the eighth of a penny, and an ancient Scotch coin one twelfth of a penny sterling. But it was, and sometimes is, taken to mean any thing of little value, a trifle. "I would not give a doit for it."

How well and how tersely all this is expressed by " 0 " in the couplet:

Severed, we summon to action; Blent, we're an obsolete fraction.

What words beginning and ending respectively D-I, and again 0-T, shallbe given as " lights ? " The Author of "c Our

selves Alone " fixed on Delhi and Or-ient, shadowing forth each in a line.

Seat of successive empires lost and won, Seat of that seat, proud region of the sun.

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Clavis Acrostica. 165

We now hand over to the ingenuity of our readers No. 27 of these" Dublin Acrostics." It is by "R.," and we rejoice that we hold the answer in Mr. Reeve's own handwriting.

No. 27.

Now, like a ruthless despot

Whom trembling crowds obey,

My first subdues and crushes

All things beneath its sway.

A noted bruiser also

And greater than Jemn Mace -

For Mace beneath its counters

Would be in evil case.

But hark! (and small the change is)

The Magyar captive brave

By funeral chimes, low pealing,

Is summoned to his grave.

To deal forth death and ruin,

To scatter and destroy,

And cause the worst disunion

Is oft my second's joy.

And yet-oh! seeming marvel

As oft its chief delight

With soft and gentle influence

To strengthen and unite.

But when my first and second

Their agency combine,

(As quickened by affliction,

The truest virtues shine)

So crushed, oppressed, but bettered

By their most cruel test,

The power that erst slept uselessly

Brings peace, and joy, and rest.

1 Ah! cruel chimes, ye sound love's funeral knell

The sailor bids his weeping maid farewell.

2. Time, and life s ordeal, alone can show

If true or false the metal be below.

3. Give me my friend, with him, oh! wealth untold

Of gleaming jewels, and of ruddy gold.

4. Poor MAlantalini ! for thy wife no more

Consents to liquidate thy little score.

5. Even as we seek for violets in the shade,

So did thy lover seek thee gentle maid!

6. Down from the hill the young Ascanius came

Panting for nobler foe-more dangerous game.

t.

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