Irish Jesuit Province

Clavis Acrostica. A Key to "Dublin Acrostics". Part XVISource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 26, No. 300 (Jun., 1898), pp. 331-332Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20499298 .

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( 331 )

CLAVIS AC ROSTICA.

A KEY TO " DUBLIN ACROSTICs."

PART XVI.

HENCEFORTH we shall not wait for a month to hear the reader say, " I give it up," but we shall give the answers in

the same number as the acrostics. Less space will thus be taken up in utilising the solutions given to me by the secretary of the little knot of leading barristers (with two or three Right

Reverend outsiders) who concocted the brilliant little book, " Dublin Acrostics." As one of our readers has remarked, this title was a punning allusion to double acrostics and to the old conundrum about Dublin. " Why is Ireland sure to become rich ? Because its capital is always doublin'."

We dared to name last month the most distinguished survivor of that band of Acrosticians.

11 F " is also the author of No. 29.

In the first when reversed

Many heroes were'nursecl

Who filled the whole world with their fame.

1he second's accursed, 'Tis surely the worst

Of all sources of sorrow and shame.

The fetters now burst, The multitude durst

Its inherited liberty claim.

I. Emnblems of pain.

2. Slaying and slain,

3. Certainly plain.

I must confess that, in reading this over, my only remark was: "4Well, the worst of all the sources of sorrow and shame ought to be sin "-and, a little to my surprise, I find that that was what " F " intended. Those who understand the construction of a double acrostic know, from glancing at it, that the answer to the present one has two parts of three letters each, combining probably to form one word. Even with that hint about " sin," few would guess toesin. The first reversed is toe read backwards, cot; and even the greatest hero is nursed in a cradle. When the tocsin of liberty sounds, the nation is emancipated. The first of the " lights " or " uprights" must be a word beginning here with t and ending with 8, and "thumbscrews " is what " F " intends by

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332 The Irish Monthly.

" emblems of pain." 0 and I are the next initials; and the word which begins and ends with them is Orsini-the famous Orsini bomb. The last " light " is champaign, a flat, open country, a plain,

whirh is punningly described as " certainly plain." We p,tssed over, as too long, -Nos 2 t and 2a. The answer to

the first is crinoli,ie and petticoat, to the second croquet and cricket.

For the same reason we pass over Mr. Kirby's, No. 31, York and Rose; and for a different reason, No. 30 which turns upon

tarewell. The last of Mr. Kirby's lights was kine. As the rinder

pest had then raised the price of cattle, he darkened his light thus:

" So dear, so dear," the Miller's daughter grew

Oh dear! how dear poor pestered we've grown too."

NOTES ON NEW BOORS.

1. We begin with the two books with which we ended our last month's Book Notes, announcing them a little before their time. " Virgo Prtedicanda " is an exquisite little volume of "Verses in our Lady's Praise," by the Rev. John Fitzpatrick, O.M.I, published by M. H. Gill and Son. The poems, which are all very short, are grace ful and tender, and finish&d-with loving care. Messrs. Ponsonby and

Weldrick have evidently miade this little shilling book a special triumph of their skill: it is a delightful piece of printing "I Virgo

Predicanda " gives the Oblate Father high rank amonig the Laureates

of the Madonna. There is a curious link between Father Fitzpatrick's book and the

other new book that we have joined with it in this first of our Notes. Most of his readers will fail to understand why the rhymes of some of his miniature 1 rics are arranged precisely as they are. The lover of poetry is familiar with sonnets-one of Father Fitzpatrick's favourite forms, which he manages very suceessfully-.--but few are at home

among triolets and roundeaux, of which "'Virgo PrEedicanda" furnishes several excellent examples. Now the construction of triolets

and roundeaux and sundry other metrical artifices of the sort is

explained practically, and (we venture to think) agreeably in Part V. of " Sonnets on the Sonnet " just issued by Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co., of 39 Paternoster Row, London, and also of New York and Bombay. As this new book has the same Editor as this old Magazine,

criticism perforce is reduced to this mere announcement, and to the expression of a hope that of the many sonnet-anthologies published

during this dying century the present one will be found to be, not

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