Irish Jesuit Province

New Dublin Acrostics. Nos. 3 and 4Source: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 15, No. 172 (Oct., 1887), pp. 591-593Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20497628 .

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( 591 )

NEW DUBLIN ACROSTICS.

By AUTHORS OF " DUBLIN ACROSTICS.

Nos. 3 and 4.

How many of our readers have tried to solve the mysteries pro posed under this heading in our September Number? And out of those who tried, how many succeeded? Before propounding a new problem, let us give the answer to Nos. I and 2. In No. 1 " 0 " first describes " chat " and then " moss," very ingeniously linking together the mossy turf, moss-roses, and moss -troopers. The combination of these two might very fairly puzzle those who are unacquainted

with the early history of railways. An extract from Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles, will throw light upon the "whole." " Chat Moss, peat bog in south of Lancashire, has an area of ten square miles, and varies in depth from ten to thirty feet; the Liver pool and Manchester Railway was successfully carried across it in 1829, through the engineering skill of George Stephenson."'

"In trembling earth's defiance, Pass on with sure reliance, For mother wit and science

Have laid the causeway down."

The "lights "-which by their initials spell chat and by their finals moss-are conundrum, Halero, axis, and Topas. The 1st and 3rd are guessable to ordinary Christians, but alas! not all readers are as familiar with Shakespeare and Scott as the very intelectual clique for which this acrostic, now first published, was written originally. Few

would think of Halcro, a character in The Pirate; and few, striving to discover a word beginning with T and ending with 5, would be guided by the description "false motley in a gown" to the second scene of Act 4 of Twelfth Night where Maria says to the Clown: "Nay, I

prythee, put on this gown and this beard, make him believe thou art

Sir Topas the curate." And then " false motley in a gown " visits poor Malvolio.

R t" in No. 2 describes Knapsack in this triplet:

A letter from mv first brings slumber deep, Avoid my second if your post you'd keep, My whole is more irksome when the path is steep.

Some of our readers may be too refined to know that among artizans "to get the sack " is the usual phrase for being dismissed. The word

whose first and last letters are the initials of knap and sack is kigs; and those who play billiards will see how ingeniously "I R" expresses this technical sense in the first of the " lights." The others are N?uma,

Attic, and pink: to wit, the pink of perfection. The poet alludes

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592 New, Dublin Acrostwcs.

to the anecdote about the witty Dean of St. Paul's and the young lady in his garden: " Oh! Mr. Dean, here is a pea that has not come

to perfection." Sydney Smith took the young lady by the hand, and

said: "Allow me to bring perfection to the pea." Those who know

nothing of the goddess Egeria or of the two meanings of attic will derive no light from those supplementary riddles.

But those who are sufficiently trained in this intellectual kind of

puzzles will be glad to have the following proposed to their study. The solution will be given next month.

WVith life in its primal unclosing, For ages and aeons gone by,

When young earth from the fire was reposing, Life's twin and its parent came I

And since, from the fern to the cedar, In the teeming of land and of sea,

Up to man, of creation the leader, The storv of life is with me.

What a story! The multiplied trials, The grace that enchants and endears,

The loves with their passion-filled vials, The fates with the urn and the shears:

Song, chivalry, gallant endeavour, In me bad their source and their goal,

And with me would be blighted for ever The radiance, and shrivelled the scroll.

II.

Though hundreds in England may claim me A claim which can scarce be denied

Though her merchants triumphantly name me And point to their freights on the tide;

Yet I tire of that dreary dominion Over merchandize purchased and sold,

And I fly on an airier pinion To a land that is mine from of old.

Yes, France! through eclipse and disaster Our sceptre shall still be thine own.

If a barbarous foe overmuaster, He dare not aspire to my throne.

For the world in its homage evinces How dear is my lightest decree,

Aud I reign over peoples and princes, Capricious, yet constant to thee.

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New Dublin Acrostics. 593

III. Ah! vain unsubstantial ideal!

Poor cobwebs by vanity spun I

For the units alone are the real, And I gather them one after one.

As the drop to the ocean will trickle, As bends to the winepress the vine,

And the ear in its pride tojthe sickle, Humanity's harvest is mine.

1. To mark the lady's pretty protestation, Her lad thought this a fitting designation.

2. When overcome by death's advanCcing banner, The dying miser could not leave his manor.

3. Home, through fierce foes and through a thousand dangers, I led the gallant mercenary strangers. 0.

Even those who have no idea of what it all means will be able to perceive that this is very clever verse at all events. The enigma will be solved next month, as we have already promised; and we make a similar promise with regard to the following:

Turn from the gloom and sorrow of my First, Where little hope lights up the empty day,

And in my Next a happy contrast find, Whose flood of rapture knows nor stint nor stay.

Why mar it, then, by contact with my First, Whose touch must change it into sin and woe?

Yet it is done, and in the Whole you see To peace and joy a miserable foe.

1. In my horse 'tis a vice, there is no doubt about it;

In my yacht you'll admit there's no doing without it.

2. I'm given to changing what comes in my way;

I may dye, yet live always the same as to-day.

3. There's not much about me to make people fear, Yet their characters often through me disappear.

4. Three letters of old of disgrace were the brand Three letters to-day make the peers of the land.

R.

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