at
he had mistaken her Sirname, for that it was not _Boon_ but _Bohun_.

_... Ibi omnis
Effusus labor ..._

The lover was thunder-struck with his Misfortune, insomuch that in a
little time after he lost his Senses, which indeed had been very much
impaired by that continual Application he had given to his Anagram.

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 plac