f the Frame that was prepared for them; and to undergo the
Fate of those Persons whom the Tyrant _Procrustes_ used to lodge in his
Iron Bed; if they were too short, he stretched them on a Rack, and if
they were too long, chopped off a Part of their Legs, till they fitted
the Couch which he had prepared for them.

Mr. _Dryden_ hints at this obsolete kind of Wit in one of the following
Verses, [in his _Mac Flecno_;] which an _English_ Reader cannot
understand, who does not know that there are those little Poems
abovementioned in the Shape of Wings and Altars.

... _Chuse for thy Command
Some peaceful Province in Acrostick Land;
There may'st thou Wings display, and_ Altars _raise,
And torture one poor Word a thousand Ways._

This Fashion of false Wit was revived by several Poets of the last Age,
and in particular may be met with among _Mr. Herbert's_ Poems; and, if I
am not mistaken, in the Translation of _Du Bartas_. [4]--I do not
remember any other kind of Work among the Moderns which more resembles
the Performances I have mentioned, than that famous Picture of King
_Charles_ the First, which has the whole Book of _Psalms_ written in the
Lines of the Face and the Hair of the Head. When I was last at _Oxford_
I perused one of the Whiskers; and was reading the other, but could not
go so far in it as I would have done, by reason of the Impatience of my
Friends and Fellow-Travellers, who all of them pressed to see such a
Piece of Curiosity. I have since heard, that there is now an eminent
Writing-Master in Town, who has transcribed all the _Old Testament_ in a
full-bottomed Periwig; and if the Fashion should introduce the thick
kind of Wigs which were in Vogue some few Years ago, he promises to add
two or three supernumerary Locks that shall contain all the _Apocrypha_.
He designed this Wig originally for King _William_, having disposed of
the two Books of _Kings_ in the two Forks of the Foretop; but that
glorious Monarch dying before the Wig was finished, there is a Space
left in it for the Face of any one that has a mind to purchase it.

But to return to our ancient Poems in Picture, I would humbly propose,
for the Benefit of our modern Smatterers in Poetry, that they would
imitate their Brethren among the Ancients in those ingenious Devices. I
have communicated this Thought to a young Poetical Lover of my
Acquaintance, who intends to present his Mistress with a Copy of Verses
made in the Shape of her Fan; and,