The Orientalists are not without this literary folly. A Persian poet read to the celebrated Jami a ghazel of his own composition, which Jami did not like; but the writer replied it was, notwithstanding, a very curious sonnet, for the letter _Aliff_ was not to be found in any of the words! Jami sarcastically answered, “You can do a better thing yet; take away _all the letters_ from every word you have written.” This alphabetical whim has assumed other shapes, sometimes taking the form of a fondness for a particular letter. In the _Ecloga de Calvis_ of Hugbald the Monk, all the words begin with a C. In the Nugæ Venales there is a Poem by Petrus Placentius, entitled Pugna Porcorum, in which every word begins with a P. In another performance in the same work, entitled _Canum cum cattis certamen_, in which “apt alliteration’s artful aid” is similarly summoned, every word begins with a C. Lord North, one of the finest gentlemen in the Court of James I., has written a set of sonnets, each of which begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. The Earl of Rivers, in the reign of Edward IV., translated the Moral Proverbs of Christiana of Pisa, a poem of about two hundred lines, almost all the words of which he contrived to conclude with the letter E. The Pangrammatists contrive to crowd all the letters of the alphabet into every single verse. The prophet Ezra may be regarded as the father of them, as may be seen by reference to ch. vii., v. 21, of his Book of Prophecies. Ausonius, a Roman poet of the fourth century, whose verses are characterized by great mechanical ingenuity, is fullest of these fancies. The following sentence of only 48 letters, contains every letter of the alphabet:—_John P. Brady, give me a black walnut box of quite a small size_. The stanza subjoined is a specimen of both lipogrammatic and pangrammatic ingenuity, containing every letter of the alphabet except _e_. Those who remember that _e_ is the most indispensable letter, being much more frequently used than any other,[1] will perceive the difficulty of such composition. Footnote 1: The relative proportions of the letters, in the formation of words, have been pretty accurately determined, as follows:—