H ard was his final fight with ghastly Deat _h_, H e bravely yielded his expiring breat _h_. A s in the Senate fighting freedom’s ple _a_, A nd boundless in his wisdom as the se _a_. T he public welfare seeking to direc _t_, T he weak and undefended to protec _t_. H is steady course in noble life from birt _h_, H as shown his public and his private wort _h_. E vincing mind both lofty and sedat _e_, E ndowments great and fitted for the Stat _e_, R eceiving high and low with open doo _r_, R ich in his bounty to the rude and poo _r_. T he crown reposed in him the highest trus _t_, T o show the world that he was wise and jus _t_. O n his ancestral banners long ag _o_, O urs willingly relied, and will do s _o_. N or yet extinct is noble Hatherto _n_, N ow still he lives in gracious Littleto _n_. Although the fanciful and trifling tricks of poetasters have been carried to excess, and acrostics have come in for their share of satire, the origin of such artificial poetry was of a higher dignity. When written documents, were yet rare, every artifice was employed to enforce on the attention or fix on the memory the verses sung by bards or teachers. Alphabetic associations formed obvious and convenient aids for this purpose. In the Hebrew Psalms of David, and in other parts of Scripture, striking specimens occur. The peculiarity is not retained in the translations, but is indicated in the common version of the 119th Psalm by the initial letters prefixed to its divisions. The Greek Anthology also presents examples of acrostics, and they were often used in the old Latin language. Cicero, in his treatise “De Divinatione,” has this remarkable passage:—“The verses of the Sybils (said he) are distinguished by that arrangement which the Greeks call Acrostic; where, from the first letters of each verse in order, words are formed which express some particular meaning; as is the case with some of Ennius’s verses, the initial letters of which make ‘which Ennius wrote!’” Among the modern examples of acrostic writing, the most remarkable may be found in the works of Boccaccio. It is a poem of fifty cantos, of which Guinguenè has preserved a specimen in his Literary History of Italy.