not a kind of painter, or at least a designer. He was first of all
to draw the outline of the subject which he intended to write upon,
and afterwards conform the description to the figure of his subject.
The poetry was to contract or dilate itself according to the mould
in which it was cast. In a word, the verses were to be cramped or
extended to the dimensions of 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 Flecknoe;" which an English reader
cannot understand, who does not know that there are those little
poems above mentioned in the shape of wings and altars:-


- Choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in acrostic 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. I do
not remember any other kind of work among the moderns which more
resembles the performances I have mentioned than that famous picture