ACRONYCHAL. 



ACT. 



74 



called cliraeryle, which is insoluble in water, alkalies, acids, oils, and 

 bisulphide of carbon ; or into a resinous substance called rain, of dira- 

 'i-i/le, which is soluble in alkalies, alcohol, or ether, but insoluble in 

 water. Diracryle is probably isomeric with acroleine. 



ACRO'NYCHAL (sometimes incorrectly written Acronical, and 

 Achrunical), a word derived from the Greek, signifying ' that which 

 determines the extremities, or the beginning and end, of the night.' 

 It is only used in reference to the rising or setting of the stars ; and a 

 star is acronychal or rises acronycally when it rises at or very near 

 .-unset, and consequently sets at or near sunrise. To determine what 

 stars rise acronychally on any given night, elevate the pole of a common 

 globe so that the arc intercepted between it and the horizon may be 

 equal to the latitude of the place. Turn the globe until the sun's 

 place is on the horizon at the mdern side, then will all stars which are 

 either on or within a short distance of the horizon on the eastern side 

 be acronychal. 



ACROSTIC, a Greek term, signifying literally the beginning of a 

 line of verne. An acrostic is a number of verses so contrived that the 

 first letters of each being read in the order in which they stand shall 

 form some name or other word. According to some authorities, a 

 writer named Porphyrius Optatianus, who flourished in the 4th century, 

 ha.* the credit of being the inventor of the acrostic. It is probably, 

 however, of older date. Eusebius, the bishop of Cicsarea, who died in 

 A.D. 340, givea in his ' Life of Constantino,' a copy of Greek verses 

 which he asserts to be the composition of the Erythncnn Sibyl, the 

 initial letters of which make up the words IH2OT2 XPI2TO2 8EOY 

 TI02 2nTHP, that is, ' Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.' 

 These verses, which are a description of the coining of the day of judg- 

 ment, have also been translated into Latin hexameters, so as to preserve 

 the acrostic in that language, in the words JESUS CHBISTUS DEI FILIUS 

 SKJIVATOB. The translation, however, wants one of the wonderful 

 qualities of the original ; for it will be observed that the initial letters 

 of the five Greek words being joined together, form the word IX8T2, 

 that is, ' the fish,' which St. Augustine, who quotes the verses in his 

 work entitled ' De Civitate Dei,' informs us is to be understood as a 

 mystical epithet of our Saviour, who lived in this abyss of mortality 

 without contracting sin, in like manner as a fish exists in the midst of 

 the sea without acquiring any flavour of salt from the salt water. This 

 may be therefore called an acrostic within an acrostic. But there are 

 also other ways of complicating these ingenious productions. Addison, 

 wliu notices this along with other aorta of false wit, in his lively papers 

 on that subject, in the first volume of the ' Spectator,' says, " there 

 are compound acrostics, 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 

 are even instances of the same name being five times repeated in so 

 many successive columns. Such an acrostic has been designated a 

 pentacrostic. This species of elaborate trifling was extremely fashion- 

 able among the early French poet*, from the age of Francis I. down to 

 that of Louis XIV. Some also of our English poets of considerable 

 eminence used formerly to amuse themselves in the same way. Thus, 

 for instance, among the works of Sir John Davies, are twenty-six short 

 poems, entitled ' Hymns to Astnca,' each of which is an acrostic on the 

 words Rlizahetha Regina. These, which were first published about the 

 end of the 16th century, are ]ierliaps the most elegant compositions of 

 this description in any language. Afterwards such puerile ingenuity 

 fell into disrepute; and Dryden, in his ' Mac-Flecknoe ' (published 

 1682), thus contemptuously makes the dying monarch of the realms of 

 nonsense and dulness address his son and successor Shadwell : 



" I.rme writing plays, and choone for thy command 

 Some peaceful province in acrostic land." 



The acrostic, being addressed merely to the eye, and conveying no 

 pleasure either to the imagination or to the ear, cannot of course add 

 to the poetical effect of the lines which it ornaments any more than 

 would the printing of the initial letters in a differently coloured ink. 

 But it is sometimes useful, as an aid to the memory, in recollecting 

 such verses as are composed only to be got by heart, for the sake of 

 the facto of which they form a summary. Thus, in some editions of 

 the Latin dramatist Plautus, we find prefixed to each play a few verses 

 which contain at the same time an acrostic on its name and a sketch of 

 the plot. In this case, the knowledge of the initial letter of each line 

 must help the memory to recover it, if it should be forgotten. There 

 are two epigrams in the Greek Anthology, one in honour of Bacchus 

 and the other of Apollo, which are called acrostics, though of a some- 

 what peculiar fashion. Each contains twenty-five verses, of which the 

 first introduces the subject of the poem, and each of the twenty-four 

 others consists of four words, which are epithets of the god : all the 

 epithets in the first line begin with A, those in the second with B, and 

 These poems, therefore, are merely acrostics on the alphabet, 

 four deep. The .lews sometimes employ a sort of acrostic in designating 

 many of their writers. Thus the commentator on ' Maimonides,' Rabbi 

 Y-.ni Tof bar Abraham, is commonly called Ritba, from the initial 

 of the five words composing his full title. (In the article entitled 

 ' Literary Chronology,' in the ' Companion to the Almanac for 1832, 

 illustration of this practice are given.') The initial syllables of 



the verses of the Psalms were anciently called acrostics. The following 

 is a curious specimen of a Latin acrostic : 



S A T O R 

 A B B F 



T E X E T 

 O P E K A 

 ROTAS 



ACROTE'RION (in Architecture), from the Greek AKpumtpiov, ' the 

 extremity of anything.' It is used technically to designate the pedestal 

 which supports the statue or other ornament on the summit or upper 

 angle, and is sometimes applied also to the similar ornaments over the 

 feet, or lower angles, of a pediment ; in the latter case they are all 

 included under the plural acroteria. Some writers understand by this 

 term also the statues which are placed upon the pedestals, but this use 

 of the term is unsanctioned by any ancient authority. It may, how- 

 ever, with propriety be used much more extensively than has been 

 the custom. The Jlnial on the apex of a spire, pinnacle, or gable, 

 in works of pointed architecture, is an acroterion; and in St. Paul's 

 Cathedral in London, although the pediments over the entrance fronts 

 have their acroteria, yet the acroterion of the edifice is the cross which 

 surmounts the grand central part of the composition. This term is 

 not found in many ancient authors ; we derive it from Vitruvius, who 

 uses it in the plural sense above-mentioned. 

 ACRYL. [ACROLEIJIE.] 

 ACRYLIC ACID. [ACROLEIXE.] 

 ACT OF FAITH. [Arxo DA M.] 

 ACT OF PARLIAMENT. [STATUTE.] 



ACT. This word is a form of the Latin action, from the verb ayere, 

 which is used generally to express the doing of any act whatever. 

 Act ttui rerbitm t/enerale fit stive rerbitt sire re quid af/atttr (D. 50, 16, 19). 

 The Latin word Actio, from which our word action is derived, had, 

 among other significations, various legal meanings. Of these meanings 

 one of the most common was the proceeding by which a man pursued 

 a claim in a court of justice, who was accordingly in such case called 

 the Actor. (D. 40, 12, 7 sub fin., and ' Cicero in Partit.' c. 32.) In 

 this sense we have in our language the expression Action at Law. The 

 word Act, a thing done, is sometimes used to express an act or pro- 

 ceeding of a public nature, of which sense the most signal instance 

 among us is the term Act of Parliament, which means an act in which 

 the three component parts of the sovereign power in this country, 

 King, Lords, and Commons, unite ; in other words, a Law properly so 

 called. In this sense also, as expressing a proceeding of a public 

 nature, it is used in our English Universities to signify the exercise by 

 which a candidate for the higher degrees in Divinity, Law, and 

 Medicine shows his proficiency. In scholastic phrase, " to keep an 

 act" meant to perform publicly an exercise in Latin, accompanied 

 with a Latin thesis. The word Act is also sometimes applied to denote 

 the record of the Act, and by the expression Act of Parliament is now 

 generally understood the record of an Act of the Parliament, or the 

 written record of a Law. In the French language, also, the word actf 

 denotes a written record of a legal act, the original document, which 

 is either private, acte salts seiny jirirS, which requires the acknowledg- 

 ment of the parties in order to complete evidence (for the regulations 

 affecting which, see 'Code Civil.' art. 1322, et sef/.) t or a public 

 authenticated act, acte ai'.thentique, which, without such .acknowledg- 

 ment, is considered genuine and true, the probatio probata of that 

 which it contains. (' Code Civil.' art. 1317.) This meaning of the 

 word Act or Acts is derived from the Romans, among whom Acta 

 signified the records of proceedings, and especially public registers and 

 protocols in which the acts and decrees of the public bodies and 

 functionaries were entered, as Acta Populi, Principum, Senatus, 

 Magistratuum. (Sueton. ' Julius G'ses.' c. 20.) The ' Acta Publica,' or 

 ' Diurna ' or ' Acta Urbis," was a kind of Roman newspaper, or a species 

 of public journal for all Rome (Cic. Attic. 6.2.6; Tacitus, 'Ann.' HI 

 c. 21), as opposed to the private journal (diurna) which, according to the 

 old Roman love of order, each family had to keep. Augustus had one 

 kept in his house, in which were entered the employments and occu- 

 pations of the younger members of his family. Julius Cocsar 

 established the practice of drawing up and publishing the Acta both 

 of the senate and the people. (Suetonius, ' Julius Caesar,' 20.) 

 Augustus subsequently forbade the publication but not the drawing 

 up of the Acta, and the practice of keeping such records continued, in 

 some shape or other, even to the time of the Emperor Julian. Only 

 a few fragments of them are extant. They are not unfrequently 

 referred to as authorities by the Roman writers. (Sueton. ' Claudius,' 

 c. 41.) These Acta were journals of the proceedings of the bodies to 

 which they belonged, and of the chief events that took place in Rome. 

 When Suetonius says (' Augustus,' 36) that Augustus forbade the 

 publication of the Acta of the Senate, it must not be supposed, with 

 some critics, that the Senatus Consulta are included in the Acta, for 

 the business of writing and recording the former was a far more 

 solemn and important one, as may be seen in Livy (iii. 517) and 

 Suetonius (' Julius Ctcsar,' 28, and ' Augustus,' 94.) 



Under the Germanic Empire the term Acta Publica denoted the 

 official transactions of the empire, decrees and the reports of the same, 

 which were first collected under this title by Caspar Loedorpius 

 (Frankfort, 162V), and his continuators. 



