Among the Antients, the Term Abecedarius was peculiarly applied to those Compositions wherein the initial Letters of each Strophe, or some times even of each Verse, follow'd the Order of the Alphabet.
Such, in Holy Scripture, are the CXVIIIth Psalm, and the Lamentations of Jeremy : from which it should seem, as is the Hebrews had been the Inventors of this Kind of Poetry ; contrived, no doubt, to assist the Memory.