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know what mighty planet had fallen, leav-| It is as well for the anagrammatist to be ing the people in darkness. Some, con- certain of the correct way of spelling the sidering the military skill of the dead name which he intends to anagrammatize. man, said it was Mars; some Jupiter, as A story is told of a gentleman who expehe was a juvans pater to three nations. rienced a great failure owing to a want of The poet leaving us in doubt as to the care in this respect. He intended to complanet, considers Oliver as an olive- pliment a lady of considerable beauty to branch of peace, and with many compli- whom he was paying his addresses. Unments to him and his family, introduces able to purchase fame by keen iambics, the following anagrams, in English, Lat- he ventured on a mild anagram. The in, and Welsh, upon his name. In Eng- lady's name was, as he understood it, lish: "O welcom' reliver;" "Rule wel- Elizabeth Chumley. Not having talents com' Roy; "Com' live our rule." In sufficient for the Elizabeth - over which Latin: Cor verum vel sol visu." In poor word, though tortured in a thousand Welsh: "Y lleu mor cower" ("the lion ways, a retrograde planet still seemed to so true"); "Lleu cower y mor" ("the hang- he considered it allowable, not true sea-lion"); "Lleu grea o Cymra" being a strict anagrammatist, to change it ("the best lion of Wales"). Not being into "Bess." Having confined himself acquainted with the Welsh language, we in his study for several months, in spite cannot vouch for the accuracy of these of a plentiful lack of wit, by dint of untranslations; indeed we are much inclined wearied toil, he at last reached the promto suspect that of one of the two first, as, ised land. His anagram was this, "Angel though the words are the same, a new best Lumley." The only objection to it idea seems to be introduced in the sec- is that the last word is a trifle too like the ond. But the anagrams are exact, and original, having besides no decided meanthe Latin one presents a happy combina- ing, and the letters of the first word are tion. With regard to Elizabeth Crom- not found in the remaining subject ("ch"). well, the anagrammatist hovers upon the The gem was, however, set in an enchased verge of impoliteness, "Be comelier with setting possessing a poetic character, and zeal." Another of the same lady, in which necessarily of the lover's own composis is written for z, and the surname is spelt tion: with one 1, is not open to the same objecSTANZA I. tion: "Chast' love be my rule." Bridget Fleetwood, a member of the family, becomes "O tru' gifted beloved; "and Mary Faulconbridge, also a member, "Go main careful bride." This last is not exact by the addition of an e: the y and i are of course regarded as interchangeable.

Thomas Heywood has left us some anagrams on the names of certain men of his time. One on Sir Thomas Coventry, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, dedicated to him in some acrostic verses, "To charm out sin;" another rather antiquated, "O hye constant mure." One on Lady Robert Anna Carre, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, "Rarer cannot bear." One on that "worthy and most religious knight, Sir Paul Pindar." " Pray'r in D. Paul." The verses, an acrostic, begin thus,

Sir Paul, of all that ever boare that name,

You to Saint Paul most deare are, and may

claime

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Most divine! adorable of women!
Bess Chumley!

Accept the following slight tribute of undying
affection, and heartfelt love
From me "best Lumley."

Angel!

STANZA II.

Upon presenting this child of his imagination to his lady, the reader may imagine his chagrin and disgust when he, that "homo miserrimæ patientiæ," was told by her with some asperity that her surname was not Chumley but Cholmondely. “Ibi omnis effusus labor." The writer is said to have soon afterwards lost his senses, which had been considerably impaired by the composition of his anagram.

With this story may be compared Disraeli's story of Frenzelius, a German who prided himself upon perpetuating the name of

time by an anagram; but is said to have every eminent person who died in his experienced such mortal throes during their composition that he seemed to share in the last pangs of the dead he helped to make illustrious.

The old word for anagram was anagrammatism. The difference between them seemed to be this, that anagrammatism

refers rather to the work of transposition | seen Piso died soon after of the very sickof the letters of a word, while anagram ness under which he then laboured. For signifies the result of such transposition. Piso had seemed to present to him ointSo epigram signifies the thing inscribed and not the work of inscription. The English word inscription, by the way, has the meaning of inscript.

The numerical anagrams of the Italians, which are represented by the English chronograms, are the Greek loopnooi; in which the numerical value of the letters of two words or sets of words is the same. The reader will understand that in Greek, as in Hebrew, letters served to express numbers.

These loonoo are mentioned by Gellius. They were considered by him with disfavour. A quantity of them were brought to him by a learned friend, in a book which he was at first inclined to regard as the horn of Achelous, filled with first fruits for Plenty by the Naiads, and shut himself up that he might read it without interruption. But the book contained, "oh, Jupiter! a mere collection of strange tales; such as who was the first called a grammarian, and wherefore Telemachus reposing touched not Pisistratus reposing near him with his hand, but raised him from sweet sleep by a kick with his heel. There also were written down the iconoo or equinumeral verses of Homer, and his acrostichs. These and many other such things were contained in this book."

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ments, which for a sick man was of evil omen, as with them they anoint the dead. The dream of the sailor is unlike to this. For to him asking in his dream whether he should come to Rome, a phantasm answered "No!" using the Greek word ov. Yet he arrived there in 450 days. For it was all the same, whether the phantasm had told him this number, or the letters which signified it. The reason of inferiority of numbers is assigned by some for the victory of Hector over Patroclus, and of Achilles over Hector.

In Daniel and Deborah Dove, written with considerable licence in Greek speling, the worthy "Doctor " found the prime number 761. Herein was a mystery. There could be no division between himself and his wife. They would continue to be in all respects as they had been "duæ animæ in carne una,” two persons with but one disposition. But when the Doctor remembered that 1761 was the year of their marriage, supplying the deficient thousand with two M's for marriage and matrimony, he became delirious with joy, which the resemblance between "marriage" and "matrimony," urged by hostile critics, diminished not a tittle.

An

Daniel Dove extracted the quintessence So Anuayopas (Demagoras) was compli- of his own name, finding the mournful mented with the term 20s (pest). The result, "leaden void," which he considsum of the numbers expressed by the let-ered as inappropriate as that of Marguerite ters in the two names being identical and de Valois, "de vertu royal image.' equal 420. A "stingless jest" in the other "vel dona dei" presented the faint opinion of Southey, and showing the mal- semblance of a less unhappy meaning. ice rather than the wit of the satirist. So Had one letter of Dove been changed, he Heliodorus says that the Nile is nothing might have become “Ovid.” Thus he else than the year, founding his opinion felt like the man whose lottery ticket was on the fact that the numbers expressed next in number to the 20,000l. prize. by the letters of the Neios, Nile, are in "Such a superstition," says Southey, Greek arithmetic, N=50; E=5; 1= 10; "has been and ever will be latent in the A= 30; 0=70; Σ = 200; and these fig-most rational of men." So Barton beures make up together 365, the number of lieved there was some secret power and days in the year. He does not seem to virtue in names. Unfortunately, however have reflected that Nenog is not a word of for this idea, the same name makes both Greek origin. Artemidorus, in his inter- good and evil, as in the case of Eleanor pretation of dreams, warns us to beware Davies, the wife of the poet, and the Casof forming our loonoo incorrectly, lest sandra of her age. Having formed the being deceived we become inglorious. A impure anagram "Reveal Ŏ Daniel" on certain man, he says, lay sick, and dreamed her name, she made herself the organ of that one called Piso appeared to him. An prophecies disagreeable to the governoneirophant explained this of sure felicity, ment, a proceeding which nothing could and that the sick person would live for check, but an arrow borrowed from her ninety years longer, framing his conjec- own quiver; "Dame Eleanor Davies," i.e. tures from the first syllable of Piso written" never so mad a lady." Upon this being in Greek character, which presents the sent to her by an obliging friend, who number 90. Nevertheless, he who had had the interest of peace at heart, she re

by another of the same value. As an example of this, in Gen xviii. 2. "Lo! three men stood by him," it is said that these were the angels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, because the letters composing their names have the same numerical value as those in the original verse.

tired into private life, ceased from her third part of their art, which they call charming agony, and her voice was heard Themura, or change, is concerned with no more. So Calvin, in the title of his nothing but the process of making them. Institutions printed at Strasburg in 1539, By them they find many mysterious hidcalls himself Alcuinus, the anagram of den and extraordinary senses in the Calvinus, and the name of a person of words of Holy Writ. Out of Noah, by some learning in the time of Charlemagne, transposition of the Hebrew letters, they contributing greatly to its restoration in obtain "grace;" and out of "Messiah," that age. But François Rabelais (Alco-" and he will rejoice." These examples fribas Nasier), in whose name, written in are some of the most simple, and of those Latin, Calvin had found "rabie læsus," not revolting to the Christian reader. found for him, en revanche, an anagram The Cabbalists have also chronograms, of quite an opposite character, "Jan Cul." known in their system as ypauuarεía, in There are several happy anagrams in the sense of letters representing numbers. French, as, for instance, that, historically This word is technically used to express just in sense, of the so-called daughter of an exegetical rule, according to which the Orleans apothecary, the charming every letter of a word is reduced to its "Marie Touchet," mistress of Charles numerical value, and the word explained IX., "Je charme tout." Of Pierre de Ronsard, "Rose de Pindare," wherein, by an æquitas prætoria, the omission of two r's may be pardoned for the elegance of the resulting sense. Of Frère Jacques Clément, the assassin of Henri III., "C'est l'enfer qui m'a créé." Of Louis de Boucherat, chancellor, "Est la bouche The Cabbalists, it may be said en du roi." That of Pierre Coton, Jesuit passant, have many conceits of this kind. and confessor of Henri IV., " Perce ton Out of the letters forming the word roi," is undeserved, and, therefore, worth-"man" they compose "benediction," less. Of Pilatre du Rosier, an aeronant and out of those forming woman who had the misfortune to fall from his "curse." With this we may compare balloon on the 15th June, 1785, "Tu es their anagram of "Væ" from "Eva," proie de l'air." The reader who cares to because, they say, she was the cause of investigate this anagram will find an r all our woes. Such misogynistic contriomitted. It is consequently inexact. In vances come meetly from the mouths of the next an s will be found added, Louis those, a part of whose thanksgiving in Quatorsième, roi de France et de Na- their order for daily prayer was once varre, "Va, Dieu confondra l'armée qui wont to be "Blessed art thou, that thou osera le résister." The temptation to hast not made me a woman, O Lord our add or subtract a letter in the case of a God." lengthy anagram, successful only if such addition or subtraction is made, must be almost irresistible; but the anagram as an anagram is spoiled.

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The number of changes which may be formed out of any given word is easily found by the mathematical doctrine of permutations. In the mystic words of Anagrams are sometimes employed in the Kabbala, "Two letters build two heraldry. The House of Loraine bears houses, three letters build six houses, les "alérions" or eaglets. J. B. Rous- four build four and twenty houses, five seau, ashamed of his father the cobbler, build a hundred and twenty houses, six changed his name into Verniettes. In build seven hundred and twenty houses which Saurin discovered, what the au-... Go forth and imagine what neither thor probably least intended, "Tu te the mouth is able to speak nor the ear is

renies."

So when Bonaparte came into power, the words La Révolution Française produced this anagram, " Un Corse la finira." But, in 1815, party-spirit discovered in the same words "La France veut son roi." Both these anagrams are, however, though witty, inexact.

The Cabbalists among the Jews are, as might be expected from what has been said above, mighty in anagrams. The

able to hear."— Ch. iv. Mishna iv.

German anagrams are comparatively. rare. They may be said, from the specímen mentioned by Wheatley, to be as poor as they are rare. This is the specimen. At the general peace of 1814, a portion of Saxony fell to the share of Prussia. The king, to commemorate this addition to his kingdom, issued a new coinage of rix-dollars, with the name ein Reichsthaler. The Saxons by that collat

eral species of anagram before-men- | gram which exists upon his name. tioned, divided this word into ein Reich John Abernethy was metamorphosed into stahl er (he stole a kingdom). So the " 'Johnny the Bear." Even "Ursa MaFrench in La Sainte Alliance found La jor," says Southey, "would not dispute Sainte Canaille. The derivations of Le- his title. Has any one who knows ben (life) from Nebel (a cloud), and of Sarg (a coffin) from Gras (grass), are simply palindromes.

Italian anagrams are still rarer than German. If in the one following the ladysubject was as beautiful as the anagram is happy, she must have been indeed a cynosure for neighbouring eyes. Anna Dudlæia, E la nuda Diana. In this, there is a diæresis of the dipthong, which is allowed even in the pure anagram.

'Johnny the Bear' heard his name thus anagrammatized without a smile! We may be sure he smiled and growled at the same time when he first heard it himself."

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Of the legion of complimentary anagrams on persons of wealth and rank, which have been composed by hungry and needy anagram-mongers,' as the Water Poet calls them, who was himself no bad example of the class, no mention has been made. They possessed little interest for any but the persons whose names they ornamented, and the composers whom their fair seeming nour

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Anagrams have been, we have already said, frequently used as noms de guerre. So Voltaire is derived from Arouet 1. j. or Arouet le jeune. "Frip," the signature of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, is an ana-ished with bread. Out of this class, howgram of his initials. So W. Jerdan wrote ever, we must except Mr. Tash, an for the Literary Gazette under the title of especial man in this faculty," who anaW. J. André. Another celebrated poet grammatized Lord Bacon's name thus known, like Voltaire, to few but by his Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Keeper, nom de plume, was Bryan Waller Procter, Is born and elect for a rich speaker whose name was metamorphosed by an impure anagrammatism into" Barry Corn- on account of the goodness of this anawall, poet," or "toper," whichever qual- gram, and him who wrote ification may be preferred.

Retrograde anagrams, or those formed by the reading the letters backwards, belong to the species of palindromes or Καρκινοι. Οf these we have an example in "deliver" from "reviled."* Anagrams with a retrograde meaning are presented to us in "untie" from "unite," in "real fun" from "funeral," "love to ruin " from "revolution," and in "repel," which is also a palindrome, from "leper." Many more might be added, were it not in the words of Lamennais, "triste de s'ennuyer, pour ennuyer les autres."

About a quarter of a century ago flourished an eminent physician, who was so bad a tradesman, and withal so wise a man, as to declare ruthless war against tight-lacing, &c., as regards ladies, and overfeeding, &c., as regards gentlemen. This child of light gave his opinions, of a sour sort, in unvarnished language, and would sooner offend the fashionable sensibilities of a patient than tell a lie. Notwithstanding these eccentricities, he managed to obtain and secure a large number of patients, some one of whom, irritated by his moral roughness and unpolished expressions, probably invented the ana

Akin to these are words which are the same whether

read backwards or forwards. Such a word was the title of "Glenelg," chosen by the late Mr. Charles Grant, so succus, malam, oro, &c.

John Wilson anagr. John Wilson. Oh change it not! no sweeter name or thing Throughout the world within our ears shall ring

on account of its heterodox politeness.

There are, doubtless, still many anagrammatists silver-tongued, and witty enough to convert Benlowes into Benevolus, as they did in the days of Pope; that the "poor gentleman to verify their anagram may spend his estate upon them."

Anagrams are not uncommon on tombs. For certain minds, as has been before observed, anagrams contained a religious importance. Some of the most remarkable are, one on Maria Arundel, “Man a dry laurel," and another on an old lady of sixty-six, who lies buried in Taplow church, and has this somewhat inappropriate anagram inscribed upon her tomb, Hester Mansfield "Mars fled in thee." The Pagan God, it would appear from some doggrel that is subjoined, fled before her when lecturing on true charity. The anagram of John Bunyan (Nu hony in a B), composed by himself, presents a striking example of a victory over orthographical difficulties.

The impure anagrams of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, who was found murdered on the south side of Primrose Hill," By

Rome's rude finger die," "I find murder'd by rogues," the pure ones of Horatio Nelson, "Honor est a Nilo," and of William Noy, the proposer of ship-money, "I moyl in law," may serve for mnemonic references to the student of English history.

Such are the quirks and quiddities of modern literature, which might have puzzled the old Cabiri.

But let us conclude in the terms of the learned Camden: "It is time to stay, for some of the sour sort begin to laugh at these, when as yet they have no better Fuller concludes the life of John Whit- insight in anagrams than wise Sieur Gaugift, that mirror of prelates, largely writ- lard, who when he heard a gentleman reten in his ecclesiastical history, with an port that he was at a supper, where they impure anagram, in respect of his mild had not only good company and good proceedings - upon his name, Joannes cheer, but also savoury epigrams and fine Whitegifteus, "Non vi egit, favet Jesus." anagrams: he returning home, rated and And a man of entirely different complex-belouted his cook as an ignorant scullion ion of life, Ben Jonson, in his Hymenæi, that never dressed or served up to him has not thought an anagram unworthy of his learning. Juno is discovered in the clear æther sitting on a throne, her attire rich and queenlike, a white diadem on her head, in one hand a sceptre, and in the other a timbrel, and at her golden feet a lion's hide. Around her the spirits of the air make music, and Reason thus addresses the audience in her introduction:

And see where Juno, whose great name
Is Unio, in her anagram,
Displays her glittering state and chair, &c.

The following anagram on "Egypt's favourite," by Sir F. Hubert, is of a consolatory character:

And, Joseph, though thy sufferings be most

great,

Yet thinke upon the letters of thy name:
Which being inverted, bring some comfort yet,
For [Hope is] is [Joseph], his anagrame.
Of Edmund Waller, the poet, was writ-

ten:

His brows need not with laurel to be bound,

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Since in his name with "lawrel" he is crowned. In Maunder's Treasury, "her most gracious Majesty, Alexandrina Victoria," is transformed into "Ah, my extravagant, joco-serious, radical minister; with which absurdity may be compared, to its honour, the anagram on Florence Nightingale, "Flit on, cheering angel." The following quaint conceits have all been collected by Mr. Wheeler, to whose ingenuity in seeking words in words we have been much indebted in the present paper: Lawyers (sly-ware); matrimony (into my arm); melodrama (made moral); Old England (golden land); soldiers (lo! I dress); solemnity (yes, Milton); poorhouse (O sour hope); telegraph (great help); Notes and Queries (O! send in a request); understanding (red nuts and gin); sweetheart (there we sat); charades (hard case); and catalogue (got as a clue).

either epigrams or anagrams. And as for these sour surlings, they are to be commended to Sieur Gaulard, and he with them jointly to their cooks and kitchenstuff."

From The Spectator.

LORD LYTTON ON NAMES, AND THEIR
INFLUENCE.

IN the amusing opening of Lord Lytton's posthumous novel, "Kenelm Chillingly," there are some admirable remarks on the moral responsibilities of parents for the names they give to their children. Sir Peter Chillingly is very hard on his own name, and ascribes his mediocrity in great measure to it. "Peter," he says, to the assembled family council, "has been for many generations, as you are aware, the baptismal to which the eldest born of our family has been devoted. On the altar of that name I have been sacrificed. Never has there been a Sir Peter Chil

lingly who has in any way distinguished himself above his fellows. That name has been a dead-weight on my intellectual energies. In the catalogue of illustrious Englishmen there is, I think, no immortal Sir Peter, except Sir Peter Teazle, and he only exists on the comic stage ;" and Sir Peter Chillingly might have added that Sir Peter Teazle is immortal only for the amusement he affords to others, not for any intrinsic capacity. One of the family council, however, suggests

"Sir Peter Lely," on which Sir Peter Chillingly replies with unanswerable force, "that painter was not an Englishman. He was born in Westphalia, famous for hams. I confine my remarks to the children of our native land. I am aware that in foreign countries the name is not an extinguisher to the genius of its owner. But why? In other countries its

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