Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 24

OF ANAGRAMS AND ECHO VERSES.

The "true" modern critics on our elder writers are apt to thunder their anathemas on innocent heads: little versed in the eras of our literature, and the fas.h.i.+ons of our wit, popular criticism must submit to be guided by the literary historian.

Kippis condemns Sir Symonds D'Ewes for his admiration of two anagrams, expressive of the feelings of the times. It required the valour of Falstaff to attack extinct anagrams; and our pretended English Bayle thought himself secure in p.r.o.nouncing all anagrammatists to be wanting in judgment and taste: yet, if this mechanical critic did not know something of the state and nature of anagrams in Sir Symonds' day, he was more deficient in that curiosity of literature which his work required, than plain honest Sir Symonds in the taste and judgment of which he is so contemptuously deprived. The author who thus decides on the tastes of another age by those of his own day, and whose knowledge of the national literature does not extend beyond his own century, is neither historian nor critic. The truth is, that ANAGRAMS were then the fas.h.i.+onable amus.e.m.e.nts of the wittiest and the most learned.

Kippis says, and others have repeated, "That Sir Symonds D'Ewes's judgment and taste, with regard to wit, were as contemptible as can well be imagined, will be evident from the following pa.s.sage taken from his account of Carr Earl of Somerset, and his wife: 'This discontent gave many satirical wits occasion to vent themselves into stingie [stinging]

libels, in which they spared neither the persons nor families of that unfortunate pair. There came also two anagrams to my hands, _not unworthy to be owned by the rarest wits of this age_.' These were, one very descriptive of the lady, and the other, of an incident in which this infamous woman was so deeply criminated.

FRANCES HOWARD. THOMAS OVERBURIE.

_Car finds a Wh.o.r.e. O! O! base Murther_."

This sort of wit is not falser at least than the criticism which infers that D'Ewes' "judgment and taste were as contemptible as can well be;"

for he might have admired these anagrams, which, however, are not of the nicest construction, and yet not have been so dest.i.tute of those qualities of which he is so authoritatively divested.

Camden has a chapter in his "Remains" on ANAGRAMS, which he defines to be a dissolution of a (person's) name into its letters, as its elements; and a new connexion into words is formed by their transposition, if possible, without addition, subtraction, or change of the letters: and the words must make a sentence applicable to the person named. The Anagram is complimentary or satirical; it may contain some allusion to an event, or describe some personal characteristic.[113]

Such difficult trifles it may be convenient at all times to discard; but, if ingenious minds can convert an ANAGRAM into a means of exercising their ingenuity, the things themselves will necessarily become ingenious. No ingenuity can make an ACROSTIC ingenious; for this is nothing but a mechanical arrangement of the letters of a name, and yet this literary folly long prevailed in Europe.

As for ANAGRAMS, if antiquity can consecrate some follies, they are of very ancient date. They were cla.s.sed, among the Hebrews, among the cabalistic sciences; they pretended to discover occult qualities in proper names; it was an oriental practice; and was caught by the Greeks.

Plato had strange notions of the influence of _Anagrams_ when drawn out of persons' names; and the later Platonists are full of the mysteries of the anagrammatic virtues of names. The chimerical a.s.sociations of the character and qualities of a man with his name anagrammatised may often have instigated to the choice of a vocation, or otherwise affected his imagination.

Lycophron has left some on record,--two on Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, King of Egypt, and his Queen Arsinoe. The king's name was thus anagrammatised:--

?????????S, ?p? e??t??, MADE OF HONEY:

and the queen's,

??S????, ??a? ???, JUNO'S VIOLET.

Learning, which revived under Francis the First in France, did not disdain to cultivate this small flower of wit. Daurat had such a felicity in making these trifles, that many ill.u.s.trious persons sent their names to him to be anagrammatised. Le Laboureur, the historian, was extremely pleased with the anagram made on the mistress of Charles the Ninth of France. Her name was

_Marie Touchet_.

JE CHARME TOUT:

which is historically just.

In the a.s.sa.s.sin of Henry the Third,

_Frere Jacques Clement_,

they discovered

C'EST L'ENFER QUI M'A CReE.

I preserve a few specimens of some of our own anagrams. The mildness of the government of Elizabeth, contrasted with her intrepidity against the Iberians, is thus picked out of her t.i.tle; she is made the English ewe-lamb, and the lioness of Spain:--

_Elizabetha Regina Angliae_.

ANGLIS AGNA, HIBERIae LEA.

The unhappy history of Mary Queen of Scots, the deprivation of her kingdom, and her violent death, were expressed in this Latin anagram:--

_Maria Steuarda Scotorum Regina_: TRUSA VI REGNIS, MORTE AMARA CADO:

and in

_Maria Stevarta_ VERITAS ARMATA.

Another fanciful one on our James the First, whose rightful claim to the British monarchy, as the descendant of the visionary Arthur, could only have satisfied genealogists of romance reading:--

_Charles James Steuart_.

CLAIMS ARTHUR'S SEAT.

Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas, considered himself fortunate when he found in the name of his sovereign the strongest bond of affection to his service. In the dedication he rings loyal changes on the name of his liege, _James Stuart_ in which he finds _a just master!_

The anagram on Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, on the restoration of Charles the Second, included an important date in our history:--

_Georgius Monke, Dux de Aumarle.

Ego regem reduxi AnSa_. MDCLVV.

A slight reversing of the letters in a name produced a happy compliment; as in _Vernon_ was found _Renoun_; and the celebrated Sir Thomas _Wiat_ bore his own designation in his name, _a Wit_.[114] Of the poet _Waller_ the anagrammatist said,

His brows need not with Lawrel to be bound, Since in his _name_ with _Lawrel_ he is crown'd.

_Randle Holmes_, who has written a very extraordinary volume on heraldry, was complimented by an expressive anagram:--

_Lo, Men's Herald!_

These anagrams were often devoted to the personal attachments of love or friends.h.i.+p. A friend delighted to twine his name with the name of his friend. _Crashawe_, the poet, had a literary intimate of the name of _Car_, who was his posthumous editor; and, in prefixing some elegiac lines, discovers that his late friend Crashawe was Car; for so the anagram of _Crashawe_ runs: _He was Car._ On this quaint discovery, he has indulged all the tenderness of his recollections:--

Was Car then Crashawe, or was Crashawe Car?

Since both within one name combined are.

Yes, Car's Crashawe, he Car; 'tis Love alone Which melts two hearts, of both composing one, So Crashawe's still the same, &c.

A happy anagram on a person's name might have a moral effect on the feelings: as there is reason to believe, that certain celebrated names have had some influence on the personal character. When one _Martha Nicholson_ was found out to be _Soon calm in Heart_, the anagram, in becoming familiar to her, might afford an opportune admonition. But, perhaps, the happiest of anagrams was produced on a singular person and occasion. Lady Eleanor Davies, the wife of the celebrated Sir John Davies, the poet, was a very extraordinary character. She was the Ca.s.sandra of her age; and several of her predictions warranted her to conceive she was a prophetess. As her prophecies in the troubled times of Charles I. were usually against the government, she was at length brought by them into the court of High Commission. The prophetess was not a little mad, and fancied the spirit of Daniel was in her, from an anagram she had formed of her name--

ELEANOR DAVIES.

REVEAL O DANIEL!

The anagram had too much by an L, and too little by an s; yet _Daniel_ and _reveal_ were in it, and that was sufficient to satisfy her inspirations. The court attempted to dispossess the spirit from the lady, while the bishops were in vain reasoning the point with her out of the scriptures, to no purpose, she poising text against text:--one of the deans of the Arches, says Heylin, "shot her thorough and thorough with an arrow borrowed from her own quiver:" he took a pen, and at last hit upon this elegant anagram:

DAME ELEANOR DAVIES.

NEVER SO MAD A LADIE!

The happy fancy put the solemn court into laughter, and Ca.s.sandra into the utmost dejection of spirit. Foiled by her own weapons, her spirit suddenly forsook her; and either she never afterwards ventured on prophesying, or the anagram perpetually reminded her hearers of her state--and we hear no more of this prophetess!