  Anagrams are curious and frequently clever examples of formal literary trifling. Camden, in his “Remains,” gave to the world a treatise showing that in his day anagrams were endowed with an undue and superstitious importance, being regarded as nothing less than the occult and mysterious finger of Fate, revealed in the names of men. “The only quintessence,” says this old writer, “that hitherto the alchemy of wit could draw out of names, is anagrammatisme or metagrammatisme, which is the dissolution of a name, truly written, into the letters as its elements, and a new connection of it by artificial transposition, without addition, subtraction, or change of any letter, into different words, making some perfect sense applicable to the person named.” Precise anagrammatists adhere strictly to these rules, with the exception of omitting or retaining the letter h according to their convenience, alleging that h Camden places the origin of the anagram as far back as the time of Moses, and conjectures that it may have had some share in the mystical traditions, afterwards called the “Cabala,” communicated by the Jewish lawgiver. One part of the art of the cabalists lay in what they called themuru—that is, changing—or finding the hidden and mystical meaning in names, which they did by transposing and fantastically combining the letters in those names. Thus of the letters of Noah’s name in Hebrew they made Grace, and of the Messiah’s He shall rejoice. Whether the above origin be theoretical or not, the anagram can be Among the moderns, the French have most cultivated the anagram. Camden says: “They exceedingly admire the anagram, for the deep and far-fetched antiquity and mystical meaning therein. In the reign of Francis the First (when learning began to revive), they began to distil their wits therein.” There is a curious anecdote of an anagrammatist who presented a king of France with the two following upon his name of Bourbon:
That is, “Bourbon good to the world;” or “Bourbon destitute of good;” while on another celebrated Frenchman we have—
Southey, in his “Doctor,” says that “anagrams are not likely ever again to hold so high a place among the prevalent pursuits of literature as they did in the seventeenth century. But no person,” he continues, “will ever hit upon an apt one without feeling that degree of pleasure with which any odd
While Andreas Rudiger was yet a student at college, and intending to become a physician, he one day pulled the Latinised form of his name to pieces, Andreas Rudigeras, and borrowing an i, transposed it into Arare Rus Dei Dignus (“Worthy to cultivate the land of God”). He fancied from this that he had a divine call to become an ecclesiastic, and thereupon gave up the study of medicine for theology. Soon after, Rudiger became tutor in the family of the philosopher Thomasius, who one day told him “that he would greatly benefit the journey of his life by turning it towards physic.” Rudiger confessed that his tastes lay rather in that direction than to theology, but having looked upon the anagram of his name as an indication of a divine call, he had not dared to turn away from theology. “How simple you have been,” replied Thomasius; “it is just that very anagram which calls you towards medicine—‘Rus Dei,’ the land An anagram on Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle on the restoration of Charles II., forms also a chronogram, including the date of the event it records—
In this anagram the c takes the place of the k. The old Puritan biographer, Cotton Mather, claims for John Wilson—the subject of one of his lives—the kingship of anagrammatising. “Of all the anagrammatisers,” he says in the third book of his “Magnalia Christi Americana,” “that have been trying their fancies for the 2000 years that have run out since the days of Lycophron, or the more than 5000 since the days of our first father, I believe there never was a man that made so many, or so nimbly, as our Mr. Wilson; who, together with his quick turns upon the names of his friends, would ordinarily fetch, and rather than lose, would even force, devout instructions out of This said John Wilson “forced instruction” out of his own name—first rendering it into Latin, Johannes Wilsonus, he found this anagram in it, “In uno Jesu nos salvi” (We are saved in one Jesus). This mode of Latinising names was common enough among those who liked this literary folly; thus we have Sir Robert Viner, or Robertus Vinerus, rendered “Vir Bonus et Rarus” (a good and rare man). The disciples of Descartes made a perfect anagram upon the Latinised name of their master, “Renatus Cartesius,” one which not only takes up every letter, but which also expresses their opinion of that master’s speciality—“Tu scis res naturÆ” (Thou knowest the things of nature). Pierre de St. Louis became a Carmelite monk on discovering that his name yielded a direction to that effect:
Occasionally when the anagram of a name did not make sense, there was added a rhyme to bring out a meaning. Thus, in a sermon preached by Dr. Edward Reynolds upon Peter Whalley, and entitled “Death’s Advantage,” every letter of the name is to be found in the first line of this verse:
In this sermon Peter Whalley is also anagrammatised into A Whyte Perle—this would not be a bad one, if orthography were of as little consequence as many of the old triflers in this way used to account it. We read that when Alexander the Great was baffled before the walls of Tyre, and was about to raise the siege, he had a dream wherein he saw a satyr leaping about and trying to seize him. He consulted his sages, who read in the word Satyrus (the Greek for satyr), “Sa Tyrus”—“Tyre is In a “New Help to Discourse” (London, 1684), there is one with a very quaint exposition: Toast—A Sott.
It will be seen, however, that anagrams have chiefly been made upon proper names, and a reversing of their letters may sometimes pay the owner a compliment; as of the poet Waller:
George Thompson, the well-known anti-slavery advocate, was at one time solicited to go into parliament for the more efficient serving of the cause he had so much at heart. The question whether he would comply with this request or not was submitted to his friends, and one of them gave the following for answer:
This clever instance was given in “Notes and Queries” a short time ago:
The following are additional instances.
When, at the General Peace of 1814, Prussia absorbed a portion of Saxony, the king issued a new coinage of rix dollars, with their German name, Ein Reichstahler, impressed on them. The Saxons, by dividing the word, Ein Reich stahl er, made a sentence of which the meaning is, “He stole a kingdom!” A good one is—
If we take from the words, La Revolution FranÇaise, the word veto, known as the first prerogative of Louis XIV., the remaining letters will form “Un Corse la finira”—A Corsican shall end it, and this may be regarded as an extraordinary coincidence, if nothing more. Many anagrams were made upon the name of Napoleon by superstitious persons, as—
A very apt anagram is the one founded upon—Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, I find murdered by rogues. Evil.
The following are very apposite—
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