ANAGRAMS.
You have now completed the third volume of "NOTES AND QUERIES," and, to the no small surprise of all lovers of "jeux de mots," not a single specimen of the genus Anagram has found its way into your columns. To what are we to ascribe such a circumstance? The ancients were not ashamed to indulge in this intellectual pastime, and their anagrams, says Samuel Maunder, occasionally contained some happy allusion. The moderns have given unequivocal proofs of their fecundity in the same line, and the anagrammatic labours of the French nation alone would form several volumes. Indeed, to that nation belongs the honour of having introduced the anagram; and such is the estimation in which "the art" was held by them at one time, that their kings were provided with a salaried Anagrammatist, as ours are with a pensioned Laureate. How comes it then that a species of composition, once so popular, has found no representative among the many learned correspondents of your popular periodical? Has the anagram become altogether extinct, or is it only awaiting the advent of some competent genius to restore it to its proper rank in the republic of letters?
To me it is clear that the real cause of the prevailing dearth of anagrams is the great difficulty of producing good ones. Good anagrams are, to say the least of it, quite as scarce as good epic poems; for, if it be true that the utmost efforts of the human intellect have not given birth to more than six good epic poems, it is no less true that the utmost exertion of human ingenuity has not brought forth more than half a dozen good anagrams. Some critics are of opinion that we do possess six good epic poems. Now, where shall we find six good anagrams? If they exist, let them be exhibited in the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES."
Indeed, it may be said that the anagram and the epic poem are the alpha and omega of literature. I am aware that by thus placing them in juxtaposition the contrast may have the effect of disparaging the anagram. The epic poem will naturally enough suggest the idea of the sublime, and the anagram, as naturally, that of the ridiculous: and then it will be said that between the two there is but a step. But let any gentleman make the experiment, and he will find that, instead of a step, the intermediate space will present to his astonished legs a surface co-extensive with the wide field of modern mediocrity. As for myself, I have ransacked in search of anagrams every hole and corner in ancient and modern literature, and have found very few samples worthy of the name. Reserving the ancients for future consideration, let us see what the moderns have to boast of in this respect.
And first, what says Isaac Disraeli? Anagrams being literary curiosities, one would naturally expect to meet with some respectable samples of them in that writer's Curiosities of Literature. Yet, what do we find? Among about a score which he quotes, there is not one that can be reckoned a tolerable anagram, while by far the greater number are no anagrams at all. An anagram is the change of a word or sentence into another word or sentences by an exact transposition of the letters. Where a single letter is either omitted or added, the anagram is incomplete. Of this description are the following, cited by Disraeli:—
"Thomas Overburie,
"O! O! base murther."
"Charles James Stewart,
"Claims Arthur's Seat."
"Martha Nicholson,
"Soon calm at heart."
I next turned to Samuel Maunder and his Scientific and Literary Treasury, little suspecting that, in a repertory bearing so ambitious a title, I should fail to discover the object of my search. True, he quotes the anagram made by Dr. Burney after the battle of the Nile:
"Horatio Nelson,
"Honor est a Nilo."
And this, it must be confessed, is one of the best on record. The transposition is complete, and the allusion most apposite. But with that exception, what does this pretended Treasury disclose? A silly attempt to anagrammatise the name of our beloved queen; thus:
"Her most gracious Majesty Alexandrina Victoria,
"Ah! my extravagant joco-serious radical Minister!"
coupled with the admission that nothing can be more ridiculous or inapplicable, and that one-half of the anagrams in existence are not a whit less absurd. And yet, for this piece of absurdity, as well as for another of the same calibre, on—
"His Grace the Duke of Wellington,
"Well fought, K—! no disgrace in thee,"
Mr. Maunder claims the merit of originality. In other words (which are no other than his own), he claims merit for being "puerile," "ridiculous," and "absurd." Alas! for the credit of anagrams! Alas! for the reputation of Galileo, Newton, and other philosophers, who could make great discoveries, and resort to anagrams to announce them to the world, but who were incapable of discovering that an anagram was an absurdity!
Finding matters at so low an ebb in our own literature, and that English anagrams are little better than Irish bulls, I directed my attention to the literary records of the French, among whom the anagrammatic bump is very prominent. From its character, and the process of its formation, the anagram is peculiarly adapted to the genius of that people. It is light and airy: so are they. It is conceited and fantastical: so are they. It seems to be what it is not: so do they. Its very essence is transposition, involution; what one might call a sort of Jump-Jim-Crow-ism: and so is theirs. Hence the partiality which they have always shown for the anagram: their Rebuses, Almanacs, Annuaires, and collections of trifles are full of them. One-half of the disguises adopted by their anonymous writers are in the shape of anagrams, formed from their names; and one of them has gone the length of composing and publishing a poem of 1200 lines, every line of which contains an anagram. The name assumed by the author (Gabriel Antoine Joseph Hécart) is L'Anagramme d'Archet; and the book bears the title of Anagramméana, Poëme en VIII Chants, XCVe Edition, à Anagrammatopolis, l'An XIV de l'Ere anagrammatique. But it so happens that out of the 1200 anagrams not a single one is worth quoting. Quérard describes this poem, not inaptly, as a "débauche d'esprit;" and the author himself calls it "une ineptie;" to which I may add the opinion of Richelet, that "l'anagramme est une des plus grandes inepties de l'esprit humain: il faut être sot pour s'en amuser, et pis que sot pour en faire."
With such an appreciation of the value of anagrams, is it surprising that the French should have produced so few good ones? M. de Pixérécourt mentions two which he deems so unexceptionable, that they might induce us to overlook the general worthlessness of that kind of composition. They are as follows:
"Bélître,
"Liberté."
"Benoist,
"Bien sot."
Now, the first is only true in France, where true liberty was never understood: and the second is true nowhere. Benoist is merely a vulgar name, and the adoption of it does not necessarily imply that the bearer is a "sot." M. De Pixérécourt might have quoted some better samples; the famous one, for instance, on the assassin of Henri III.:—
"Frère Jacques Clement,
"C'es l'enfer qui m'a créé."
Or the following Latin anagrams on the names of two of his most distinguished countrymen:—
"De la Monnoi,
"A Delio nomen."
"Voltaire,
"O alte vir!"
I was on the point of relinquishing in despair my search for anagrams, when an accidental circumstance put me in possession of one of the best specimens I have met with. Some time ago, in an idle mood, I took up a newspaper for the purpose of glancing at its contents, and as I was about to read, I discovered that I held the paper by the wrong end. Among the remarkable headings of news there was one which I was desirous of decyphering before I restored the paper to its proper position, and this happened to be the word "[inverted]DNALERI".
Instead, however, of making out the name from letters thus inverted, I found the anagram—
"Daniel R."
My first impression, on ascertaining this result, was one of horror at the treasonable "jeu de mots" I had so unwittingly perpetrated. Remembering, however, that Daniel O'Connell is dead, and that Irish loyalty has nothing to fear from Daniel the Second, I resolved to give the public the benefit of the discovery by sending it to you for "NOTES AND QUERIES."
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia, August, 1851.