"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."