Voltaire (Vol. iii. p. 433.).
—On the subject of anagrams, lately adverted to by your correspondents, I not long since referred to that which showed that the name of Voltaire, as adduced by me in the Gentleman's Magazine a few years back, instead of being, as asserted by Lord Brougham and others, that of an estate, was in fact the anagram of his family patronymic, with the adjunct of l. j., or junior (le jeune), to distinguish him from his elder brother. We see similarly the President of the French National Assembly uniformly called "Dupin l'aîné"; and his brother Charles, until created a Baron, always "Dupin le jeune." Observing, therefore, that Voltaire was in reality Arouet le jeune, or, as he signed it, Arouet l. j., and that the two letters u and j were, until distinguished by the Elzevir, indiscriminately written v and i, the anagram will thus be clearly proved: every letter, though transposed, being equally in both:—
A R O V E T L J
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
V O L T A I R E
4 3 7 6 1 8 2 5
Although, as above mentioned, this unquestionable fact has already appeared in another publication, and, indeed, likewise in the Dublin Review for June 1845 (both from me), yet the old mis-statement of this celebrated personage's biographers still continued to be asserted, as it has been in your own pages. This is my motive for now addressing you on the matter. Voltaire, I may add, was a little partial to his paternal name. To the Abbé Moussinot, his Parisian agent, he thus wrote on the 17th of May, 1741:
"Je vous ai envoyé ma signature, dans laquelle j'ai oublié le nom d'Arouet, que j'oublie assez volontiers."
And, on another occasion:
"Je vous renvoie d'autres parchemins, où se trouve ce nom, malgré le peu de cas que j'en fais."