THEY END
When scarce begun,
And ere we apprehend

That we begin to live, our life is done.

Man, count thy days; and if they fly too fast
For thy dull thoughts to count, count every day the last.

A VALENTINE.

THE reader, by taking the first letter of the first of the following lines, the second letter of the second line, the third of the third, and so on to the end, can spell the name of the lady to whom they were addressed by Edgar A. Poe.

For her this rhyme is penned whose luminous eyes,
BRightly expressive as the twins of Loda,
ShAll find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!-they hold a treasure
Divin E-a talisman-an amulet
That must be worn at heart.

Search well the measure-
The wordS-the syllables! Do not forget
The triviAlest point, or you may lose your labor!
And yet the Re is in this no Gordian knot
Which one miGht not undo without a sabre,

If one could mErely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintilla Ting soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words, oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets-aS the name's a poet's, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying

Like the knight Pint0-Mendez Ferdinando

Still form a synonym for Truth. Cease trying!

You will not read the riDdle, though you do the best you can do.

ANAGRAM S.

But with still more disordered march advance

(Nor march it seemed, but wild fantastic dance)

The uncouth Anagrams, distorted train,

Shifting in double mazes o'er the plain.-Scribleriad.

CAMDEN, in a chapter in his Remains, on this frivolous and now almost obsolete intellectual exercise, defines Anagrams to

D

be a dissolution of a name into its letters, as its elements; and a new connection into words is formed by their transposition, if possible, without addition, subtraction, or change of the letters: and the words should make a sentence applicable to the person or thing named. The anagram is complimentary or satirical; it may contain some allusion to an event, or describe some personal characteristic. Thus, Sir Thomas Wiat bore his own designation in his name:

Wiat-A Wit.

Astronomer may be made Moon-starer, and Telegraph, Great
Help. Funeral may be converted into Real Fun, and Presby-
terian may be made Best in prayer. In stone may be found
tones, notes, or seton; and (taking j and v as duplicates of i
and u) the letters of the alphabet may be arranged so as to
form the words back, frown'd, phlegm, quiz, and Styx. Roma
may be transposed into amor, armo, Maro, mora, oram, or
ramo. The following epigram occurs in a book printed in 1660:
Hate and debate Rome through the world has spread;
Yet Roma amor is, if backward read:

Then is it strange Rome hate should foster? No;
For out of backward love all hate doth grow.

It is said that the cabalists among the Jews were professed anagrammatists, the third part of their art called themuru (changing) being nothing more than finding the hidden and mystical meaning in names, by transposing and differently combining the letters of those names. Thus, of the letters of Noah's name in Hebrew, they made grace; and of the Messiah they made he shall rejoice.

Lycophron, a Greek writer who lived three centuries before the Christian era, records two anagrams in his poem on the siege of Troy entitled Cassandra. One is on the name of Ptolemy Philadelphus, in whose reign Lycophron lived:

ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΣ. ΑΠΟ ΜΕΛΙΤΟΣ-Made of honey.

The other is on Ptolemy's queen, Arsinoë:

ΑΡΣΙΝΟΣ. EPA ION-Juno's violet.

Eustachius informs us that this practice was common among the Greeks, and gives numerous examples; such, for instance, as the transposition of the word Aper, virtue, into Eparn, lovely. Owen, the Welsh epigrammatist, sometimes called the British Martial, lived in the golden age of anagrammatism. following are fair specimens of his ingenuity :

GALENUS-ANGELUS.

:

Angelus es bonus anne malus; Galene! salutis
Humana custos, angelus ergo bonus,

DE FIDE-ANAGRAMMA QUINCUPLEX.

Recta fides, certa est, arcet mala schismata, non est,
Sicut Creta, fides fictilis, arte caret.

BREVITAS-ANAGRAMMA TRIPLEX.

Perspicua brevitate nihil magis afficit aures
In verbis, ubi res postulat, esto brevis.

The

In a New Help to Discourse, 12mo, London, 1684, occurs an anagram with a very quaint epigrammatic "exposition:"

TOAST-A SOTT.

A toast is like a sot; or, what is most
Comparative, a sot is like a toast;

For when their substances in liquor sink,
Both properly are said to be in drink.

Cotton Mather was once described as distinguished for"Care to guide his flock and feed his lambs

By words, works, prayers, psalms, alms, and anagrams."

Sylvester, in dedicating to his sovereign his translation of Du Bartas, rings the following loyal change on the name of his liege :

James Stuart-A just master.

Of the poet Waller, the old anagrammatist said :—

His brows need not with Lawrel to be bound,
Since in his name with Lawrel he is crowned.

The author of an extraordinary work on heraldry was thus expressively complimented :

Randle Holmes.

Lo, Men's Herald !

The following on the name of the mistress of Charles IX. of France is historically true :—

Marie Touchet,

Je charme tout.

In the assassin of Henry III.,

they discovered

Frère Jacques Clement,

C'est l'enfer qui m'a crée.

The French appear to have practised this art with peculiar facility. A French poet, deeply in love, in one day sent his mistress, whose name was Magdelaine, three dozen of anagrams on her single name.

The father Pierre de St. Louis became a Carmelite monk on discovering that his lay name

yielded the anagram

Ludovicus Bartelemi

Carmelo se devovet.

Of all the extravagances occasioned by the anagrammatio fever when at its height, none equals what is recorded of an infatuated Frenchman in the seventeenth century, named André Pujom, who, finding in his name the anagram Pendu à Riom, (the seat of criminal justice in the province of Auvergne,) felt impelled to fulfill his destiny, committed a capital offence in Auvergne, and was actually hung in the place to which the omen pointed.

The anagram on General Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, on the restoration of Charles II., is also a chronogram, including the date of that important event:

Georgius Monke, Dux de Aumarle,

Ego Regem reduxi Ano. Sa. MDCLVV.

The mildness of the government of Elizabeth, contrasted with her intrepidity against the Iberians, is thus picked out of her title she is made the English lamb and the Spanish lioness. Elizabetha Regina Angliæ,

Anglis Agna, Hiberia Lea.

The unhappy history of Mary Queen of Scots, the deprivation of her kingdom, and her violent death, are expressed in the following Latin anagram :—

Maria Steuarda Scotorum Regina.

Trusa vi Regnis, morte amara cado.

In Taylor's Suddaine Turne of Fortune's Wheele, occurs the following very singular example :—

But, holie father, I am certifyed

That they your power and policye deride;

And how of you they make an anagram,

The best and bitterest that the wits could frame.
As thus:

Supremus Pontifex Romanus.
Annagramma:

O non sum super petram fixus.

The anagram on the well-known bibliographer, William Oldys, may claim a place among the first productions of this class. It was by Oldys himself, and was found by his executors among his MSS.

In word and wILL I AM a friend to you;

And one friend OLD IS worth a hundred new.

The following anagram, preserved in the files of the First Church in Roxbury, was sent to Thomas Dudley, a governor and major-general of the colony of Massachusetts, in 1645. He died in 1653, aged 77.

THOMAS DUDLEY.

Ah! old must dye.

A death's head on your hand you neede not weare,

A dying head you on your shoulders beare.

You need not one to mind you, you must dye,

You in your name may spell mortalitye.

Younge men may dye, but old men, these dye must;

"Twill not be long before you turne to dust.

Before you turne to dust! ah! must! old! dye!

What shall younge doe when old in dust doe lye?

When old in dust lye, what N. England doe?

When old in dust doe lye, it's best dye too.