As for ANAGRAMS, if antiquity can consecrate some follies, they are of very ancient date.  They were classed, among the Hebrews, among the cabalistic sciences; they pretended to discover occult qualities in proper names; it was an oriental practice; and was caught by the Greeks.  Plato had strange notions of the influence of Anagrams when drawn out of persons’ names; and the later Platonists are full of the mysteries of the anagrammatic virtues of names.  The chimerical associations of the character and qualities of a man with his name anagrammatised may often have instigated to the choice of a vocation, or otherwise affected his imagination.

Lycophron has left some on record,—­two on Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, King of Egypt, and his Queen Arsinoee.  The king’s name was thus anagrammatised:—­

     PTOLEMAIOS,
     Apo melitos, MADE OF HONEY: 

and the queen’s,

     ARSINOE,
     Heras ion, JUNO’S VIOLET.

Learning, which revived under Francis the First in France, did not disdain to cultivate this small flower of wit.  Daurat had such a felicity in making these trifles, that many illustrious persons sent their names to him to be anagrammatised.  Le Laboureur, the historian, was extremely pleased with the anagram made on the mistress of Charles the Ninth of France.  Her name was

     Marie Touchet. 
     JE CHARME TOUT: 

which is historically just.

In the assassin of Henry the Third,

     Frere Jacques Clement,

they discovered

     C’EST L’ENFER QUI M’A CREE.

I preserve a few specimens of some of our own anagrams.  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 ewe-lamb, and the lioness of Spain:—­

     Elizabetha Regina Angliae. 
     ANGLIS AGNA, HIBERIAE LEA.

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

     Maria Steuarda Scotorum Regina: 
     TRUSA VI REGNIS, MORTE AMARA CADO: 

and in

     Maria Stevarta
     VERITAS ARMATA.

Another fanciful one on our James the First, whose rightful claim to the British monarchy, as the descendant of the visionary Arthur, could only have satisfied genealogists of romance reading:—­

     Charles James Steuart. 
     CLAIMS ARTHUR’S SEAT.

Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas, considered himself fortunate when he found in the name of his sovereign the strongest bond of affection to his service.  In the dedication he rings loyal changes on the name of his liege, James Stuart in which he finds a just master!

The anagram on Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, on the restoration of Charles the Second, included an important date in our history:—­