and John Bunyan was perfectly satisfied with extracting from his name the words Nu hony in a B, -a sentence of which the orthography and the import are worthy of each other. But although the Doctor was contented with a very small sufficit of meaning, he could not depart so violently from the letters here. The disappointment was severe though momentary: it was, as we before observed, in the days of his courtship; and could he thus have made out his claim to be called Ovid, he had as clear a right to add Naso as the Poet of Sulmo himself, or any of the Nasonic race, for he had been at the promontory, "and why indeed Naso," as Holofernes has said? - Why not merely for that reason 'looking toward Damascus' which may be found in the second volume of this work in the sixty-third chapter and at the two hundred and thirtieth page, but also " for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention?” *

After mar

Thus much for his own name. riage he added his wife's with the conjunction * Love's Labour Lost, Act iv. Sc. ii.

copulative, and then came out Dear Delia had bound one: nothing could be more felicitous, Delia as has already been noticed, having been the poetical name by which he addressed the object of his affections. Another result was I hadden a dear bond-love, but having some doubts as to the syntax of the verb, and some secret dislike to its obsolete appearance, he altered it into Ned, I had a dear bond-love, as though he was addressing his friend Dr. Miller the organist, whose name was Edward.

CLXXIX.

THE SUBJECT OF ANAGRAMS CONTINUED; A TRUE OBSERVATION WHICH MANY FOR WANT OF OBSERVATION WILL NOT DISCOVER TO BE SUCH, VIZ., THAT THERE IS A LATENT SUPERSTITION IN THE MOST RATIONAL OF MEN.-LUCKY AND UNLUCKY-FITTING

AND UNFITTING - ANAGRAMS, AND HOW THE DOCTOR'S TASTE IN THIS LINE WAS DERIVED FROM OUR OLD ACQUAINTANCE JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

Ha gran forza una vecchia opinione;
E bisogna grand' arte, e gran fatica,
A cavarla del capo alle persone,

BRONZINO PITTORE.

ANAGRAMS are not likely ever again to hold so high a place among the prevalent pursuits of literature as they did in the seventeenth century, when Louis XIII. appointed the Provençal

for the sting which they might carry with them. Lycophron is said to have been the inventor of this trifling.

The Rules for the true discovery of perfect anagrams, as laid down by Mrs. Mary Fage,* allowed as convenient a license in orthography as the Doctor availed himself of in Greek.

E may most-what conclude an English word,
And so a letter at a need afford.

H is an aspiration and no letter;

It may be had or left which we think better.

I may be I or Y as need require;

Q ever after doth a U desire;

Two Vs may be a double U; and then

A double U may be two Vs again.

X may divided be, and S and C
May by that letter comprehended be.
Z a double S may comprehend:
And lastly an apostrophe may ease
Sometimes a letter when it doth not please.

Two of the luckiest hits which anagrammatists have made were on the Attorney General William Noy, I moyl in law; and Sir Edmundbury Godfrey I find murdered by rogues. Before Felton's execution it was observed that his anagram was No, flie not.

A less fortunate one made the Lady Davies mad, or rather fixed the character of her madness. She was the widow of Sir John Davies, the statesman and poet, and having anagrammatized Eleanor Davies into Reveal O Daniel, she was crazy enough to fancy that the spirit of the Prophet Daniel was incorporated in her. The Doctor mentioned the case with tenderness and a kind of sympathy. "Though the anagram says Dr. Heylyn, had too much by an L and too little by an S, yet she found Daniel and Reveal in it, and that served her turn." Setting up for a Prophetess upon this conceit, and venturing upon political predictions in sore times, she was brought before the Court of High Commission, where serious pains were preposterously bestowed in endeavouring to reason her out of an opinion founded on insanity. All, as might have been expected, and ought to have been foreseen, would not do,