Sept. 27. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



227 



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, 

 " AVell fought, K — ' ! no disgrace in thee," 



Mr. Maunder claims the merit of originality. 

 In other words (Avhich 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, Jiewton, and 

 other philosophers, who could make great disco- 

 veries, and resort to anagrams to announce them 

 to the world, but who were incapable of discover- 

 ing that an anagram was an absurdity ! 



Finding matters at so low an ebb in our own 

 literature, and that English anagrams ai'e 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 Kebuses, 

 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 pub- 

 lishing a poem of 1200 lines, every line of which 

 contains an anagram. The name assumed by the 

 author (Gabriel Antoine Joseph Hecart) is 

 L'Anagramme d'Archet; and the book bears the 

 title of Anagrammeami, Puime en VIII Chants^ 

 XCV'' Edition, a Anagrammatopolis, VAn XIV 

 tie FEre anagrammatique. But it so happens that 

 out of the 1200 anagrams not a single one is worth 

 (juotnig. Querard describes this poem, not in- 

 aptly, as a "debauche d'esprit;" and the author 

 himself calls it " une ineptie;" to which I may 

 add tiie opinion of Ilichelet, that "I'anagramme 

 est une des plus grandes inepties de I'esprit humain : 

 il faut etre sot pour s'en amuser, ct pis ({ue sot 

 pour en faire." 



With such an appreciation of the value of ana- 

 grainn, is it surprising that the French should have 

 produced so few good ones ? M. de Pixerecourt 

 mentions two which he deems so unexceptionable, 

 that they might induce us to overlook the general 

 worthlessness of that kind of composition. They 

 are aa follows : 



" Belitre, 

 Liberie. " 



" Henoist, 

 " Bien sot." 



Now, the fu'st is only true in France, where 

 true liberty was never understood : and the second 

 is true nowhere. Benoist is merely a vulgar 

 name, and the adoption of it does not necessarily 

 imply that the bearer is a " sot." M. de Pixere- 

 court might have quoted some better samples ; 

 the famous one, for instance, on the assassin of 

 Henri III. : — 



" Frere Jacques Clement, 



" C'est I'enfer qui ni'a cree." 



Or the following Latin anagrams on the names 



of two of his most distingiiit^hed countrymen : — 



" De la iloimoi, 



" A Dl'IIo nomen." 



" Voltaire, 

 " O alte vJr!" 



I was on the point of relinquishing in despair 

 my search for anagrams, when an accidental cir- 

 cumstance put me in possession of one of the best 

 specimens I have met with. Some time ago, in an 

 idle mood, I took up a newspaper for the purpose 

 of glancing at its contents, and as I v/as about to 

 read, I discovered that I held the paper by the 

 Avrong end. Among the remarkable headings of 

 news there was one which I was desirous of de- 

 cyphering before I restored the paper to its proper 

 position, and this happened to be the word 

 " QNViaai "• Instead, however, of mailing out 

 the name from letters thus inverted, I found the 

 anagram — 



" Daniel R." 



My first impression, on ascertaining this result, 

 was one of horror at the treasonable "jeu de mots" 

 I had so unwittingly perpetrated. Remembering, 

 however, that Daniel O'Conneil is dead, and that 

 Irish loyalty has nothing to fear from Daniel the 

 Second, I resolved to give the public the benefit 

 of the discovery by sending it to you for " iSTotes 

 AND Queries." Henry H. Breen. 



St. Lucia, August, 1851. 



FOLK LORE. 



Cure for Hooping Cough. — It is said by the 

 inhabitants of the Ibrest of Bere, East Haiit«, that 

 new milk drank out of a cup made of the wood 

 of the variegated holly is a cure for the hooping 

 cough. f 



Cure for the Toothache. — In the village of 

 Drumcondra, about a mile and a half on the 

 northern side of Dublin, there is an old church- 

 yard, remarkable as the burying-place of Gandon 

 the architect, Grose the antitiuary, and Thomas 

 Furlong the translator of Carolan's llemains. On 

 the borders of this churchyard there is a well of 

 beautif'u! water, which is resorted to by the folks 

 of the village afUictcd with toothache, who, on 

 tlieir way across the graves pick up an old skull, 

 which they carry with them to drink from, the 



