ON ANAGRAMS. "But with still more disorder'd step advance, Shifting, in double mazes, o'er the plain." CAMBRIDGE'S SCRIBLERIAD. SIR, A minor branch of this very scientific and ingenious art, viz. the "Game of Letters," having lately formed the evening's amusement of the fashionable circles of Moorshedabad, it may not be thought uninteresting to give you some short account of the rise and progress of Ana, or, as some will have it, meta-grammatism. To tread in the steps of the great Addison, may be justly deemed a presumptuous attempt; to obviate which imputation of rashness, I will pursue an opposite course to that taken by our illustrious moralist, and, instead of reasoning on its unworthiness to enter into serious composition, I will merely give instances of its prevalency. The "Spectator" ascribes its origin to the monkish age of barbarism; but it may certainly claim a much higher antiquity, for not only in the East (where every luxuriance flourishes) has it prevailed from time immemorial, but even among the chaster Grecians, instances of it may be found. That it tortured the brains, too, of many a Roman, I have no doubt, though I am not prepared to prove the fact. Unfortunately, no copious ana of the Roman, as of the French beaux-esprits, have come down to us, or, very probably, Cicero's claims to wit had been strengthened as much by anagrams as by miserable puns and rebusses. An instance in the Greek is the following compliment, which was paid to one of the Ptolemies Πτολεμαιος, ἀπὸ μέλιτος, that is, Ptolemy anagrammatically" formed of honey." Among the Arabians and Persians this art is held in high esteem; it is considered as one of the chief graces of composition: indeed, every alliterative beauty is to be found in profusion in their writings : scarcely a line but salutes you with some harmonious jingle, some recondite quibble, or some very elegant conceit, which is carried through all its moods and tenses, without the slightest mercy on the poor reader. Cowley, in spinning out a prettiness, is nothing to one of these poets; they will give you a whole epic on the charms of one maid. I have, indeed, in my possession a musnuvee, or long elegiac poem, the entire subject of which is a panegyrical description of a young lady: it is divided into regular sections, each of which is on some particular charm, and is headed thus: "Chap. 1st.-Her Hair. Chap. 2nd.-Her Forehead," and so descends gradually from top to toe! The praises, too, are sometimes beautifully imagined; in one place, for example, the poet says,-his mistress perspires rose-water; what a very charming and delicate idea! But, by the bye, I am digressing sadly! The anagram is termed 66 " tuhreef,” but as a figure of rhetoric, where it holds a distinguished place, it is named “mukloob, and a great variety of rules are laid down by the grammarians for its introduction into poetry. Sometimes it is necessary that words, which are coanagrams, should commence and end a couplet; sometimes that they should be thrown in promis-. cuously,-suffice one example of the latter from "Gladwin's Dissertations :" راي تو يار صوات داد تو محض و داد فتح تو حتف حسود ضيف تو فیض مراد "Your wisdom is a meritorious friend, your justice is friendship in the extreme, your victory is the death of the envious man, your being host gratifies desire." In a translation it is impossible to preserve beauties of this nature, but the anagrams of ضيف حتف and فتح - يار and راي the original, are and. So that when you see a poet of Persia with his "eyes glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," it is fair to consider him not as searching for "the thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," but as deeply pondering"Where buds an L, and where a B, Where sprouts a V, and where a T.-COWLEY. In England, too, especially in the time of that inveterate punster, James the First, anagrams were in great repute, and there was no species of composition into which they did not enter. No man wrote a dedication but it was accompanied by an anagram; thus-" to the ryght worthy Thomas Nevyle, most heavenly."" Nor did any one, who wished to gain his fair lady's love, forget first to twist her name into some elegant anagrammatic motto or epithet. The "Spectator" gives an admirable description of one of these ingenious beaux-esprits, which I cannot forbear quoting here :--" I have heard of a gentleman who, when this kind of wit was in fashion, endeavoured to gain his mistress's heart by it; she was one of the finest women of her age, and was known by the name of the Lady Mary Boon. The lover not being able to make any thing of Mary, by certain liberties indulged to this kind of writing, converted it into Moll, and after having shut himself up for half-a-year, with indefatigable industry, produced an anagram. Upon his presenting it to his mistress, who was a little vexed in her heart to see herself degraded to Moll Boon, she told him, to his infinite surprise, that |