nto
the utmost dejection of spirit. Foiled by her own weapons, her spirit
suddenly forsook her; and either she never afterwards ventured on
prophesying, or the anagram perpetually reminded her hearers of her
state--and we hear no more of this prophetess!

Thus much have I written in favour of Sir Symonds D'Ewes's keen relish
of a "stingie anagram;" and on the error of those literary historians,
who do not enter into the spirit of the age they are writing on.

We find in the Scribleriad, the ANAGRAMS appearing in the land of false
wit.

But with still more disorder'd march advance,
(Nor march it seem'd, but wild fantastic dance,)
The uncouth ANAGRAMS, distorted train,
Shifting, in double mazes, o'er the plain.
C. ii. 161.

The fine humour of Addison was never more playful than in his account of
that anagrammatist, who, after shutting himself up for half a year, and
having taken certain liberties with the name of his mistress,
discovered, on presenting his anagram, that he had misspelt her surname;
by which he was so thunderstruck with his misfortune, that in a little
time after he lost his senses, which, indeed, had been very much
impaired by that continual application he had given to his anagram.

One Frenzelius, a German, prided himself on perpetuating the name of
every person of eminence who died by an anagram; but by the description
of the bodily pain he suffered on these occasions, when he shut himself
up for those rash attempts, he seems to have shared in the dying pangs
of the mortals whom he so painfully celebrated. Others appear to have
practised this art with more 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!

Even old Camden, who lived in the golden age of anagrams, notices the
_difficilia quae pulchra_, the charming difficulty, "as a whetstone of
patience to them that shall practise it. For some have been seen to bite
their pen, scratch their heads, bend their brows, bite their lips, beat
the board, tear their paper, when their names were fair for somewhat,
and caught nothing therein." Such was the troubled happiness of an
anagrammatist: yet, adds our venerable author, notwithstanding "the sour
sort of critics, good anagrams yield a delightful comfort and pleasant
motion in honest minds."[115]

When the mania of making ANAGRAMS prevailed, the little p