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SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

479

8vo. in 1786. He married Eleanor Touchet, daughter of lord Andley, who pretended to be a prophetess, and printed several pamphlets filled with predictions and revelations. She died in the year 1662. Lady Davies was also a most prolific anagrammadst,* and scarcely yielded in that art to Mrs. Mary Fage, who nourished at this time, and is considered the greatest writer of acrostics and anagrams that England ever produced. We lesun from Camden, uhat the art of making auagrams began to flourish in this country during the reign of Elizabeth ; and he tells us, he knew some who had bestowed many idle hours herein with good success, albeit our English names, running rough with cragged consonants, are not so smooth andeasy for trans- position as the French and Italian. Accordingly, Camden furnished us with but one English ana- gram, which is the following, on Charles I.

Charles James Steuait " Claims Arthur's seat."

In a Nov Help to Ducourse, t2mo. London, 1684, we have an English anagram, with a very quaint epigrammatic " exposition."

TOAST-

-A SoTT.

A toast Is like a sot ; or, what is most .CompanitiTe, a sot is like a toast i For when their substances in liquor sink. Both properly are said to be in drink.

Anagrams, says Mr. D'Israeli, were very often devoted to the personal attachments of love or friendship. Cttriontia of Literature, vol. iii.

  • Anagraromatism or matagrammatlsm (which, hj the

way, is a more accorate term) is a Greek compoood, and is defined by Camden to he " the dissolution of a name, truly written into its letters as its elements, and a new connexion of it by transposition, without addition, sub- traction, or change of any letter into diflkrent words, maklue some perfect sense applicable to the person named." And tills, the same laborious author farther informs us, " is the only qalntessence that hitherto the alchymy of wit could draw out of names." See the BtbHotkeca Rutit Pkilotcphica of Lepenius, published at rnnkfort on the Maine In 1883. He enumerates thirty- ftre treatiaea on anagrammatical subjects, all but about five, which were written by Germans. Among the five alluded to is a collection of anagrams and chronograms, published in London, 16i3, by one J. Cbeeke, an English- man. As far as science may he recommended by the antiquity of its origin, anagtammatism has everything In Its favour, since there Is ground for assuming, that It may be traced to the time of the great Jewish lawgiver himself, whose mystical traditions, called Cabala, commonlcated by him to the chosen seventy, are thought by some to have been neither more nor less than so many anagrams. At least it Is certain, that among the various epedea of cabalistical lore, In which the Jews delighted ; the one called the mura was precisely synonymous with what we understand by aoagrammatlsm ) and hence the ancient cabaUsts were of opinion, that there was not a word in the whole Mosaic law which did not contain some hidden mystery, that might, by this means, be disclosed. Upon tWs principle they discovered the Hebrew word for " grace " In the name of Noah, the words " he shall receive" in that of Messiah, and in the name of the Virgin Mary, the anagrammatical appellation, " our holy mistress." After the Jews, the Greeks appear to have l)een the earliest culUvators of this mystical learning. And in order of time, the next people Uiat evinced any passionate attachment to this ancient art, are the French, who, in the sixteenth century, about the time of Ftands I. began, as Camden tells us, " to distill theirwits herein," and Louis XIII. retained at his court Thomas Billon, a Provencal, as a sort of anagnunmatist laureate, with an annual pension of twelve hundred livres. The Italians and Germans have also displayed a great deal of mgennity in this kind of writing.

1626. Died, John Legate, citizen and sta. doner, of London, and printer to the university of Cambridge, to which office he was appointed in 1589. He married Agatha, the daugnter of Christopher Barker, printer to queen Elizabeth, (see page 433 anfr,) by whom he had eleven children ; the eldest, Jonn, was also a printer, and succeeded in the license to print Thomas T\ioxata\ Dictionary. In 1606 John Legate, the elder, printed the seventh edition of Thomas's Dictionary, wherein he used the impression of the ALMA MATER pANTABBiou, and about it,

BINC LVCEM ET POCVLA SACRA.

1627, THOMAsBucKsucceededCantrellLegge as printer to the university of Cambridge. He had held the office from 1608.

1627. Died, Francis Savarv oe Breves, who projected the publication of an edition of the Arabic Bible. He was born towards the close of the sixteenth century; and was early em- ployed in the service of the court He was sent as ambassador to Constantinople, where be re- mained twenty-two years. On his return, about 161 1, Henry IV. sent him to Rome, as ambas- sador in the pontificate of Paul V. During his residence at the papal court, he attempted the publication of the Arabic Bible, as the means of reclaiming the Mohammedans from their errors, for which he considered the dispersion of verna- cular translations most peculiarly adapted. With this design, he established an oriental press, at which nothing more than the Ptalmt was ever printed. Of these there were two editions, one of the Arabic only, translated from the Greek, and printed in 1614 ; and the other from the Syriac, with a Latin version, printed in the same year. Both of them in 4to. He engaged Scialac and Sionita, as editors and correctors. From some cause, the further prosecution of the work was dropped. In 1616 Savary returned to Paris, taking with him Gabriel Sionita, and his printer, Stephen Paulin, who established the oriental press in that city, under his patronage ; and with a liberality characteristic of a great mind, he lent his types to those who were desirous of printing works in the oriental languages. On nis decease, the English and Dutch made pro- posals for the purchaae of his types, and his oriental manuscripts, of which be had brought ninety-seven from the east ; but the whole were bought by the king of France. The types are said to be still extant in the royal printing office. Savary published an account of his travels, from which we learn that he recommended the exten- sion of the commerce of his country, and the propagation of Christianity, by certain conquests in uie east.

1627. The plate of the stationers' company was pledged to raise £840, towards a loan to king Charles I.; and in 1628, three bills of sale of plate were sealed with the common seal, to Dr. Eden, Walter Terrill, and John Bunage, for £100 each.

1628, July 19. When king Charles I. printed his speech on the dissolution of the parliament, which excited such general discontent, someone

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