Essays and Tales by Joseph Addison
page 59 of 167 (35%)
page 59 of 167 (35%)
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limbs set in places that did not properly belong to them, "the
anagram of a man." When the anagrammatist takes a name to work upon, he considers it at first as a mine not broken up, which will not show the treasure it contains till he shall have spent many hours in the search of it; for it is his business to find out one word that conceals itself in another, and to examine the letters in all the variety of stations in which they can possibly be ranged. 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 known by the name of the Lady Mary Boon. The lover not being able to make anything 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 the presenting it to his mistress, who was a little vexed in her heart to see herself degraded into Moll Boon, she told him, to his infinite surprise, that he had mistaken her surname, for that it was not Boon, but Bohun. - Ibi omnis Effusus labor.-- The lover was thunder-struck with his misfortune, insomuch 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. |
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