ANAGRAMS

When Limerick once, in idle whim,Moore as her member gaily courted,The boys, for fun’s sake, asked of himTo state what party he supported.When thus to them the answer ran,“I’m of no party as a man,But as a poet ———”

What is the missing word?

Solution

Is England ———? That this is soA solemn ——— aspires to show.By most ignored, the theme — —— to someWho gravely to the same conclusion come.Like ——— o’er obstacles they soar,And if an —— — ’vert they rave the more.

There are six letters in the missing words and phrases.

Solution

The following clever word square of the unusual number of seven letters, in which there is no undue straining of words or inflexions, is by a master hand, and would be difficult tomatch:—

Off to the links is now their cry,For golf is man’s ————:Be not ———— or slow,———— hit the ball will go.

Each missing word is spelt with the same eight letters.

Solution

No maid e’er ———— North, South, East, or West,More ———— than she who ———— Love’s request.

Each missing word is spelt with the same seven letters.

Solution

Though in ......... I be,It is, alas! ... ......No ...... ... comes nigh to me.

Each word or phrase has the same nine letters.

Solution

Can you fill in the places of these 21 asterisks with only 3 different letters, so arranged that they spell a common English word of 5 letters in 12 different directions?

Two of the five letters are vowels.

Solution

————— his pride the Royal JamesCame down upon the ————— Thames;Like ————— his court repairTo breathe — ————’s freer air.

Each space has the same nine letters.

Solution

With lily leaves his oars are ........,Her eager hands their treasures .......,To the fair winds all cares . .....,And echo faintly answers .....!

The first letter is dropped in each case, so that while the word which ends line 1 has eight letters, the last word of line 4 has but five.

Solution

There was no good ... in the d...y, so the klim.

Solution

Some years ago a country parson had the following inscription engraved upon the tombstone of a favourite dog that died in1885:—

CarLoDear DoggIeLoVIng faIthfVL anD trVeshe Lost her sIghtbVt not her LoVeforI. e. V.

If the large capital letters are treated as Roman numerals, they add up to the year of the dog’s death, 1885.

If the missing letters, indicated by dots, are supplied, and the words are separated, this will be found to form a line in a well-knownpoem:—

.u.u.m.r.i.u.d.s.s.e..o.l.w.d.a.t.n.f.l.o.e.f.s.e.

Solution

Complete this sentence by filling in five words in the gaps, each spelt with the same five letters:

If you write ——— ——— at ——— do not ——— the ———.

Solution

A ..... ..... on ....’. strandsCaught Pat’s heart in her meshes;He left the ..... in Cupid’s hands,And watched her ..... her tresses;Tresses of ..... coloured gold,That did her fairy form enfold.

Each missing word has the same five letters.

Solution

“Yes,” said the village wit, as a merry party sat round the tap-room fire at Stratford-on-Avon, “some wiseacres have tried to prove that Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays, because his name can be found hidden in some of the lines. Let me show you how easily this sort of thing can be arranged to suit our fancy.”

Taking a piece of chalk he wrote upon thedoor—

“Look down the letters underdof these titles of some of Shakespeare’s plays,” he said, “and you will find the well-known name of one who certainly did not write them.” What name did he mean? What but that of the prince of jokers, Dan Leno!

Can you supply the missing words in these lines? Each is spelt with the same fiveletters:—

A man of ——— had caught a ———,And it was windy weather;“Give me my ———,” he cried, “to fixMy fish and ——— together.”

Solution

The following cryptic inscription was engraved, in his own language, upon a tablet in honour of the great French astronomer and scientist,Arago:—

UREARERIL

It has thisinterpretation:—

Arago chérit la droiture sur tout.Arago cherished integrity above all.

When ....., our puppy, sets out for a run,Over ..... he ....., all frolic and fun.For no whistle he ..... in his desperate hurryThe cattle to ....., and the slow sheep to worry.

Each word has the same five letters.

Solution

Buy my ripe ———, my ——— who’ll buy?Don’t look so ———, but take some and try!

The missing words are spelt with the same six letters. What are they?

Solution

Here is a circle which it is quite possible tosquare:—

Can you fill it in with English words, that read alike from top to bottom, and from left to right? Try it before you turn to the solution. Every E must be worked in as it stands.

Solution

He who .... may .... at last,How to .... we show;Take a sixpence, hold it fast,Press the .... and blow!

Each missing word has the same four letters.

Solution

Coin

We give as clues the complete border, and a diagonal in which the same letter persists. Can you construct the whole square?

Solution

Anagrams, as a method of divining and illustrating personal destiny and character, were quite a craze in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. No specimens of this word juggling have ever been more apt than the perfect pair of political anagrams evolved from the names of two of our greatest statesmen.

When the reins of power changed hands, it was found that the letters which form Gladstone also spell out exactly, “G. leads not,” while the name of his great rival and successor Disraeli itself announces, when recast, “I lead, sir!”

Here is a pretty card problem, akin in its character and arrangement to a Magic Square.

Take from a pack of cards the four aces, kings, queens, and knaves, and arrange them so that in each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row, each of the four suits and each of the four denominations shall be represented once, and only once.

Solution

Ave Maria, gratiâ plena, Dominus tecum!Virgo serena, pia, munda et immaculata.Regia nata, evadens luctum amari pomi.Eva secunda, Agni immolati pura mater.Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!A virgin calm, holy, pure and spotless.Of royal kin, free from the penalty of the bitter apple.A second Eve, pure mother of the slain Lamb.

Ave Maria, gratiâ plena, Dominus tecum!Virgo serena, pia, munda et immaculata.Regia nata, evadens luctum amari pomi.Eva secunda, Agni immolati pura mater.

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!A virgin calm, holy, pure and spotless.Of royal kin, free from the penalty of the bitter apple.A second Eve, pure mother of the slain Lamb.

These wonderful anagrams need no word of praise. Constructed each of them with the same letters, the lines express with startling emphasis the character and special attributes of her whom they describe.

I cut eight narrow strips of turf from my lawn, to form a double rose-border, with sides of the relative lengths shown in thediagram:—

Lawn

How can I relay these eight pieces, without turning or breaking them, on a piece of level soil, so that they enclose three flower-beds of similar size?

Solution

This was engraved on a slate monument in memory of Marya Arundell, in Duloe, Cornwall, June 8,1629:—

Man to the marigold compared may be,Man may be likened to the laurel tree.Both feede the eye, both please the optic sense,Both soon decay, both suddenly fleete hence.What then infer you from her name but this,Man fades away,man a dry laurelis!

Two schoolboys, looking into a small water-butt after a heavy rain, could not agree as to whether it was quite half full.

Water barrel

They appealed to the gardener, as there were no means of measurement at hand, and he, being a shrewd, practical man, was able to decide the point. How did he do this?

Solution

Paradise lost.Reap sad toils.

Paradise regained.Dead respire again!

Can you turn this flat-headed 3 into a 5 by one continuous line, without scratching out any portion of the 3?

Three

Solution

What were “The Australian Cricketers?”

ANSWERED BY ANAGRAMClinkers! Each a true artist.

John Bunyan, in the conclusion of the advertisement of his “Holy War,” has these quaint lines (using i forj):—

“Witness my hand, if Anagrammed to theeThe letters make ‘Nu hony in a B.’”

“The Earl of Beaconsfield.”Chief one of all debaters.

“William Ewart Gladstone.”Wit so great will lead man.

These diagrams show two of the many ways in which eight pieces of chessmen or draughtsmen can be so placed upon the board that each of them has a clear course in every direction, along straight or diagonal lines.

Chess boards

We will give a table in thesolutionswhich shows a large number of similar possible positions. Meantime our solvers may like to trace some for themselves.

Three most excellent anagrams are formed with the letters of the great name Thomas Carlyle. Two of them seem to point to the rugged sage of Chelsea in life, and one to his repose in death. Theyare:—

Mercy! lash a lot.Cry shame to all!A calm holy rest.

“Albert Edward and Alexandra.”All dear bread and war tax end!

Three families, who were not on speaking terms, lived in three houses within the same enclosing fence. Determined to avoid each other, they built covered ways from the doors of their houses to their gates, so that they might never cross each other’s paths. The family in A had their gate at A, those in B at B, and those in C at C. How were these covered ways arranged so as to secure their complete separation?

Compound

Solution

William Ewart Gladstone.A man will go wild at trees.

Lord Kitchener of Khartoum.Oh firm rod! the knack to rule!

Ask some one to place five cards (not court cards) in a row, to add up their pips, and to place two cards representing that number below, for subtraction, as is shown in the diagram.

Cards

Let him then place cards to represent the result of subtraction, remove which one he pleases of these, and tell you the sum of the remaining pips.

You can at once tell him the value of the card removed by deducting the number of pips in that remainder from the next highest multiple of 9. Thus, in the instance shown above, if one of the sixes is removed, the sum of the remaining pips is 12, and 18 - 12 = 6. A space must be left for any 0.

Here is a batch of anagrams, all letters perfect, which show how, by a little ingenuity, words may be twisted into opposite and appropriate meanings.

“The Oxford and Cambridge annual boat-race.”

ANAGRAMS

Hard race, but Cantab gained lead from Oxon.Ah! bad rudder line for Cantab cox to manage.Cantab blue had raced in an extra good form.

This pretty puzzle can be made at home by anyone who is handy with a fret-saw.

Puzzle pieces

Cut three pieces of hard wood according to the patterns given in this diagram, and try to fit the three sections together so that they form a firm symmetrical figure with six projecting ends.

Solution

“The Anglo-Japanese treaty of Alliance.”Yea, Fate enjoins to help a gallant raceorHail, gallant East! Fear not, enjoy peaceorA peace angel, then joy to all in far East.

If the letters which spell the names of the twelve months are shaken up and recast, these appropriate lines and their title areformed—

POEM

Just a jury by number, each a scrap of year,A number recording every jumble, tumble, tear!

An Indian Nabob left a casket of valuable diamonds to his children under the following conditions:—The first was to take a diamond and one-seventh of the remainder; the second was to take two and a seventh of the then remainder; the third three and a seventh of the rest, and so on, on similar lines, till all the diamonds were taken. Each of the children had then exactly an equal share. How many diamonds were there, and how many children?

Solution

It would be difficult to find a more ingenious and appropriate anagram than this, which took a prize inTruthin 1902, and connects the King’s recovery with the Coronation.

The sentencewas—

“God save our newly crowned King and Queen!Long life to Edward and Alexandra!”

The letters of this were recastthus—

Can we wonder an anxious devoted England followed drear danger quakingly?

Sir Francis Bacon, the Lord Keeper.Is born and elect for rich speaker.

“Imagination”—I’m on it again!

“Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter.”We murmur—“Time’s running past!”

The cardboard chain in this diagram is formed of unbroken links cut from one card.

Chain

There are no joinings in these links, no paste or gum is used, and the chain is fairly cut from a single card.

Solution

Very apt indeed, in these days of books and papers without end, is the descriptive anagram which we find involved in

“The Alphabet,”That be a help.

Made with the letters which form the names of the twelve months, each being used once, and onlyonce:—

Merry durable just graceMy every future month embrace,No jars remain, joy bubble up apace!

These represent the four quarters of a torn design, on which large black dots had been so drawn that no two of them stood on the same row, column, or diagonal.

Pattern

Can you copy out these four pieces, and place them in close contact, so that the proper edges come together to reproduce the original effect?

Solution

The initials of Brougham, Russell, Allthorp, and Grey,If rightly disposed the word “brag” will display;Transpose them and “grab” will appear to the view,Which hints at what many assert to be true,That they, like some others, still follow the planTobragwhat they’ll do, and thengrabwhat they can!

A prisoner placed in the cell markedAis promised his release on the condition that he finds his way out of the door atXby passing through all the cells, entering each of them once only.

Maze

How can he do this?

Solution

The following remarkable anagram is recast from the name and title of the daughter of George IV., who was direct heir to thethrone:—

“Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales.”

ANAGRAM

P. C. her august race is lost, O fatal news!

When a farmer told his shepherd to put 21 sheep into 4 pens at the fair, and added, “I wish you could put an odd number into each pen, as there is luck in odd numbers, but that is impossible,” he did not take into account the shrewdness of the shepherd, who very cleverly folded themthus:—

Sheep pens

Each fold or pen has by this arrangement an odd number of sheep within the hurdles that form its outer boundaries, and in this sense the farmer’s wish was satisfied.

We are familiar, most of us, with what is called Macaronic verse or prose, in which the letters and syllables of Latin words can be read so as to form English sentences.

It would seem to be too much to expect that there could be any connection in meaning between these Latin and English words, but there is one striking exception to this general rule. “Non est” means exactly “it is not,” and “No nest” conveys precisely the same idea, when a bird finds that its home has been destroyed.

Here is an interesting puzzle which can be worked out with coins or counters on a corner of a chess or a draughtboard.

Leap frog

At starting only the central point is vacant. A piece that is moved to a vacant spot must leap over two other pieces if it goes along the solid black lines, and can only move over one of the dotted diagonals at a time to an adjoining point. Try, on these lines, to enable the frog, now in the second hole of the lowest row, to reach the centre in the fewest possible moves, leaving its own original point vacant, and at the last surrounded by the words “leap-frog” as they now stand.

Moves can only be made to vacant places.

Solution

Organ grinder

Transpose two letters, and the ladWho grinds his organ in the Strand,Can sing “my music is not bad,I wake it with a master hand!”

How did he justify this ambitious claim?

Solution

If the letters P E A R S O N S are printed on small wafers or buttons, and set at hap-hazard and out of order on the points which they now occupy, a very pretty game of patience will result from the attempt to restore them to their places.

Windmill

Any letter can be pushed along one of the lines to a vacant place, and those on the mill sails can be moved to or from the central spot. There is no fixed limit to the number of moves, but the puzzle is to restore, in as few moves as possible, the broken and disordered word to its proper reading round the mill.

We are indebted to Sam Loyd, the famous American problem composer and puzzle king, for the following very practical curiosity, which is so closely akin to a puzzle that it is well worth giving for the benefit of our readers when they are out on holiday. If you are uncertain as to your bearings, lay your watch flat on the palm of your hand so that the hour-hand points in the direction of the sun. The point exactly midway between the hour-hand and the figure 12 will be due south at any time between 6 in the morning and 6 in the afternoon. During any other hours our rule will give thenorthpoint, and in the southern hemisphere the rules will be reversed.

Watch

In the days of Pope Pio Nono someone extracted from the Papal title “Supremus Pontifex Romanus” an anagram, which cut at the very foundation of the faith. It ran thus: “O non sum super petram fixus”—“O I am not founded on the rock.”

This held its place as a clever topical anagram, until in a moment of happy inspiration a son of the Church discovered that if the first words are recast and rearranged, a splendidly appropriate motto for the then reigning pontiff leaps to sight, “Sum Nono, super petram fixus,” “I am Nono, founded on the rock!”

This is an arrangement of numbers in 9 cells, so that no cell contains the same figure as appear in any other, and the two upper rows, the two side columns, the two long diagonals, and the four short diagonals all add up to18:—

Though not, strictly speaking, a Magic Square, this is a most ingenious fulfilment of the conditions of the puzzle.

Good up-to-date anagrams are:—Chamberlain, “Rich able man,” and Pierpont Morgan, “Man prone to grip.”

In each of the five crosses of this mystic figure the same letters are to be inserted where there are asterisks, so that seven different English words are formed, which can be read altogether in 64 different ways and directions.

Back to Index Next