Chapter CLXXVIII

THE MYSTERY OF NUMBERS PURSUED, AND CERTAIN CALCULATIONS GIVEN WHICH MAY REMIND THE READER OF OTHER CALCULATIONS EQUALLY CORRECT—ANAGRAMMATIZING OF NAMES, AND THE DOCTOR'S SUCCESS THEREIN.

“There is no efficacy in numbers, said the wiser Philosophers; and very truly,”—saith Bishop Hacket in repeating this sentence; but he continues,—“some numbers are apt to enforce a reverent esteem towards them, by considering miraculous occurrences which fell out in holy Scripture on such and such a number.—Non potest fortuitò fieri, quod tam sæpe fit, says Maldonatus whom I never find superstitious in this matter. It falls out too often to be called contingent; and the oftener it falls out, the more to be attended.”¹

¹ On referring to Bishop Hacket's Sermons I find this Motto it not copied out Verbatim. See p. 245.

This choice morsel hath led us from the science of numbers. Great account hath been made of that science in old times. There was an epigrammatist who discovering that the name of his enemy Damagoras amounted in numerical letters to the same sum as Λοιμὸς the plague, inferred from thence that Damagorus and the Plague were one and the same thing; a stingless jest serving like many satires of the present age to show the malice and not the wit of the satirist. But there were those among the ancients who believed that stronger influences existed in the number of a name, and that because of their arithmetical inferiority in this point, Patroclus was slain by Hector, and Hector by Achilles. Diviners grounded upon this a science which they called Onomantia or Arithmomantia. When Maurice of Saxony to the great fear of those who were most attached to him, engaged in war against Charles V, some one encouraged his desponding friends by this augury, and said that if the initials of the two names were considered, it would be seen that the fortunes of Maurice preponderated over those of Charles in the proportion of a thousand to a hundred.

A science like this could not be without attractions for the Doctor; and it was with no little satisfaction that he discovered in the three Ds with which his spoons and his house linen were marked, by considering them as so many capital Deltas, the figures 444, combining the complex virtues of the four thrice told. But he discovered greater secrets in the names of himself and his wife when taken at full length. He tried them in Latin and could obtain no satisfactory result, nor had he any better success in Greek when he observed the proper orthography of Δανιὴλ and Δεββῶρα.² But anagrammatists are above the rules of orthography, just as Kings, Divines and Lawyers are privileged, if it pleases them, to dispense with the rules of grammar. Taking these words therefore letter by letter according to the common pronunciation (for who said he pronounces them Danieel and Deboarah?) and writing the surname in Greek letters instead of translating it, the sum which it thus produced was equal to his most sanguine wishes, for thus it proved

Daniel and Deborah Dove. Δανιὲλ Δεβόῥα Δοὺε.

Δανιὲλ

Δ 4

α 1

ν 50

ι 10

ε 5

λ 30

Daniel 100

Δεβόῥα

Δ 4

ε 5

β 2

ο 70

ρ 100

α 1

Deborah 182

Δοὺε

Δ 4

ο 70

υ 400

ε 5

Dove 479

The whole being added together gave the following product

Daniel 100

Deborah 182

Dove 479

761

² Δεβόῥῥα Gen. xxxv. 8., Δεββῶρα Judges iv. 4. The double ῥ will not affect the mystery!

Here was the number 761 found in fair addition, without any arbitrary change of letters, or licentious innovation in orthography. And herein was mystery. The number 761 is a prime number; from hence the Doctor inferred that as the number was indivisible, there could be no division between himself and Mrs. Dove; an inference which the harmony of their lives fully warranted. And this alone would have amply rewarded his researches. But a richer discovery flashed upon him. The year 1761 was the year of his marriage, and to make up the deficient thousand there was M for marriage and matrimony. These things he would say must never be too explicit; their mysterious character would be lost if they lay upon the surface; like precious metals and precious stones you must dig to find them.

He had bestowed equal attention and even more diligence in anagrammatizing the names. His own indeed furnished him at first with a startling and by no means agreeable result; for upon transposing the component letters of Daniel Dove, there appeared the words Leaden void! Nor was he more fortunate in a Latin attempt, which gave him Dan vile Deo. Vel dona Dei as far as it bore a semblance of meaning was better; but when after repeated dislocations and juxta positions there came forth the words Dead in love, Joshua Sylvester was not more delighted at finding that Jacobus Stuart made justa scrutabo, and James Stuart A just Master, than the Doctor,—for it was in the May days of his courtship. In the course of these anagrammatical experiments he had a glimpse of success which made him feel for a moment like a man whose lottery ticket is next in number to the £20,000 prize. Dove failed only in one letter of being Ovid. In old times they did not stand upon trifles in these things, and John Bunyan was perfectly satisfied with extracting from his name the words Nu hony in a B,—a sentence of which the orthography and the import are worthy of each other. But although the Doctor was contented with a very small sufficit of meaning, he could not depart so violently from the letters here. The disappointment was severe though momentary: it was, as we before observed, in the days of his courtship; and could he thus have made out his claim to be called Ovid, he had as clear a right to add Naso as the Poet of Sulmo himself, or any of the Nasonic race, for he had been at the promontory, “and why indeed Naso,” as Holofernes has said?—Why not merely for that reason ‘looking toward Damascus’ which may be found in the second volume of this work in the sixty-third chapter and at the two hundred and thirtieth page, but also “for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention?”³

³ Love's Labour Lost, Act iv. Sc. ii.

Thus much for his own name. After marriage he added his wife's with the conjunction copulative, and then came out Dear Delia had bound one: nothing could be more felicitous, Delia as has already been noticed, having been the poetical name by which he addressed the object of his affections. Another result was I hadden a dear bond-love, but having some doubts as to the syntax of the verb, and some secret dislike to its obsolete appearance, he altered it into Ned, I had a dear bond-love, as though he was addressing his friend Dr. Miller the organist, whose name was Edward.