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 [Footnote 2: _Δεβόῥῥα_ Gen. xxxv. 8., _Δεββῶρα_ Judges iv. 4. The double _ῥ_ will not affect the mystery!]