_Reversible Names and Words_ (Vol. viii., p. 244.).--I cannot call to mind
any such _propria mascula_: but I think I can cast a doubt on your
correspondent's crotchet. Surely our _civic_ authorities (not even
excepting the _Mayor_) are veritable males, though sometimes deserving the
_sobriquet_ of "old women." Surveyors, builders, carpenters, {376} and
bricklayers are the only persons who use the _level_. On board ship, it is
the males who professionally attend at the _poop_. Our foreign-looking
friend _rotator_, at once suggestive of certain celebrated personages in
the lower house, is by termination masculine; and such members, in times of
political probation, never fail to show themselves _evitative_ rather than
plucky.
But some words are reversible in sense as well as in orthography. If a man
_draw_ "on" me, I should be to blame if at least I did not _ward_ "off" the
blow. Whom should we _repel_ sooner than the _leper_? Who will _live_
hereafter, if he be a doer of _evil_? We should always seek to _deliver_
him who is being _reviled_. Even Shakspeare was aware of the fact, that it
is a _God_ who breeds magots in a dead _dog_ (vide _Hamlet_). "Cum multis
aliis." The art of composing palindromes is one, at least, as instructive
as, and closely allied to, that of _de_-ciphering. If any one calls the
compositions in question "trash," I cannot better answer than in
palindrome, _Trash? even interpret Nineveh's art!_ for the deciphering of
the cuneiform character is both a respectable and a useful exercise of
ingenuity. The English language, however, is not susceptible of any great
amount of palindromic compositions. The Latin is, of all, the best adapted
for that fancy. I append an inscription for a hospital, which is a
paraphrase of a verse in the Psalms:
"Acide me malo, sed non desola me, medica."
I doubt whether such compositions should ever be characterised by the term
_sotadic_. Sotadic verses were, I believe, restricted to indecent
love-songs.