Who knows the .... a land may know
Famed for its ...., and long ago
A .... of sage and seer.
The native there, so full of tricks,
To .... his hunger .... with sticks,
Nor knows his ways are queer!
257. A CHARADE
If doubled you would see my first
Let third and second be reversed.
But if my last you would behold
Increase my first a hundredfold.
Combine them all, and you can trace
The four within an empty space.
258. IN THE HAY-FIELD
In the words welcome to a thirsty toiler, “Mower, I will tap the cask!”
are hidden by anagram the names of an English poet and of one of his
poems. Can you discover them?
259. A CHARADE
My _first_ is small, and seldom reverential;
My next not large enough to heed or prize;
My _whole_ is altogether consequential;
My third, though small, is counted very wise.
260. A LETTER PUZZLE
To be
a a a a a a a a a a
t C r I i O f U l S e s
standing
is the mark of a mean
261. WITH IVORY LETTERS
Can you recast the letters that spell RED NUTS AND GIN so that they form
one long word?
262. A HIDDEN NOVEL
Can you rearrange these letters so that they form the title of a
well-known novel by Charles Dickens?
~CDEHHIILOOOPRSSTTUY~
263. “COME OUT, ’TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!”
--_Old Song._
In swift ...... the beaters add
Fresh ...... to the heaps of slain;
And still, with lust of slaughter mad,
The ...... plies his hand amain!
The missing words are spelt with the same six letters.
264. A CHARADE
My first is nothing but a name,
My second still more small,
My whole shows such a lack of fame
It has no name at all.
265. A BREAKFAST TABLE PUZZLE
“If father gives us a new dog, it will wake the lazy ones!” Can you
discover from these words which of his children were often late for
breakfast?
266. A CIPHER
~NGOTRDSREAOHR
ETNSVEENUDOEO~
Can you decipher the common proverb here concealed?
267. AN UNKNOWN NAME
Well known by story, not by name,
I died a death unknown before,
Nor ever to corruption came;
My shroud the waves cast on the shore.
268. UNDA WATER
How might an oyster, if it could speak, and knew that unda is Latin for
wave or water, complain in similar phonetic iteration when disturbed by
thunder under unda?
269. MISSING WORDS
When ....., our puppy, sets out for a run,
Over ..... he ....., all frolic and fun;
For no whistle ..... he in his desperate hurry,
The slow sheep to ....., and the old cow to worry.
The five missing words are spelt with the same five letters.
270. FIND THE GIRLS
Bad hero set by thy door hurt me ma. Army may get ruder daily.
Ten girls’ names are here in anagrams.
271. A GOOD DESCRIPTION
Lord Beaconsfield’s statue,
True as old -- -- --
Can you can complete this anagram?
272. SHAKESPEARE ANAGRAMS
These three lines are perfect anagrams of three consecutive lines in
“Romeo and Juliet,” Act II., Scene V.:--
The tub sold has old rough shelves.
And e’en this fisherman caught best white smelts.
A living lord’s black dress, worn high, I vow!
Can you discover the original lines?
273. MISSING WORDS
That mystical gnome never flinches from toil
Who ...... the ...... in Orient soil;
Yet ...... mortals will ever abound
To ...... all the soil till the treasure is found.
274. A PUZZLE ACROSTIC
My feathered first has wings and sings,
Unfledged my second swings its wings;
My third on blackest pinions flies,
My fourth can float beneath the skies.
The letters to my first that fall
Are the initials of them all.
◯ ◯ ◯ ◯
◯ ● ● ●
◯ ● ● ●
◯ ● ● ●
Can you substitute words which fulfil the conditions?
275. DROP LETTER PUZZLE
My first was of the ...... breed,
Their ..... captain, hot and riled,
To .... his men found vain indeed,
They only ... and smoked, and smiled!
One letter is dropped each time.
276. DOUBLETS
Can you convert HARE into SOUP, using not more than six links, changing
only one letter with each link, and preserving the order of the letters
from link to link?
277. A NEW ENIGMA
Putting two small beasts that you take
To the beginning of an end,
A pointed weapon you will make
To wound a foe or praise a friend.
278. ANSWER BY ANAGRAM
If a “newspaper” could speak, what might it say of the general work of
its staff?
279. BY RULE OF THUMB
How can you turn the positive quantity 1011 into a negative?
280. ANSWER BY ANAGRAM
What one word can you form from the sentence--
“O, I’m man’s trial!”
281. A REBUS
EEE and xxx URXXI XXX and eee.
282. A RIDDLE
Why may not the owner of a pine forest fell his timber?
283. MISSING WORDS
He ....... to be ....... as a wonderful shot
But he potted the dog, and ....... was his lot!
The missing words are spelt with the same seven letters.
284. DOUBLETS
Can you change ARMY into NAVY with seven links, changing one letter
every time, and preserving their sequence?
285. BY ANAGRAM
‘I excel not by a pun’--
Turn these six words into one.
286. CAN SUCH THINGS BE?
When is an onion like music?
287. ANSWER BY ANAGRAM
What is the bitter cry of “Christianity?”
288. NO TURNCOAT
Show by anagram that a Conservative is constant to his cause.
289. WHY NOT?
Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fall as a rule upon the same day of the
week. Can any ingenious reader discover why they will not fall upon the
same day of the week in the year 1910.
290
“War is a game which, were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at,” wrote the poet’s pen;
But in war’s issue will be staked the prize,
While kings and subjects are but erring men;
So Britain--native empress of the seas--
On ocean cradled, by her storm-king nursed--
Friend of the fallen, guardian of the free,
Rests on her well-tried _last_ and trusty _first_.
Her _first_ alone can well maintain her right,
Unscathed by any threat or mutinous blast;
And though, when needed, foremost in the fight,
Her _first_ (strange paradox!) is always _last_!
But should the tide of war approach the shore
And threaten to engulf her island seat,
My _whole_, replying with defiant roar,
Would crash the audacious foe beneath her feet!
291. AN EASY CHARADE
My first is flogged to make it move the faster,
And turns at once to satisfy its master.
My next will ripen as a pleasant fruit,
For those whose simple taste its flavours suit.
My whole, when breezes blow and pennons fly,
Stands up aloft and points us to the sky.
292. NOT BY CANNING
A noun there is, of plural number,
In daily use from here to Humber.
Now almost any noun you take
By adding “S” you plural make;
But if you add an “S” to this,
Strange is the metamorphosis!
Plural is plural now no more;
Useless what useful was before.
293
First, a semi-circle make,
Add to this another
Figure of two little lines
Meeting with each other;
Then a perfect circle form,
Truly, neat, compactly,
Add another form to these,
Like the first exactly;
Then, to make it all complete,
Form a kind of angle,
With a straight line, that should meet
In a kind of tangle;
When you this have rightly done
(’Tis the truth I’m telling),
You will get an article
Useful in a dwelling:
Should you this decapitate,
You may have another
Article, which, in its place,
Is useful as the other.
294. A CHARADE
Veiling the leas, my first may steep
Late autumn’s listless air;
And with my tainting second creep
On idle spade and share.
When happy days link soul to soul,
And sunny faces shine,
May both combined, a subtle whole,
Be far from me and mine!
295. A CHARADE
By Mark Lemon
Old Charlie Brown, who a big rogue was reckoned,
Was brought up at my first for making my second;
He was fined, and because he no money would pay
Had to work with my whole on the King’s highway.
296
Complete, I grow within a field
And pleasant pasture often yield;
Behead me once, a suitor then
Is quickly brought before your ken;
Behead again, I am a word
That on the cricket-ground is heard.
Restore my heads, cut off my tail,
To name a spice you’ll not then fail;
Behead me now, and you will find
The master passion left behind.
Put on my head, my tail restore,
Complete me as I was before,
My second letter take away,
An envelope I am, you’ll say;
But now curtail me just once more,
I am an inlet on the shore.
297
My _second_ is double my _first_,
My _first_ is but half of my _second_;
And I’m sure you’ll admit that my _whole_
Is ten times the latter when reckon’d.
298
My _first_ I went the other day,
And pretty surely reckon’d
A basket of fine fish to catch,
With hook and rod and _second_.
But I was out in reckoning;
A very pretty she
Of her fair face show’d just my _whole_--
And pretty soon hook’d _me_.
299
Of mirth the parent, though the child of art,
A stranger to myself in every part;
Each India has a native in my breast,
The West my sweetness, and my fire the East.
While milder climes my virtue to complete,
Quicken my softness, and correct my heat;
My dearest friends upon my vitals prey,
And as they see me sinking, grow more gay.
300. A FLIGHT OF FANCY
When my whole takes a flight in the air you will find
That my next is not left a great distance behind;
But join them together, and plain to your view
It all is as firm and as tight as a screw.
301
To three-fourths of a cross, add a circle complete;
Then, let two semi-circles a perpendicular meet;
Next, add a triangle that stands on two feet;
Then, two semi-circles, and a circle complete.
302. A CHARADE
Leader of Vandals and of vice
My head is reckoned;
A Turkish captain will suffice
To be my second.
My third is firm if well selected;
My whole a wanderer neglected.
303
One thousand, two hundred,
Nothing, and one,
Transposed, give a word
Expressive of fun.
304. A CHARADE
By Praed
My _first_ was creeping on his way
Through the mists of a dull October day,
When a minstrel came to its muddy bed,
With a harp on his shoulder, a wreath on his head;
“And how shall I reach,” the poor boy cried,
“To the courts and the cloisters on t’other side?”
Old Euclid came, and he frown’d a frown,
And he dash’d the harp and the garland down;
Then he led the bard, with a stately march,
O’er my _second’s_ long and cellar’d arch;--
“And see,” said the sage, “how every ass
Over the sacred stream must pass!”
The youth was mournful, the youth was mute,
He sigh’d for his laurel, he sobb’d for his lute;--
The youth took comfort, the youth took snuff,
And follow’d the lead of that teacher gruff;
And he sits, ever since, in my _whole’s_ kind lap,
In a silken gown and a trencher cap.
305
Upright and honest is my _first_;
My _second_ you may see
Upon the frozen lake or stream;
My _whole_ is equity.
306
Never wearied, see us stand,
A glittering and a stately band--
Of sturdy stuff, but graceful form,
In summer cold, in winter warm;
From hottest duty never swerving,
Night and day our place preserving;
Each serving to a different use,
Not to be changed without abuse.
And, pray, mark well another fact--
In unison we never act,
Except, as on occasion dread,
We watch the ashes of the dead;
When we are ranged, as you may see
As awful sentries, one, two, three.
307. A CHARADE
My first, though naught, with others is a fruit,
My next is vital to both man and brute.
It should be dear to all who hate the devil,
For it is ever the reverse of evil.
My all, when whole, is eloquent of peace,
Divided it invokes to life that will not cease.
308. A CHARADE
_In English Sapphics_
Guess at my first, ’tis easy to discover,
Covered with rings, and whiskered like a dandy.
Wrapped up in furs, ’tis often on the housetop,
Oft in the chimney!
See where my second, scorning to be hidden,
Stands at the head of quite a band of others,
Like a virago, straddling with feet apart,
And arms akimbo.
Surely my next is happy in its office,
Parting the lovelocks on Neæra’s forehead;
Setting the golden lines wherewith she angles
For the unwary.
If by my whole at any time you pass, you
Tread on the dust of holy saints and martyrs,
Holy the place, may holy thoughts attend you,
Peacefully dreaming!
309
Offspring of nature and of art, I stand
Chief ’midst the monuments of every land;
I may not lengthen life, but I
For centuries forbid to die.
The greatest truth in me you meet
Is but deception most complete.
Unchanged I last the changing crowds among,
And as I older grow, I grow too young.
310
Pronounced as one letter, and written with three,
Two letters there are, and two only in me;
I’m double, I’m single, I’m black, blue, and gray,
I’m read from both ends, and the same either way.
311
My _first_ is false as false can be;
My _next_ old ladies wear;
My _whole’s_ my _first_, as you will see,
As false, I do declare.
312. SHUFFLED LETTERS
When whole I am indeed a thing
To puzzle you a bit;
Though parts of me are hard, at Bridge
The others make a hit;
Or you may make a car of some,
And fix a head to it.
313. FIVE VOWELS
A word of nine letters explains
How to mitigate bodily pains;
The five vowels are there,
And four consonants share
This function for medical brains.
314. A CHARADE
My second guides my first and third
For pleasure, trade, and war;
My first and second by my third
Are oft transported far.
But when my first my third doth pull,
’Tis then his lot is worst;
And should my second lack my whole,
He’s apt to leave my first.
315. MISSING WORDS
It is a ...... fact that neither ...... nor ...... grow .. .....
316. THE BONES OF A PALINDROME
~DRWNDRRDNWRD~.
Insert the missing letters, and so form a perfect palindrome, which
reads alike from either end.
317
The schoolboy likes me well,
For healthful sport I bring,
Yet I can harm create,
Though such a little thing:
Connubial bliss is form’d by me;
My nature is equality.
318. A RIDDLE
What person’s name is doubly evil?
The answer may be given in a line that rhymes.
319
I’m a district near London;
If made wrong, I come undone;
O’er sweet strings I swift run,
Or appear with the bright sun,
And though by me fights were won,
I can greet you every one.
320. A CHARADE
I am my first when seen with you,
My next is always bad.
A rogue in grain much harm may do
And make the farmer mad.
321. A CHARADE
When winter comes with frost and cold,
My first is welcome, as of old;
And though its grip may make you thinner,
It helps to cook your Christmas dinner.
Let me but hear my next rejoice
At early dawn with cheerful voice,
I haste to find, with eager pleasure,
Some specimen of hidden treasure.
A traveller my whole may find
Far from his English kith and kind;
Though some at home, to England’s shame,
Are this in fact, if not in name.
322.
It was to-morrow, and
It will be yesterday;
Now it is near at hand
What is it? Who can say?
323. A CHARADE
My first doth fill with light his father’s eyes,
The second shadows all the mother’s brow;
My whole all men, all women, girls and boys,
Have had, and long to lose, and lost for ever now;
But know not, nor can know, when it was lost, and how.
324. ON THE BLOCK
Complete, though not of human race,
A soul in me may dwell;
Behead, I held a higher place,
Until, like man, I fell.
Again behead, and in the song
Of Burns I’m all your own;
Behead once more, it would be wrong
To find me out when known.
325. AN ENIGMA
With head good for naught,
And with tail always drunk,
You know well what to say
Of the worth of my trunk.
First cut off my tail,
I am Greek, and I’m not;
Then cut off my head,
And some Latin you’ve got.
Lopping both you know best
What remains, as I said,
For I really am you
If I lose tail and head!
326. AN ENIGMA
One guiding eye I need
In running through the gaps;
My tail, as on I speed,
Is caught in many traps.
327. A CHESS CHARADE
By H. J. C. Andrews
In the ’seventies no one was more popular at Simpson’s Chess Room in the
Strand than the gentle and brilliant subject of these lines, a clever
water-colourist. The charade is by his friend, the well-known problem
composer. Both have passed away, but they are not forgotten by those who
had the happiness to know them:--
Of all the birds that ever sought a mate,
My first is to but one appropriate,
So speak the word! nor silence shyly woo.
To find my next, go! wander in the Zoo!
My whole is a magician of the squares,
But Art, with Chess, his best affections shares,
So this, indeed, to him may be a law
When _winning_’s hopeless, grandly still to _draw_.
328. WHAT AM I?
Though poor and humble was my birth
I sit enthroned on high;
My footsteps far above the earth,
My canopy the sky.
O’er toiling subjects thus in state
I bear despotic sway;
Yet on them hand and foot I wait
At break and close of day.
329.
I am not of flesh and blood,
Yet have I many a bone;
No limbs, except one leg,
And can’t stand on that alone.
My friends are many, and dwell
In all lands of the human race;
But they poke my poor nose into the mud,
And shamefully spatter my face.
Thrust me into each other’s ribs,
Stick me in gutter and rut;
I have never a window, and never a door,
Yet I often open and shut.
330. AN ENIGMA
Before the crown descended on
The head of England’s Queen,
Four Kings upon that royal throne
Of the same name had been.
Now if the signs which marked their name
Be joined unto a beast,
We have a food on which the same
(A quadruped) will feast.
331. AN OLD ENIGMA
By _Charles James Fox_
I am pretty, and useful in various ways,
Though I tempt some poor mortals to shorten their days;
Behead me, and then in my place will appear
What youngsters admire every day in the year;
Behead me once more, and without any doubt,
You must be what is left if you don’t find it out.
332. A CHARADE
My first, when skilfully performed
(Its doer by applauses warmed),
Bespeaks both skill and vigour.
When with my whole, so soft and light,
I saw my second gay bedight,
She made a splendid figure.
333. MISSING WORDS
The man who ..... the common .....
Above the ..... chaste,
..... as he may, the world declares
Is not a man of taste.
And though my sympathy he shares,
No ..... on him I waste!
334. A CHARADE
When a monk in old times, unexpectedly heated,
Endangered the peace of his soul,
To atone for my second my first he repeated
Quite ten times a day on my whole.
335. AN ENIGMA
An insect small and fell
Makes a weird sound,
If, as its name you spell,
You turn it round.
One letter cast, and still
Shift what remains,
Another insect will
Reward your pains.
336. A DECAPITATION
Where head and body duly meet
I am as slender as a bee;
Whether I stand on head or feet
My figure shows its symmetry.
But when my head is cut away
The metamorphosis is strange;
Though both of them unaltered stay,
Body and head to nothing change.
337. A NUT TO CRACK
First is in coast, second in ghost,
Third must be reckoned part of second;
Fourth in boat, fifth in float,
Sixth you will find within your mind.
Seventh in blue, eighth in true,
These letters tell a fruit that they spell.
338.
The hunter and his steed are known
My first to see.
Though men may call my next a stone,
Wood it may be.
My whole, an exile from his home,
Is doomed from place to place to roam.
339. A CHARADE
My first expresses power to do,
My next that it is done.
To be my whole belongs to few,
And perfectly to none.
340. A CHARADE
In my first, as in a shell,
All the sweetest sounds may dwell;
In my second, shells abound
That can catch no sort of sound;
In my whole securely rest
Those who neither jeer nor jest.
341. A CHARADE
My first, though of the feathered kind
Is never known to fly;
My next all who improve their mind
Seize as it passes by.
My whole may much occasion find
To make the truthful lie.
342. AN ENIGMA
Divide a piece of beef or pork
Without the aid of knife and fork;
It gives a shelf, rejoined with skill,
Where you may set this if you will.
Strike off instead the end, its place
Is plain as nose upon your face.
Cut this asunder in your mind,
And what is first put now behind;
Part of our foot you thus discover,
And in a measure all is over.
343. A CHARADE
Seen as a whole, my form is now
Akin to strife and malice;
Split, it may grace a princely brow,
Or crown the curls of Alice.
Recast my letters, and I tell
That nourishment is lacking;
Stir them afresh until they spell
The needle’s help in tacking.
344. AN ENIGMA
If I write with my first in my second
My whole you can never find out;
Add a letter, and all will be reckoned
A patron of water devout.
345. WHAT DID THE COLONEL SAY?
After officers’ mess, when cigars were well alight, the old conundrum
was propounded, “What is most like a cornet of horse?” A sharp sub. was
ready with the reply, “A hornet, of course”; it was presently capped by
this variant which occurred to a married captain, “a corset of horn”;
and yet another reading was suggested by the deaf old colonel, “How much
did you say the ..............” Can you complete this?
346. WHERE WAS IT?
Loss of love between us
Never can be nice;
Yet we live where Venus
Changes us to ice.
347. A LOVER TO HIS LASS
Tell me, my sweet,
Why are your feet
Like fairy tales?
348. MISSING WORDS
Our parson ....... every man who has leisure
To study ....... windows, the glory of fanes;
And ....... of devoting his income to pleasure,
Our ....... old dean spends his money on panes.
349. AN EASY ONE
Though much attached to merriment,
Or crime for a variety,
To prison I am never sent,
But sparkle in society.
350. A CHARADE
Without my first and second’s aid
No pudding worth its sauce is made.
Take on my third, my fourth I am,
My fifth includes myself and Sam.
My whole describes the royal fiddler Nero,
And shows him as an unheroic hero.
351. BURIED PLACES
What geographical names are buried in these lines?
He has my R. N. as a monogram
I am her stupid sister.
The calmest man is sometimes made irate.
352.
My first’s a fruit of foreign clime,
Sweet to the taste, in price not dear;
My second does my first produce,
And yet my whole my first doth bear.
353. AN ENIGMA
A thing of beauty, scattered by a breath,
My firm embrace is harbinger of death;
Not made by hands, a work of wondrous art,
Complete and perfected in every part;
Crush me to-day with all-determined care,
Then look to-morrow, and I shall be there!
354. AN ENIGMA
Six letters in my name are found,
Though only three we see and sound;
The shepherd by the running river
May hear me where the rushes quiver;
And should a stroke my whole divide,
Leaving but half on either side,
These, backward read, will surely tell
What many a toper loves too well.
355. A RIDDLE
Upon a battle-field of learned men
Hundred and fifty were by none divided.
“Now,” said the bishop, “add two-thirds of ten
And so you’ll guess the riddle just as I did.”
356.
Though the stations of mortals are many
And the _last_ is the head of his race;
Yet he, just as often as any,
Is won by my _first’s_ fell embrace;
Yet we most of us apt are to fall,
When our heads cease our hearts to control,
Let us hope that not one of us all
May be e’er in the state of my _whole_.
357. WHAT IS IT?
My whole is no matter,
And light as the air,
Yet it is good on the platter,
And excellent fare.
Curtail and transpose,
And a lady you see,
Who will flatter and pose,
And with many do me.
358. WHAT IS IT?
My first, for ages out of mind,
All men have always worn behind;
And yet alike by sea and land
They carry it upon their hand.
My second, carefully matured,
Is never ill but often cured.
My whole, within unchanging lines
Black men and white alike confines.
359. WHAT IS THIS?
“We westand fall.”
360. A CHARADE
My second is pressed tightly round
To guard from any ill;
And when preparing to engage,
Men find it useful still.
My first against attraction set
Will neutralise its power;
Aided by it, with bargains, some
May spend a happy hour.
You find my whole by careful search
Which must not be forsaken;
It stands before what comes beyond,
Which may from it be taken.
361. A GOOD ANAGRAM
George Thompson, the zealous anti-slavery advocate, was asked to go into
Parliament, the better to press his point and cause. When he hesitated a
friend produced, as a conclusive reason, this anagram, spelt with the
letters of his name--“O go, the negro’s M.P.!”
362. WHAT AM I?
Scorned by the meek and humble mind,
And often by the vain possessed,
Heard by the deaf, seen by the blind,
I give the troubled spirit rest.
ODDS AND ENDS
1. A SUM WITHOUT FIGURES
Here is a long-division sum without figures:--
UGI)GEVPPNDO(IDTPO
GVNI
----
DNTP
UGI
-----
NETN
NEOT
------
DUDO
DUDO
=====
These letters form a sentence of three words .... .... .., and represent
the figures 1234 5678 90; the puzzle is to discover this key sentence,
by working out the sum in the corresponding figures.
2. A DAY’S SPORT
At the invitation of a farmer in the country I went out with my gun for
a day’s shooting on his farm. “What sport had you?” said a friend
afterwards at the Club. “I shot only birds and rabbits,” was my reply,
“and the bag showed 36 heads and 100 feet.” How many birds were there,
and how many bunnies?
3. THE SQUAREST WORD
D E L F
E V I L
L I V E
F L E D
How many distinct readings of these four words can you find, taking
their letters in any “go as you please” direction, without jumping over
any letter?
4. A CROSS PURPOSE