_Voltaire_ (Vol. iii. p. 433.).--On the subject of _anagrams_, lately
adverted to by your correspondents, I not long since referred to that
which showed that the name of _Voltaire_, as adduced by me in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ a few years back, instead of being, as asserted
by Lord Brougham and others, that of an estate, was in fact the anagram
of his family patronymic, with the adjunct of l. j., or junior (le
jeune), to distinguish him from his elder brother. We see similarly the
President of the French National Assembly uniformly called "Dupin
l'aîné"; and his brother Charles, until created a Baron, always "Dupin
le jeune." Observing, therefore, that Voltaire was in reality Arouet le
jeune, or, as he signed it, Arouet l. j., and that the two letters u and
j were, until distinguished by the Elzevir, indiscriminately written v
and i, the anagram will thus be clearly proved: every letter, though
transposed, being equally in both:--
A R O V E T L J
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
V O L T A I R E
4 3 7 6 1 8 2 5
Although, as above mentioned, this unquestionable fact has already
appeared in another publication, and, indeed, likewise in the _Dublin
Review_ for June 1845 (both from me), yet the old mis-statement of this
celebrated personage's biographers still continued to be asserted, as it
has been in your own pages. This is my motive for now addressing you on
the matter. Voltaire, I may add, was a little partial to his paternal
name. To the Abbé Moussinot, his Parisian agent, he thus wrote on the
17th of May, 1741:
"Je vous ai envoyé ma signature, dans laquelle j'ai oublié le nom
d'Arouet, que j'oublie assez volontiers."
And, on another occasion:
"Je vous renvoie d'autres parchemins, où se trouve ce nom, malgré
le peu de cas que j'en fais."
Mixing with the higher classes of society, he wished, like them, to be
known by a territorial possession, and framed the name now resounding
through the world, prefixing to it the nobiliary particle, _De_. His
elder brother was named Armond, whose death preceded that of the younger
by thirty-seven years, 1741-1778; both were unmarried. Numerous, and
curious too, are the anagrams which my memory could furnish me.