[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sra,—A great principle of
criticism, once discovered, cumu- latively proves itself by leading from one discovery to another. Mr. Walker in last week's Spectator has thus clinched Mr. Margoliouth's epoch-making invention of the anagram by further and wholly convincing extensions. But a palmary discovery still waits to be revealed to an astonished world. The famous drama named the Medea has for centuries been falsely attributed to Euripides. It was written by another eminent hand. Take the first line :— EN' 6i0eX' 'Apyorn id1 otairrdolac akci.pos, and seek the tell-tale anagram. What emerges ? Why,
MaproXtofflos, (mud Os, On rcide.
Plainly ocall Or, literally " speaking left-handedly," indicates the anagram. Translate " Inverting words, M th told this tale."
But this is not all. Let us look once more at the opening of the Iliad, and we can discover a secret which Mr. Margoliouth, all too shy, has concealed from us.
Miro &care, Bea,'AxiVios oaolairnv, Aug 'Axamit dX•ye thiscer.
The first line can stand untouched ; but rewrite the second anagrammatically, and we get the astounding result, the real author of the immortal Iliad, aava I.Lpetv, Map-yoXtorrOos Ixeue
" The inglorious memorial which Margoliouthos poured forth I "
Inglorious indeed through three millennia ; it has brought him no fame hitherto. How fortunate that he should still be with us to receive at last the homage of the ages ! Onorate altissimo poeta am, Sir, &c., WALTER LEAF.
6 Sussex Place,. N.W. 1.
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