Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/257

Rh dictionaries. It is called squaring words, and is thus practised:—Let the given word to be squared be Dean. It is to be written horizontally, and also vertically, thus:—

And it is required to fill up the blanks with such letters that each vertical colunm shall be the same as its corresponding horizontal column, thus:—

The various ranks of the church are easily squared; but it is stated, I know not on what authority, that no one has yet succeeded in squaring the word bishop.

Having obtained one squared word, as in the case of Dean, it will be observed that any of the letters in the two diagonals, d, a, k, t,—n, s, s, n, may be changed into any other letter which will make an English word.

Thus Dean may be changed into such words as

In fact there are upwards of sixty substitutes: possibly some of these might render the two diagonals, d, a, k, t, and n, s, s, n, also English words. 3em