842 APPENDIX. 



alphabets are given by Porta, and therefore the secret communication 

 can consist only of sixty letters. It is worth remarking that when 

 Porta wrote it was usual to put the sign of the cross at the head of 

 an ordinary epistle. The first of his alphabets corresponds not to a 

 series of words but to two and twenty different modifications of the 

 figure of a cross, and his second alphabet similarly corresponds to 

 two and twenty different modifications of the introductory flourish. 

 His sixtieth alphabet is of the same kind. We see here perhaps 

 whence Bacon derived his idea of giving significance to seemingly 

 accidental modifications of the characters of ordinary writing. 



The idea of a biliteral alphabet, which Bacon seems to claim as 

 his own, is employed, though in a different manner, by Porta. His 

 method is in effect this. He reduces the alphabet to sixteen letters, 

 and then takes the eight different arrangements aaa, aba, &c., to 

 represent them ; each arrangement representing two letters in- 

 differently : the ambiguity arising from hence he seems to disregard. 

 In this manner he reduces any given word or sentence to a suc- 

 cession of a's and 6's. At this point his method, of which he has 

 given several modifications, departs wholly from Bacon's. Let us 

 suppose the biliteral series to commence with aababb. A word of 

 two syllables and beginning with A indicates that two a's commence 

 the series ; any monosyllable will serve to show that one b follows, 

 another that it is succeeded by one a, and then any dissyllable will 

 stand for bb. Thus Amo te mi fill or Amat qui non sapit will repre- 

 sent the biliteral arrangement aababb, and so on on a larger scale. 

 Porta's method is therefore not, like Bacon's, a method scribendi 

 omnia per omnia, but only omnia per multa. Still the analogy of 

 the two methods is to be remarked: both aim at concealing that there 

 is any but the obvious meaning, and both depend essentially on re- 

 presenting all letters by combinations of two only. See the De oc. 

 Lit. Signis. v. c 3. 



The Polygraphia of Trithemius (dedicated to Maximilian in 

 1508 1 ) consists of six books. The first four contain extensive 

 tables constituting four different ciphrce verborum; the first and 

 second of which are significant, and relate, the former to the se- 

 cond person of the Trinity, and the latter to the Blessed Virgin. 

 The fifth and sixth books are of less importance. Trithemius, 

 written in the cipher of the second book, becomes " Charitatem 

 pudicissimae Virginis Mariae productricis coexistentis verbi, robus- 

 tissimi commilitonis mei dilectissimi devotissime benedicamus ; vi- 

 vificatrix omnium," &c. 



The edition of 1600 Is that I use. 



