Raleigh's "History of the World" the following

sentence:

"This work will be a benefite to the buman races, and will raise the price of precious pearls and gold” (i.e., knowledge and truth).

Per

Whether everything "The Meritorious Order" published contains secret work remains to be seen. haps not, or if so, merely a sentence or two here and there such as the preceding.

It must be remembered that enigma, anagram, pun, any nimble conceit that called for intellectual subtlety, unquestionably appealed with strong attraction to our ancestors. We find a writer thrilling with ecstasy at "the discovery of the true meaning of the number of the Beast 666 by Mr. Potter, wherewith Master Mede was exceedingly taken, even to admiration, professing it to be the greatest mystery that hath been discovered since the beginning of the world!"

It seems probable that to such temperaments the intellectual jugglery entailed by cipher-writing would appeal with irresistible attractions. There is a curious fact in this connection. The motto which is affixed to "The Advancement of Learning," likewise to the "Novum Organum," and which is also used by Thomas Vaughan, the Rosicrucian apologist, and

prefixed to his " Antroposophia Theomagica," is “Multi pertransibunt et augebitur Scientia" (Many

shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased). This passage is the second half of verse 4, Chapter XII., of the Book of Daniel. The complete verse is as follows: "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."

It seems possible that this mystical verse may have been taken literally by the "Highly Wise and God Beloved R.C.," and that we have here not only a motive for concealing or closing up words by a system of cipher-writing, but also an important clue, if not an explanation, of the mysterious and altogether extraordinary system of paper marking. A more practical and literal method of sealing a book could scarcely have been devised, a watermark being actually the impression of a seal or die, the soft pulp of the partlymanufactured paper serving the same purpose as wax. Apparently each book was impressed with its own special and peculiar watermarks. So far as I have yet discovered no two volumes contain exactly the same devices, and we have already seen the enormous expense which this must have entailed. It seems to me that a religious motive, and that alone, would be sufficient incentive to a procedure so costly, so laborious and so apparently absurd.

The author of "The Real History of the Rosicru

cians" informs us that "they believed that the Books of Revelation and of Nature were intus et foris scripti, written within and without-that is, they contain a secret meaning for the initiates of mystical wisdom." Here again is a possible motive for cipher-writing, which is a literal method of writing "within and without. We find Bacon expressing himself as follows, with regard to a work, the accomplishment of which was dear to his heart: "I want this primary history to be compiled with a most religious care, as if every particular was stated upon oath, seeing that it is the book of God's work and (so far as the majesty of Heaven may be compared with the humbleness of earthly things) a kind of second scripture." This expressed wish of Bacon's seems to have been carried out to the letter; indeed, the systematic aim of the "Illuminati" seems to have been-in small things as in great-"to woorke as God woorkes," and to imitate to the extent of their ability the great Book of Nature. That this is something more than a fanciful conceit seems apparent from the following passage from Book I. of the "Novum Organum." "We neither dedicate nor raise a Capitol or Pyramid to the pride of man, but rear a Holy Temple in his mind on the model of The Universe, which model therefore we imitate."

This idea is perhaps the solution of the meaning of

the watermarked Rosicrucian clock, which "scarce striketh perfect hours." The manufacture of clocks, says Bacon," is delicate and accurate, and appears to imitate the Heavenly bodies in its wheels, and the pulse of animals in its regular oscillation."1 If my conjecture be correct the clock and also the figure at the base of the foolscap both alike symbolize the Universe.

The Book of Nature was a frequent and favourite symbol of the Rosicrucians. As Bacon admittedly reared his philosophy on the model of the Universe, it seems a not extravagant inference that that section of it that concerned the making and publication of books would be modelled on Nature's

infinite book of secrecy. We find Shakespeare writing "In Nature's infinite book of secrecy a little I can read," and this same thought is elaborated by one of the earliest members of the Royal SocietyRobert Boyle.2 This author says: "For the Book of Nature is, to an ordinary gazer, and a naturalist, like a rare book of hieroglyphicks to a child, and a

1 "Nov. Org.," Bk. I.

2 "A man superior to titles and almost to praise; illustrious by birth, by learning and by virtue. . . . "The extensiveness of his knowledge surpassed everything but his modesty and his desire of communicating it."-The British Plutarch, vol. v., pp. 169 and 194.

philosopher; the one is sufficiently pleased with the odnesse and variety of the curious pictures that adorn it; whereas the other is not only delighted with those outward objects that gratifie his sense, but receives a much higher satisfaction in admiring the knowledge of the author, and in finding out and inriching himselfe with those abstruse and vailed truths dexterously hinted in them."1

Some of the methods of dexterously hinting abstruse and veiled truths have already been seen. I have but touched the fringe of a subject, the greatness, the vastness and the complexity of which grows as one advances.

Bacon states in cipher : "A booke is an unwrought lump of metall. You see not th' rich shine of it beneath sundry thin coates that obscure it."2

"Under much of th' outer huske is th' kernell, worth the search of many a yeare, utterly lost to th' world till it have been brought forth.”3

"We,* like the Divine Nature, took pleasure in the innocent and kindly sport of children in playing at hide-and-seek."5

1 "Natural Philosophy," Boyle, 1664.

2 "Biliteral Cipher," p. 152.

Ibid., p. 219.

The "we" here used is Bacon speaking for himself, not for the Society.

5

"Word Cipher," p. 52.