Book One

Ch. 1

5

our times there have not been lacking men who have met with wonderful success in hiding the knowledge of facts which they have not wished to become generally known to the common throng of mankind, but which would otherwise have been made public property.  Of this class, for example, as I will show anon, Trithemius, in his work of Steganography.  More than this, however:  there have appeared in numbers men of the greatest learning who, by the most ingenious devices, have improved this institution with a view, especially, to its employment in the every-day relations of life, and have most successfully advanced it to the dignity of an art.  Among these may be mentioned, after Trithemius, the Frenchmen, Casaubon, de Vigenère, de Collanges; Cardano, Porta, Walch, Schwenter; as well as Puteanus, Herman Hugo and others who have touched on this subject.  But no one have I found who has brought together these scattered and widely differing parts and, uniting them into one body, reduced them to something that might be called a System of the art; though Porta, and Schwenter, -- who, while writing in his native tongue, follows in general the footsteps of Porta, -- have employed a sort of method, -- one, however, which, both in respect to form and in respect to subject-matter, leaves much to be desired.  And so it will not be an unprofitable labor, but one quite worth my while, if I take upon myself this duty too and make the task my own.  And our good friend Trithemius, the elucidation of whose Steganographia is my special task, need not grumble, should he find himself reduced to the ranks and stationed, not at the head of the column, but in his own proper place among the other authors’ most ingenious devices, together with my own.  For it shall be my careful  endeavor not to defraud anyone, (after the manner of a certain Frisian, of whom fuller mention will be made further on, in Bk.V.c.i, ) of the fruit of his toil and of his due praise.  I shall therefore in every case attach to the invention the author’s name.  For the rest, in arranging the parts of this System I shall proceed as follows:  First, I shall give an introduction, wherein is contained an explanation of the definition of the subject.  Secondly, I shall take up the treatment of the Principles or Mediums.  Finally, I shall subjoin an Exercise-book, together with such matters as shall seem to appertain thereto.