Preface

not, as was the case, often a second time obscured in a cloud of digressions and transpositions what he had once made clear; or if the copies themselves, both manuscript and printed, had, as is not the case, agreed with the autograph.  All these difficulties, however, I have, as I have just now intimated, surmounted in the reader’s interest.  Now, further, there is no argument of any weight whereby I should be forbidden to disclose these matters.  For, if, notwithstanding the fact that there was reason to fear that Hariadenus Abenobarbus or some other pirate – and freebooter-captain would make use of this or that stratagem of war, still Vegetius, Sextus Frontimus, Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen, and others were permitted to collect from all sources stratagems of war, and publicly set forth the same, for others to imitate, why should it be turned to my discredit that, to provide for an indispensable want, I publish, for the use of good men, things of like nature, -- for there is something in common between this matter and the war-like inventions to which I have referred; -- although some evilly-engaged persons may at some time turn the same to their own account?  Thus, as we have it in Boccacio’s Tales, Guiscarde and Ghismonda, both very clever in this direction, were able to compose love-letters in hidden wise, and thereby bring to fruition their illicit love.  On this subject we have the verses of Filippe Beroalde:    

“What thoughts does not Love have?
          A woman invents the way of deception,
and herself composed the secret signs. 

        The letter is hidden by stealth in a reed out open,  
and this the fair one gives to her lover’s own hand.   
        Shrewd, the lover believes the reed not given for naught,  
and finds and scans the signs there hidden.   
        O’erjoyed is he, and praises the way that a woman shows,  
awaiting the rapture of love’s promised fruition.   
        Writings tell the time or place when stealthy Love  
can join the lovers fond in love’s embrace.” 
 

Who would for this reason begrudge to some faithful Achates this art, whereby he might warn his friend of a threatening danger, or, if the latter were confined in prison or in any other way embarrassed, suggest to him, unbeknown to all others, some secret piece of advice?  As, even though he broke the oath whereby he had promised silence, Demetrius Polierestes, making use of some writing of this kind, or at least of a writing not entirely unlike this, conducted himself toward Mithridates; Plutarch, In Demet. Pol.  Abuse certainly ought not to raise any prejudice against correct use.  This much being clear, I also do not wish, kind reader, to abuse your leisure, -- provided I shall have impressed upon you, to some slight extent, the value of this art.  For though to some this whole subject may seem the invention of an idle man and even childish trifling, contributing neither to private nor to public utility, still, let one be as sensible in his own person as he may, if he will not or cannot understand the importance that there is, especially in war-times and at other times of stress, in this safe method of conveying a secret, he will, in his sagacity, judge that there is little sense in the art, and to himself absolutely no need thereof.  Hereof I with reason refrain from making further words, since the matter