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Book
Four |
Ch.
4.
137 |
On
the same Preparation,
Considered with reference to the Last Letter.
With
regard to this Mode also there is silence in the preceding Book.
Trithemius, perhaps, omitted to consider this method because he saw that
it was too difficult and hardly likely to be of practical use, I quite agree
with him. Still, to make my treatment of the subject complete, I have thought it
best to mention the fact that I have observed that the Englishman
Roger Bacon, in his Speculum Alchymiae,
has retained both methods of giving information, the method which makes use of
the first letter of the word and that which makes use of the last. For, while,
by the initial letters of the seven chapters in which he composed his Speculum
Alchymiae, the initial letters of the seven following words, namely:
In. Verbis, Praesentibus, Invenses, Terminum, Exquisitae, Rei, he
expressed the word Jupiter, he at the
same time, by the final letters of the same chapters, the letters terminating
the seven following final words: projectioniS,
debeT, totA, taneN, bitumeN, mutU, aeternuM, expressed the word Stannum. There are also, elsewhere, other examples of this form
of Preparation, but I let them pass, as being of little value and little adapted
for use.
