But that our good Trithemius promised not falsely or unreasonably by his system of allegory is easily seen by him who considers not so much what Trithemius wrote regarding the usefulness of his art, as how he wrote. Hence so often does he inculcate the advice, “that no man should understand him to have promised other than he has promised’; for thus he speaks in the Preface entitled  The Features of this Work of mine.  For the rest, it is without reason that Cardano inveighs against the invention , for the methods of Cryptography are not less useful or less convenient than the Laconian scytalae or the perforated plates  so much praised by him, - to say nothing of the fact that the alphabet of words far surpasses both the plate and the scytale. Hence, Porta, Bk.2.c.19, speaks of the alphabet as of a thing deserving all recognition for its ingenuity, and calls it ‘most recondite’. When, however, he takes the author to task for his undue prolixity, he speaks to the point. But shall we for that reason call Trithemius most shameless? Hear the man himself speak: “It was enough for me to have discovered the principles of the art and t have described the method of writing symbolically, - a method rude and designedly ill-formed. For, that I should put my inventions into shape and polish tem off, I had neither time nor reason.” So Trithemius at the end of the Preface entitled The Features of this Work of mine. Again, in the Pinax, Bk.1.: “From these (i.e. inventions) any one can advance to still higher methods if he wish. As for me, I have cared not to bring forth in this way higher things to light, etc.” From this, the design of the undertaking and the reason why the author did not care to give his work a final, polished form, might have been perfectly clear to Cardano. In all conscience, when there appeared this new author with this new invention, Cardano should in no mean spirit have recognized the invention as one of superior merit; if the work were not recommended by its form, which usually comes to inventions in the end, it should certainly have been recommended by its becoming fullness and variety of material.

Thus, in the First Book, Trithemius, carrying out the intention of his work, formed an extensive alphabet. And this would have served his purpose, but the style of writing being always the same, he showed in the Second Book, by constructing another alphabet, that the style could by varied. And yet, even after he had made it evident that the process could be performed in a second language as well as in Latin, he went a step further and presented in the Third Book a Mode of fictitious words. Following which comes the Fourth Book, wherein is set up a new method involving fictitious words, which consists herein, that the process is performed not alone by single words in and through themselves, but also by words through the evidence of the second letter.

Cardano, therefore, had no reason for inveighing against Trithemius, unless he were moved by envy, which the Italians, unwilling to bestow honor where it belongs, are ever, more than any other people, quick to feel toward the Germans, famous as these are for their great discoveries. But to the matter in hand.