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Article MASONIC ANTIQUITIES. ← Page 6 of 6
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Masonic Antiquities.
attentive reflection ^( especially from the French ) . On account of thejdiffbrences o ^ idiom of the two languages , this passage is rather more difficult than others either to abridge or to explain ; the meaning , however , is somewhat as follows : the word " Necessites " is placed there for the name of a sect . And what is this sect ? The sect of" Necessites "is an absurdity . But this word signifies the " Notres " ( or " Our Brethren , " a technical expression among the Jesuits ) , for Necessity gives the initial of JVbster . ,
As for all the foregoing twisting and turning of poor Prichard ' s " Dissection'V of M ^ we cannot place more faith in it than in the notable scheme described in Deaii Swift ' s " Voyage of Gulliver to the Island of Lapnta , " for discovering plots and conspiracies , which we will quote as a fitting pendant to such absurdities . ¥ e do not suspect Samuel Prichard of a sufficient amount of wit or acumen to have been a
Jesuit , and can only regard the ingenious adaptation of figures and letters to Jesuitical meanings—we cannot say purposes—as the production of one whose zeal against that order led him into a degree of enthusiasm rarely attained b y modern Masons . ¦ ¦;¦ . '" In the kingdom of Tribnia , " says Gulliver , " the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers , witnesses , informer s , accusers ,
prosecutors , evidences , swearers , & c , all under the pay of the ministers of state , and their deputies . The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own ; ... characters of profound politicians ; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration ; to stifle or divert general discontents ; to fill their coffers with forfeitures ; and raise or sink the opinion of public credit , as either shall best answer
their private advantages . It is first agreed and settled among- them what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot ; then effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers , and put the owners in chains . These papers are delivered to a set of artists , very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words , syllables , and letters : for instance , they can discover a flock of geese to signify a senate ; a lame dog , an invader ; the plague , a standing army ; a buzzard , a prime minister ; a gibbet , a secretary of state ; a sieve , a court lady ; a empty tuna general .
, When this method fails they have two others more effectual , which the learned among them call acrostics and anagrams . First , they can decipher all initial letters into political meanings . Thus N shall signify a plot ; B , a regiment of horse ; L , a fleet at sea . Or , secondly , by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper , they can lay open the deepest designs of a discontented party . So , for example , if I should say , in a letter to a friend , Oar brother Tom has just got the piles , * a skilful decipherer would discover that the same letters that compose this sentence
may be analyzed into the following words , ' Resist—a plot is brought bome-VJPhe tour / And this is the anagrammatic xnethod /' . X-.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Masonic Antiquities.
attentive reflection ^( especially from the French ) . On account of thejdiffbrences o ^ idiom of the two languages , this passage is rather more difficult than others either to abridge or to explain ; the meaning , however , is somewhat as follows : the word " Necessites " is placed there for the name of a sect . And what is this sect ? The sect of" Necessites "is an absurdity . But this word signifies the " Notres " ( or " Our Brethren , " a technical expression among the Jesuits ) , for Necessity gives the initial of JVbster . ,
As for all the foregoing twisting and turning of poor Prichard ' s " Dissection'V of M ^ we cannot place more faith in it than in the notable scheme described in Deaii Swift ' s " Voyage of Gulliver to the Island of Lapnta , " for discovering plots and conspiracies , which we will quote as a fitting pendant to such absurdities . ¥ e do not suspect Samuel Prichard of a sufficient amount of wit or acumen to have been a
Jesuit , and can only regard the ingenious adaptation of figures and letters to Jesuitical meanings—we cannot say purposes—as the production of one whose zeal against that order led him into a degree of enthusiasm rarely attained b y modern Masons . ¦ ¦;¦ . '" In the kingdom of Tribnia , " says Gulliver , " the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers , witnesses , informer s , accusers ,
prosecutors , evidences , swearers , & c , all under the pay of the ministers of state , and their deputies . The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own ; ... characters of profound politicians ; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration ; to stifle or divert general discontents ; to fill their coffers with forfeitures ; and raise or sink the opinion of public credit , as either shall best answer
their private advantages . It is first agreed and settled among- them what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot ; then effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers , and put the owners in chains . These papers are delivered to a set of artists , very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words , syllables , and letters : for instance , they can discover a flock of geese to signify a senate ; a lame dog , an invader ; the plague , a standing army ; a buzzard , a prime minister ; a gibbet , a secretary of state ; a sieve , a court lady ; a empty tuna general .
, When this method fails they have two others more effectual , which the learned among them call acrostics and anagrams . First , they can decipher all initial letters into political meanings . Thus N shall signify a plot ; B , a regiment of horse ; L , a fleet at sea . Or , secondly , by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper , they can lay open the deepest designs of a discontented party . So , for example , if I should say , in a letter to a friend , Oar brother Tom has just got the piles , * a skilful decipherer would discover that the same letters that compose this sentence
may be analyzed into the following words , ' Resist—a plot is brought bome-VJPhe tour / And this is the anagrammatic xnethod /' . X-.