Je m’empresse de vous écrire pour vous déclarer que vous vous trompez
beaucoup si vous croyez que vous êtes celle pour qui je soupire. Il
est bien vrai que pour vous éprouver, Je vous ai fait mille aveux.
Après quoi vous êtes devenue l’objet de ma raillerie. Ainsi ne doutez
plus de ce que vous dit ici celui qui n’a eu que de l’aversion pour
vous, et qui aimerait mieux mourir que de se voir obligé de vous
épouser, et de changer le dessein qu’il a formé de vous haïr toute sa
vie, bien loin de vous aimer, comme il vous l’a déclaré. Soyez done
désabusée, croyez-moi; et si vous êtes encore constante et persuadée
que vous êtes aimée vous serez encore plus exposée à la risée de tout
le monde, et particulièrement de celui qui n’a jamais été et ne sera
jamais
Votre ser’teur M. N.
We must not omit to mention Chronograms. These are verses which contain
within them the date of the composition. In 1885 I built a boathouse by a
lake in my grounds. A friend wrote the following chronogram for it, which
I had painted, and affixed to the house:
Thy breaD upon the Waters Cast
In CertaIn trust to fInd.
sInCe Well thou know’st God’s eye doth Mark,
Where fIshes’ eyes are bLind.
This gives the date.
D = 500 + W= 510 + C = 610 + I = 611
+ C = 711 + I = 712 + I = 713 + I = 714
+ C = 814 + W = 824 + M = 1824
+ W = 1834 + I = 1835 + L = 1885.
The W represents two V’s, _i.e._ 10.
A very curious one was written by Charles de Bovelle: we adapt and explain
it:--
The heads of a mouse and five cats M.CCCCC
Add also the tail of a bull L
Item, the four legs of a rat IIII
-------------
And you have my date in full M.CCCCCL.IIII
(1554.)
It is now high time that we show the reader how to find the clue to a
cypher. And as illustration is always better than precept, we shall
exemplify from our own experience. With permission, too, we shall drop the
plural for the singular.
Well! My friend Matthew Fletcher came into a property some years ago,
bequeathed to him by a great-uncle. The old gentleman had been notorious
for his parsimonious habits, and he was known through the county by the
nickname of Miser Tom. Of course every one believed that he was vastly
rich, and that Mat Fletcher would come in for a mint of money. But,
somehow, my friend did not find the stores of coin on which he had
calculated, hidden in worsted stockings or cracked pots; and the savings
of the old man which he did light upon consisted of but trifling sums.
Fletcher became firmly persuaded that the money was hidden _somewhere_;
where he could not tell, and he often came to consult me on the best
expedient for discovering it. It is all through my intervention that he
did not pull down the whole house about his ears, tear up every floor, and
root up every flower or tree throughout the garden, in his search after
the precious hoard. One day he burst into my room with radiant face.
“My dear fellow!” he gasped forth, “I have found it!”
“Found what?--the treasure?”
“No--but I want your help now,” and he flung a discoloured slip of paper
on my table.