formers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of 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 publick credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage. 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 closestool, to signify a privy-council; a flock of geese a senate; a lame dog[1], an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber-pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general: a running sore, the administration.
When this method fails, they have two others more effectual, which the learned among them call acrosticks and anagrams. First, they can decipher all initial letters into political meanings. Thus, N, shall
- ↑ See the proceedings against Dr. Atterbury, bishop of Rochester. State Trials, Vol. VI.
