DIPLOMATIC letters. The art of read ing letters written in cypher must be founded on the knowledge of the art of writing according to this method of con cealment. In examining a piece in newly invented characters, we should endea vour to ascertain whether the number of the characters correspond, or nearly so, with the ordinary number of alphabetical letters. We may sometimes detect a weakness in the writer of having selected his most simple marks, either for the vowels or the first letters of the alphabet, and his complex marks for the conso nants, or the letters most remote from a, b, c, &c. We must observe which of the characters, whether taken singly or com bined, occur the oftenest in the whole specimen ; and of these probably the most frequent will represent e, a, i, o ; e being much more common than the rest of the vowels, but u and y are even less fre quent than many of the consonants.
Endeavour next to ascertain the be ginning and of words, which are sometimes distinguished by spaces or points, or the insignificant marks or nulls interposed; but, however it be done, you must expect these signs to occur after every few letters, and the frequency of their occurrence may serve as some guide.
When you have found out the distinc tion between words, take particular no tice of the order, number, frequency, and combination of the letters in each word ; and first examine the characters of which the shortest monosyllables are composed. Remember, 1. That no word can be with out a vowel : a word of one letter must therefore be a vowel, or a consonant with an apostrophe. 2. That the vowels are more frequently doubled at the begin ning of words than the consonants: indeed the latter are only doubled at the be ginning of Spanish and Welsh words. 3. That the vowels mostly exceed the consonants in short words ; and when the double consonants are preceded by a single letter, that letter is a vowel. 4. That the single consonant which pre cedes or follows double consonants ,is 1, m, n, or r. 5. That the letter q is al ways followed by and when two dif ferent characters occur, the latter of which is often joined with other letters, but the former never found alone, nor joined with any than the latter, those characters stand for qu, which two, ex cept in a few Scotch names, are always followed by a vowel. 6. That, although
every language has something peculiar in its structure, the foregoing observations will apply with little variation to all the European languages.
In the English let it be remarked, that and and the are more often found than any other words; 71 is frequently preced ed by w, c, 8, and t ; y is seldom used in the middle of a word ; the double let ters 11 and as appear frequently at the end of words ; ed, ty, ly, ing, and tion, are very common terminations ; em, in, corn, and con, are frequent prepositions; a, 1, and o may stand alone ; o is often followed with e is much more frequent in the begin ning and end of words than in the mid dle; and in English the e is continually employed, as in yes, yet, her, never, me, we; he, the, she, They, ye, fee, see, be, ever speed, need, deference, excel, excess, &c.
Though this will not hold good in Latin, as e and i are equally frequent in the lat ter, and next to these a and but o not so common as any of them : and yet in the Spanish and Italian the o occurs very frequently. When you meet with a cha racter doubled in the middle of a word of four letters, it will be necessary to con sider what words of four letters are so spelled. It is probable the vowels e or o are these ; as meet, feel, good, book, look, &c. In polysyllables, where a double character appears in the middle of a word, it is for the most part a consonant ; and if so, the preceding letter is always a vowel.
Observe also, that i in English never terminates a word, nor a or is, except in flea, sea, you, or thou : again, by compar ing the frequency of the letters, you will generally find e occurs the oftenest; next a, then a and i; but u and y are- not so often used as some of the consonants, es pecially s and t. Among the vowels e and are often doubled; the rest scarce ever; and e and y often terminate words ; but y is much less frequ ent, and consequently easily distinguished.