The three parts of the _Age of Reason_ were published in Paris 1793,
Paris 1795, and New York 1807. Carlile's[600] edition is of London, 1818,
8vo. It must be republished when the time comes, to show what stuff
governments and clergy were afraid of at the beginning of this century. I
should never have seen the book, if it {272} had not been prohibited: a
bookseller put it under my nose with a fearful look round him; and I could
do no less, in common curiosity, than buy a work which had been so
complimented by church and state. And when I had read it, I said in my mind
to church and state,--Confound you! you have taken me in worse than any
reviewer I ever met with. I forget what I gave for the book, but I ought to
have been able to claim compensation somewhere.

THE CABBALA.

Cabbala Algebraica. Auctore Gul. Lud. Christmann.[601] Stuttgard, 1827,
4to.

Eighty closely printed pages of an attempt to solve equations of every
degree, which has a process called by the author _cabbala_. An anonymous
correspondent spells _cabbala_ as follows, [Greek: chabball], and makes 666
out of its letters. This gentleman has sent me since my Budget commenced, a
little heap of satirical communications, each having a 666 or two; for
instance, alluding to my remarks on the spelling of _chemistry_, he finds
the fated number in [Greek: chimeia]. With these are challenges to explain
them, and hints about the end of the world. All these letters have
different fantastic seals; one of them with the legend "keep your
temper,"--another bearing "bank token five pence." The only signature is a
triangle with a little circle in it, which I interpret to mean that the
writer confesses himself to be the round man stuck in the three-cornered
hole, to be explained as in Sydney Smith's joke.

{273}

There is a kind of Cabbala Alphabetica which the investigators of the
numerals in words would do well to take up: it is the formation of
sentences which contain all the letters of the alphabet, and each only
once. No one has done it with _v_ and _j_ treated as consonants; but you
and I can do it. Dr. Whewell[602] and I amused ourselves, some years ago,
with attempts. He could not make sense, though he joined words: he gave me

Phiz, styx, wrong, buck, flame, quid.

I gave him the following, which he agreed was "admirable sense": I
certainly think the words would never have come together except in this
way:

I, quartz pyx, who fling muck be