of ordinary news. All the sceptical writings of England put together will not make half the number that have appeared in Protestant Germany during the last twelve or fifteen years. And, in the Criticisms on the Edict, it is hard to say whether infidelity or disloyalty fills the most pages.
To such a degree had the Illuminati carried this favourite and important point that they obtained the direction even of those whose office it was to prevent it.
There is at Vienna, as at Berlin, an office for examining and licensing writings before they can have their course in the market. This office publishes annually an index of forbidden books.
In this index are included the account of the last Operations of Spartacus and Philo in the Order of Illuminati, and a dissertation on The Final Overthrow of Free Masonry, a most excellent performance, showing the gradual corruption and final perversion of that society to a seminary of sedition. Also the Vienna Magazine of Literature and Arts, which contains many accounts of the interferences of the Illuminati in the disturbances of Europe.
The Censor who occasioned this prohibition was an Illuminatus named Retzer. He makes a most pitiful and Jesuitical defence, showing himself completely versant in all the chicane of the Illuminati, and devoted to their Infidel principles. (See Rel. Begebenh. 1795, p. 493.)