Concerning the Bi-Lateral Cypher of Francis Bacon discovered in his works, by Elizabeth Wells Gallup

Obvious typographical errors in punctuation have been silently corrected. All other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

This edition embraces decipherings from the commencement of the use of Bacon’s Cipher inventions—now found to be 1579—and covering the entire period of his literary career, including some works published by Rawley subsequent to 1626. The Cypher has been traced with certainty down to 1651.

This Bi-literal Cypher reveals much secret history concerning Queen Elizabeth, who, it is now learned, was the wedded wife of Robert, Earl of Leicester—while posing as the Virgin Queen—and was the mother of Francis Bacon.

It also discloses the existence of a second so-called Key-Word Cipher, of broader scope, running through all of Bacon’s literary works, with instructions by which they may be deciphered to disclose other hidden dramatical and historical productions of larger importance and greater historical accuracy than those upon the printed pages which enfold them. These are found also to contain secret history, dangerous to Bacon, who sought by this means to transmit it to a future time in which he hoped the Ciphers would be discovered and the truth proclaimed.

The method of the Word Cipher is shown in the deciphered Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, published simultaneously with this Third Edition,—also in the Tragedy of Robert, Earl of Essex,—and the Tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots.

One of the Historical Dramas in Cipher named in the Bi-literal Cypher as concealed in the works of Bacon.

Contains extracts from the Bi-literal, with Bacon’s instructions and the Keys by which this Tragedy has been extracted fully illustrating the Word Cipher method of its reconstruction.

An appendix gives the editions used and pages on which may be found the scattered sections brought together in new sequence to form the new play.

Included in Part I will also be found the decipherings made by Mrs. Gallup in the British Museum subsequent to the publication of the Second Edition of the Bi-literal Cypher, and are from Old Editions appearing between 1579 and 1590, establishing the earliest dates this Cypher appeared. They are placed here for the convenience of these having Second Editions only.

The discovery of the existence of the Bi-literal Cipher of Francis Bacon, found embodied in his works, and the deciphering of what it tells, has been a work arduous, exhausting and prolonged. It is not ended, but the results of the work so far brought forth, are submitted for study and discussion, and open a new and large field of investigation and research, which cannot fail to interest all students of the earlier literature that has come down to us as a mirror of the past, and in many respects has been adopted as models for the present.

Seeking for things hidden, the mysterious, elusive and unexpected, has a fascination for many minds, as it has for my own, and this often prompts to greater effort than more manifest and material things would command. To this may be attributed, perhaps, the triumph over difficulties which have seemed to me, at times, insurmountable, the solution of problems, and the following of ways tortuous and obscure, which have been necessary to bring out, as they appear in the following pages, the hidden messages which Francis Bacon so securely buried in his writings, that three hundred years of reading and close study have not until now uncovered them.

This Bi-literal Cipher is found in the Italic letters that appear in such unusual and unexplained prodigality in the original editions of Bacon’s works. Students of these old editions have been impressed with the extraordinary number of words and passages, often non-important, printed in Italics, where no known rule of construction would require their use. There has been no reasonable explanation of this until now it is found that they were so used for the[Pg 16] purposes of this Cipher. These letters are seen to be in two forms—two fonts of type—with marked differences. In the Capitals these are easily discerned, but the distinguishing features in the small letters, from age of the books, blots and poor printing, have been more difficult to classify, and close examination and study have been required to separate and sketch out the variations, and educate the eye to distinguish them.

How I found the Cipher, its difficulties, methods of working, and outline of what the several books contain, will more fully appear in the explanatory introduction.

In assisting Dr. Owen in the preparation of the later books of “Sir Francis Bacon’s Cipher Story,” recently published, and in the study of the great Word-Cipher discovered by him, in which is incorporated Bacon’s more extensive, more complete and important writings, I became convinced that the very full explanation found in De Augmentis, of the bi-literal method of cipher-writing, was something more than a mere treatise on the subject. I applied the rules given to the peculiarly Italicised words and “letters in two forms,” as they appear in the photographic Fac-simile of the original 1623, Folio edition, of the Shakespeare Plays. The disclosures, as they appear in this volume, were as great a surprise to me, as they will be to my readers. Original editions of Bacon’s known works were then procured, as well as those of other authors named in these, and claimed by Bacon as his own. The story deciphered from these will appear under the several headings.

From the disclosures found in all these, it is evident that Bacon expected this Bi-literal Cipher would be the first to be discovered, and that it would lead to the discovery of his principal, or Word-Cipher, which it fully explains, and to which is intrusted the larger subjects he desired to have preserved. This order has been reversed, in fact, and the earlier discovery of the Word-Cipher, by Dr. Owen, becomes a more remarkable achievement, being entirely[Pg 17] evolved without the aids which Bacon had prepared in this, for its elucidation.

The proofs are overwhelming and irresistible that Bacon was the author of the delightful lines attributed to Spenser,—the fantastic conceits of Peele and Greene,—the historical romances of Marlowe,—the immortal plays and poems put forth in Shakespeare’s name, as well as the Anatomy of Melancholy of Burton.

The removal of these masques, behind which Bacon concealed himself, may change the names of some of our idols. It is, however, the matter and not the name that appeals to our intelligence.

The plays of Shakespeare lose nothing of their dramatic power or wondrous beauty, nor deserve the less admiration of the scholar and critic, because inconsistencies are removed in the knowledge that they came from the brain of the greatest student and writer of that age, and were not a “flash of genius” descended upon one of peasant birth, less noble history, and of no preparatory literary attainments.

The Shepherds’ Calendar is not less sweetly poetical, because Francis Bacon appropriated the name of Spenser, several years after his death, under which to put forth the musical measures, that had, up to that time, only appeared as the production of some Muse without a name; nor will Faerie Queene lose ought of its rythmic beauty or romantic interest from change of name upon the title page.

The supposed writings of Peele, Greene and Marlowe are not the less worthy, because really written by one greater than either.

The remarkable similarity in the dramatic writings attributed to Greene, Peele, Marlowe and Shakespeare has attracted much attention, and the biographers of each have claimed that both style and subject-matter have been imitated, if not appropriated, by the others. The practical explanation lies in the fact that one hand wrote them all.

I fully appreciate what it means to bring forth new truth from unexpected and unknown fields, if not in accord with accented theories and long held beliefs. “For what a man had rather were true, he more readily believes,”—is one of Bacon’s truisms that finds many illustrations.

I appreciate what it means to ask strong minds to change long standing literary convictions, and of such I venture to ask the withholding of judgment until study shall have made the new matter familiar, with the assurance meanwhile, upon my part, of the absolute veracity of the work which is here presented. Any one possessing the original books, who has sufficient patience and a keen eye for form, can work out and verify the Cipher from the illustrations given. Nothing is left to choice, chance, or the imagination. The statements which are disclosed are such as could not be foreseen, nor imagined, nor created, nor can there be found reasonable excuse for the hidden writings, except for the purposes narrated, which could only exist concerning, and be described by, Francis Bacon.

I would beg that the readers of this book will bring to the consideration of the work minds free from prejudice, judging of it with the same intelligence and impartiality they would themselves desire, if the presentation were their own. Otherwise the work will, indeed, have been a thankless task.

To doubt the ultimate acceptance of the truths brought to light would be to distrust that destiny in which Bacon had such an abiding faith for his justification, and which, in fact, after three centuries, has lifted the veil, and brought us to estimate the character and accomplishments, trials and sorrows of that great genius, with a feeling of nearness and personal sympathy, far greater than has been possible from the partial knowledge which we have heretofore enjoyed.

The publication of the second edition of the Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon, which embraced the period of his Cipher writing between 1590 and the end of his career, emphasized the importance of finding the earlier writings—preceding 1590. The old books necessary to the research could not be procured in America, and during the summer of 1900 Mrs. Gallup and her assistant, Miss Kate E. Wells, visited England to carry on the work in that treasure house of early literature, the British Museum. The investigations yielded rich returns, for in Shepheard’s Calender of 1579 was found the commencement of what proved to be an important part of Bacon’s life work.

Following Shepheard’s Calender, the works between 1579 and 1590, so far deciphered, are:

Treatise of Melancholy, 1586. Two editions of this were issued the same year, with differing Italics. The first ends with an incomplete cipher word which is completed in the second for the continued narration, thus making evident which was first published, unless they were published at the same time.

Euphues, 1587; Morando, 1587. These two also join together, with an incomplete word at the end of the first finding its completion in the commencement of the Cipher in the second.

Spanish Masquerado, 1589. Two editions of this work bear date the same year, but have different Italicising. In one edition the Cipher Story is complete, closing with the signature: “Fr., Prince.” In the other the story is not complete, the book ending with an incomplete cipher word, the remainder of which will be found in some work of a near date which has not yet been indicated.

Several months were spent in following, through these old books, the thread of the concealed story until it joined the work which had already been published. Overstrained eye-sight, from the close study of the different forms of Italic letters, and consequent exhaustion on the part of Mrs. Gallup, compelled a cessation of the work before all that would have been desirable to know concerning that early period was deciphered; and while these are not all the works in which Cipher will be found, between the years 1579 and 1590, they are sufficient unmistakably to connect the earlier writings with those of later date which had already been deciphered—as published in the Bi-literal Cypher—so that we now know the Cipher writings were being continuously infolded in Bacon’s works, for a period of about forty-six years, from the first to the last of his literary productions, including some matter he had prepared, which was published by Rawley subsequent to 1626.

These few pages of deciphered matter, now added to that published in the Second Edition, have a unique distinction in the costliness of their production, but they are of inestimable value, historically, as well as from a literary point of view, in demonstrating with certainty the scope and completeness of the Cipher plan which has so long hidden the secrets of a most eventful period.

For Cyphars; they are commonly in Letters or Alphabets, but may bee in Wordes. The kindes of Cyphars, (besides the Simple Cyphars with Changes, and intermixtures of Nvlles, and Nonsignificants) are many, according to the Nature or Rule of the infoulding: Wheele-Cyphars, Kay-Cyphars, Dovbles, &c. But the vertues of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are three; that they be not laborious to write and reade; that they bee impossible to discypher; and in some cases, that they bee without suspition. The highest Degree whereof, is to write Omnia Per Omnia; which is vndoubtedly possible, with a proportion Quintuple at most, of the writing infoulding, to the writing infoulded, and no other restrainte whatsoeuer. This Arte of Cypheringe, hath for Relatiue, an Art of Discypheringe; by supposition vnprofitable; but, as things are, of great vse. For suppose that Cyphars were well mannaged, there bee Multitudes of them which exclude the Discypherer. But in regarde of the rawnesse and vnskilfulnesse of the handes, through which they passe, the greatest Matters, are many times carryed in the weakest Cyphars.

Wherefore let us come to Cyphars. Their kinds are many, as Cyphars simple; Cyphars intermixt with Nulloes, or non-significant Characters; Cyphars of double Letters under one Character; Wheele-Cyphars; Kay-Cyphars; Cyphars of Words; Others. But the virtues of them whereby they are to be preferr’d are Three; That they be ready, and not laborious to write; That they be sure, and lie not open to Deciphering; And lastly, if it be possible, that they be managed without suspition.

But that jealousies may be taken away, we will annexe an other invention, which, in truth, we devised in our youth, when we were at Paris: and is a thing that yet seemeth to us not worthy to be lost. It containeth the highest degree of Cypher, which is to signifie omnia per omnia, yet so as the writing infolding, may beare a quintuple proportion to the writing infolded; no other condition or restriction whatsoever is required. It shall be performed thus: First let all the Letters of the Alphabet, by transposition, be resolved into two Letters onely; for the transposition of two Letters by five placings will be sufficient for 32. Differences, much more for 24, which is the number of the Alphabet. The example of such an Alphabet is on this wise.

Neither is it a small matter these Cypher-Characters have, and may performe: For by this Art a way is opened, whereby a man may expresse and signifie the intentions of his minde, at any distance of place, by objects which may be presented to the eye, and accommodated to the eare: provided those objects be capable of a twofold difference onely; as by Bells, by Trumpets, by Lights and Torches, by the report of Muskets, and any instruments of like nature. But to pursue our enterprise, when you addresse your selfe to write, resolve your inward-infolded Letter into this Bi-literarie Alphabet. Say the interiour Letter be

Together with this, you must have ready at hand a Bi-formed Alphabet, which may represent all the Letters of the Common Alphabet, as well Capitall Letters as the Smaller Characters in a double forme, as may fit every mans occasion.

Now to the interiour letter, which is Biliterate, you shall fit a biformed exteriour letter, which shall answer the other, letter for letter, and afterwards set it downe. Let the exteriour example be,

We have annext likewise a more ample example of the cypher of writing omnia per omnia: An interiour letter, which to expresse, we have made choice of a Spartan letter sent once in a Scytale or round cypher’d staffe.

An exteriour letter, taken out of the first Epistle of Cicero, wherein a Spartan Letter is involved.

Epistle.

In all duty or rather piety towards you, I satisfy every body except myself. Myself I never satisfy. For so great are the services which you have rendered me, that, seeing you did not rest in your endeavours on my behalf till the thing was done, I feel as if life had lost all its sweetness, because I cannot do as much in this cause of yours. The occasions are these: Ammonius, the king’s ambassador, openly besieges us with money. The business is carried on through the same creditors who were employed in it when you were here &c.

Cipher infolded.

All is lost. Mindarus is killed. The soldiers want food. We can neither get hence nor stay longer here.

The knowledge of Cyphering, hath drawne on with it a knowledge relative unto it, which is the knowledge of Discyphering, or of Discreting Cyphers, though a man were utterly ignorant of the Alphabet of the Cypher, and the Capitulations of secrecy past between the Parties. Certainly it is an Art which requires great paines and a good witt and is [as the other was] consecrate to the Counsels of Princes: yet notwithstanding by diligent prevision it may be made unprofitable, though, as things are, it be of great use. For if good and faithfull Cyphers were invented & practised, many of them would delude and forestall all the Cunning of the Decypherer, which yet are very apt and easie to be read or written: but the rawnesse and unskilfulnesse of Secretaries, and Clarks in the Courts of Princes, is such, that many times the greatest matters are committed to futile and weake Cyphers.

The Cipher discoveries in some of the literature of the Elizabethan period, as set forth in Francis Bacon’s Biliteral Cypher—a book recently published in America and England—are most strange and important. To those not familiar with them, a few words are requisite for an understanding of the methods of the production of this Cipher play—The Tragedy of Anne Boleyn.

Two principal Ciphers have been found to exist in the works of Bacon. The first, the Bi-literal, by the use of Italic letters in different forms, concealed the rules and directions for writing out a second of greater scope—a so-called Word Cipher, in which key words indicate sections of similar matter, that, brought together in a new sequence, tell a different story. Both were invented by Bacon in his youth. The primary, or Bi-literal Cypher, is fully explained in De Augmentis Scientiarum, but it is only recently that it has been found to exist in the Italic printing of a number of the books of the Elizabethan era—books ascribed to different authors but now proved to have been written by Bacon.

On pages following are extracts from the Bi-literal Cypher, as published, relating in the words of the inventor himself the manner of using the Key-Word Cipher for the segregation and reconstruction of the hidden narratives, infolded in the pages as originally printed, with which we are familiar. These directions are fragmentary, scattered through many of the books deciphered, and are many times repeated in varying forms of expression.

The more important only are here gathered, which, with the “Argument” and the keys, now given, of this tragedy,[Pg 32] will outline the plan of this work. It may be interesting to know that the use of the key words is progressive, and that a small number only are used at one time: the first six or seven writing the prologue, a few of the next the opening scenes of the play, and so on through the entire work, some being dropped as others are taken up successively until all have been used. An appendix gives the book and page from which the lines are taken that have been brought together as the “great architect or master-builder directed.”

In the reconstruction, especially when prose is changed to verse, the order of the words is slightly changed to meet the requirements of “rythmic measure in the Iambic.” The great author used large parts of many scenes in two distinct plays—open and concealed—now and then with the same dramatis personae, again with others clearly indicated as belonging, historically, to these particular scenes. This fact may jostle our ideas somewhat, as we find new speakers using the familiar lines, but there is an added interest, when the transposition gives the accuracy of history to the beauty of dramatic expression. This seems the reverse of the natural order, but it is seeming only, for the literary world became acquainted with the rewritten plays three centuries before the hidden originals came to light.

In the banquet scene of this tragedy, the first part is almost identical with that of Henry Eighth, although—when “like joins like,” something from Macbeth, from Hamlet, from Romeo and Juliet, etc., etc., is added—while other diversions of that festival night are not given openly in any of the works. The handkerchief scenes of the imagined tragedy of Othello belong to this real, but concealed, tragedy of Anne Boleyn, and the accusations against the Queen of Sicilia are a part of the charge against this martyred Queen; the reply, a part of the pathetic but brave response she made. The second part was never before in any published drama.

It would seem that Bacon learned from Cicero the method of preparing matter which could with slight variations be adapted to more than one purpose. We find this in the Advancement of Learning (1605, p. 52).

“And Cicero himselfe, being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainely; That whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speake of, (if he will take the paines) he may have it in effect premediate, and handled in these. So that when hee cometh to a particular, he shall have nothing to doe, but to put too Names and times, and places; and such other Circumstances of Individuals.”

A little further on (p. 56), is an instance where an inquiry about the tablets in Neptune’s Temple is ascribed to Diagoras, while in the Apothegms this same question is put in the mouth of Bion. And, in the First Folio of the Shakespeare Plays, a very marked example occurs in Romeo and Juliet.

Then almost immediately after, the Friar gives the same lines, with very slight but distinctive changes:

The modern editors cut out one quatrain as a supposed mistake, the decipherer discovers by the keys and joining-words that each has a place—the first in one work, and the second in another.

As the tragical events of this period in the history of the ill-fated queen, now known to be Bacon’s ancestress, have[Pg 34] little by little unfolded in the deciphering, there has been a deepening sense of the pathos of the story. Like dissolving views the scenes appear, and fade, and this mightiness meets misery so soon that we feel the shock. There is the gentle Anne’s appearance at the banquet, “when King Henry for the first time cometh truely under the spell of her beautie”—his infatuation—his determination that nothing should stand in the way of making her his wife—the divorce from Katherine—the coronation—the disapproval of the people, not of Anne but of the King—the insulting song at the coronation festivities—the birth of Elizabeth, Bacon’s mother, and the King’s disappointment that the princess was not a prince. Later there is the King’s fickleness, which prompted the false charges against his wife—the mockery of the trial—the true nobleness of the victim—the injustice of her condemnation—the pathetic message to the King, as she was led to the scaffold—the cruelty of her execution.

It is no wonder that Bacon felt this deeply, nor that “every act and scene is a tender sacrifice, and an incense to her sweet memory.”

As may bee well knowne unto you, th’ questio’ of Elizabeth, her legitimacie, made her a Protestant, for the Pope had not recognis’d th’ union, tho’ it were royale, which her sire made with fayre Anne Boleyn. Still we may see that despite some restraining feare, it suited her to dallie with the question, to make a faint shew of settling the mater as her owne co’sie’ce dictated, if we take th’ decisions of facts; but the will of th’ remorse-tost king left no doubt in men’s minds concerning th’ former marriage, in fact, as th’ crowne was giv’n first to Mary, his daughter of that marriage, before commi’g to Elizabeth.

In th’ storie of my most infortunate grandmother, the sweet ladie who saw not th’ headsman’s axe when shee went forth proudly to her coronation, you shall read of a sadnesse that touches me neere, partlie because of neerenesse in bloud, partlie from a firme beliefe and trust in her innocencie. Therefore every act and scene of this play of which I speake, is a tende’ sacrifice, and an incense to her sweete memorie. It is a plea to the generations to come for a just judgement upon her life, whilst also giving the world one of the noblest o’ my plays, hidden in Cy’hre in many other works.

A short argument, and likewise th’ keies, are giv’n to ayde th’ decypherer when it is to be work’d out as I wish. This doth tell th’ story with sufficient clearnes to guide you to our hidden storie.

This opeth at th’ palace, when King Henry for the first time cometh truely under the spell of her beautie,—then in th’ highest perfection of dainty grace, fresh, unspoiled,—and the charme of youthlie manners. It is[Pg 36] thought this was that inquisition which brought out feares regarding th’ marriage contracted with Katharine of Arragon, so that none greatly wond’red whe’ prolonged consultation of the secret voyce in his soule assur’d the questioner noe good could ever come from the union. Acti’g upon this conviction he doth confer money and titles upon his last choise to quiet objections on score of unmeetnes.

But tho’ an irksome thing, truth shall be told. Tho’ it be ofttimes a task,—if selfe-imposed, not by any meanes th’ lesse, but more wearisome, since the work hath noe voyce of approvall or praise,—I intend its completion. For many simple causes th’ historie of a man’s life cometh from acts that we see through stayned glasse darkelie, and of th’ other sexe, a man doth perceyve lesse, if possible, but th’ picture that I shall heere give is limn’d most carefully. However m’ pen hath greatly digress’d, and to returne.

Despite this mark of royall favour, a grave matter like the divorcement of a royall spouse to wed a maide, suited not with fayre Anne’s notions of justice, and with a sweete grace she made answere when the King sued for favour:—“I am not high in birth as would befit a Queene, but I am too good to become your mistresse.” So there was no waye to compasse his desires save to wring a decree out o’ th’ Pope and wed th’ maide, not a jot regarding her answer unlesse to bee the more eager to have his waye.

Th’ love Lord Percy shew’d my lady, although so frankly return’d, kept the wish turning, turning as a restless mill. Soone he resolv’d on proof of his owne spirit, doe th’ Pope how he might, and securing a civill decree, privately wedded th’ too youthfull Anne, and hid her for space of severall daies untill th’ skies could somewhat cleare; but when th’ earlie sumer came, in hope that there might soone bee borne to them an heyre of th’ desir’d kinde,[Pg 37] order’d willinglie her coronation sparing noe coste to make it outvie anie other.

And when she was borne along, surrounded by soft white tissew, shielded by a canopie of white, whilst she is wafted onwards, you would say an added charme were to paint the lillie, or give the rose perfume.

This was onely th’ beginning of a triumph, bright as briefe,—in a short space ’twas ore. Henry chose to consider th’ infant princesse in the light of great anger of a just God brought upon him for his sinnes, but bearing this with his daring spirit, he compelleth the Actes of Supremacy and Succession, which placed him at the head of the Church of England, in th’ one case, and made his heires by Queene Anne th’ successours to th’ throne. Untill that time, onely male heyres had succeeded to th’ roiall power and the act occasioned much surprise amongst our nobilitie.

But Henry rested not the’. The lovelinesse of Anne and her natural opennesse of manner, so potent to winne th’ weake heart o’ th’ King, awaken’d suspition and much cruell jealousie when hee saw th’ gay courtiers yielding to th’ spell of gracefull gentility,—heighten’d by usage forrayn, as also at th’ English Court. But if truth be said, th’ fancy had taken him to pay lovi’g court unto the faire Jane Seymour, who was more beautifull, and quite young,—but also most ordinary as doth regard personall manner, and th’ qualitie that made th’ Queene so pleasing,—Lady Jane permitting marks of gracious favour t’ be freelie offered.

And the Queene, unfortunately for her secret hope, surpris’d them in a tender scene. Sodaine griefe orewhelming her so viole’tlie, she swound before them, and a little space thereafter the infant sonne so constantly desir’d, borne untimely, disappointed once more this selfish monarch. This threw him into great fury, so that he was cruellie harsh where [he] should give comfort and support,[Pg 38] throwing so much blame upon the gentle Queene, that her heart dyed within her not long after soe sadde ending of a mother, her hopes.

Under pretexte of beleeving gentle Queene Anne to be guilty of unfaithfullnesse, Henry had her convey’d to London Tower, and subjected her to such ignominy as one can barelie beleeve, ev’n basely laying to her charge the gravest sins, and summoning a jury of peeres delivered the Queene for tryal and sentence. His act doth blacken pitch. Ev’n her father, sitting amidst the peeres before whom shee was tried, exciteth not so much astonishment since hee was forc’d thereto.

Henry’s will was done, but hardly could hee restraine the impatience that sent him forth from his pallace at th’ hour of her execution to an eminence neare by, in order to catche th’ detonation (ation) of th’ field peece whose hollow tone tolde the moment at which th’ cruell axe fell, and see the blacke flag, that signall which floated wide to tell the world she breath’d no more.

Th’ hast with which hee then went forward with his marriage, proclaym’d the reall rigor or frigidity of his hart. It is by all men accompted strange, this subtile power by which soe many of the peeres could be forc’d to passe sentence upon this lady, when proofes of guilt were nowhere to bee produced. In justice to a memorie dear to myselfe, I must aver that it is far from cleare yet, upon what charge shee was found worthie of death. It must of neede have beene some quiddet of th’ lawe, that chang’d some harmlesse words into anything one had in minde, for in noe other waye could speech of hers be made wrongfull. Having fayl’d to prove her untrue, nought could bring about such a resulte, had this not (have) beene accomplish’d.

Thus was her good fame made a reproache, and time hath not given backe that priceles treasure. If my plaie[Pg 39] shal shew this most clearly, I shall be co’tente. And as for my roiall grandsire, whatever honour hath beene lost by such a course, is re-gain’d by his descendants from the union, through this lovi’g justification of Anne Bulle’, his murther’d Queene.

Before I go further with instructions, I make bold to say that th’ benefits we who now live in our free England reape [are] from her faith and unfayling devotion to th’ advancement, that she herselfe promoting, beheld well undertaken. It was her most earnest beliefe in this remarkable and widelie spread effecte on th’ true prosperitie of the realme, and not a love o’ dignity or power,—if the evidence of workes be taken,—that co’strain’d her to take upon her th’ responsibility of roialtie. And I am fullie perswaded in mine owne minde that had shee lived to carry out all th’ work, her honours, no doubt, had outvied those of her world-wide famed and honour’d daughter who continu’d that which had beene so well commenc’d.

I am aware many artes waned in the raignes of Edward and bloodie Mary, also that their recovery must have requir’d patient attention and the expenditure of money my mother had no desire so to imploy, having many other things at that time by which th’ coffers were drayn’d subtly; but that it must require farre greater perseverance in order to begin so noble work, devising th’ plannes and ayding in their execution, cannot be impugn’d. Many times these things do not shewe lightness or th’ vanitie which some have laid to her charge.

However th’ play doth reveale this better, farre, then I wish t’ give it in this Cypher, therefore I begge that it shall bee written out and kept as a perpetual monument of my wrong’d, but innocent ancestresse.

My keies mentio’d in the beginning of this most helpfull work, will follow in this place:—

The King Henry Sevent, Kath’rine th’ Infanta, Prince Arthur, Catholicke Spaine, Prince of Wales, King Henry th’ Eight, Rome, nu’cio, Pope, Protestant, Anne Bullen, prelate, Wolsey, divorce, fury, excommunication, France, Francis First, marriage, ceremony, brother, pageant, barge, Richmond, Greenwich, Tower, procession, cloth, tissue, panoply, canopy, cloth o’ gold, litter, bearing-staves, pageant, streets, coronation, crowne of Edward, purple robe, roiall ermine, mace, th’ sword, wand, esses, French, Spanish ambassadours, advance-guards, mayor, dutchesse, Duke Suffolke, Norfolke, Marquesse Dorset, Bishop London, same Winchester, th’ Knights of th’ Garter, Lord Chancellour, judges, Surrey, Earle, quirrestres, lords, ladies, et al., Westminster, Rochford, Wiltshire, manors, castles, land, valew, titles, Marchionesse of Pembrooke, ports, countesses, roiall scepter, stile, power, title, pompe, realme, artes, advancement, liberty, treasure, warre, treaty, study, benefit, trade, priest, monastery, restitution, acts, supremacy, succession, Elizabeth, daughter, sonne, heyres, unfaithfulnesse, treason, Norris, Weston, subtile triumph, hate, losse, evill, jealousie, love, beautie, Tower, tryall, proofe, sentry, sentence, executed, burning, choyce, the axe, block, uncover’d face, report, black-flag, freedom, marriage-vow, Edward.

As hath most frequentlie bin said these will write th’ play, but th’ foregoing abridgeme’t, or argument, wil ayde you. In good hope of saving th’ same from olde Father Time’s ravages, heere have I hidden this Cypher play. To you I entruste th’ taske I, myselfe, shall never see complete, it is probable, but soe firme is my conviction that it must before long put up its leaves like th’ plant in th’ sunne, that I rest contente awaiting that time.

In the following pages will be found the statement of its discovery in the Works of Bacon, and discussions by the public Press. Inquries, objections and answers from so many different points of view would seem to cover every phase of the matter. Unreasoning prejudice is, of course, beyond reply. To those of open mind this exposition of the discovery will be most interesting. Its importance cannot be overestimated. A new literature, buried these three hundred years, as interesting as it is surprising, has been unearthed. Its authenticity is placed beyond question.

To thousands who tread unthinkingly the earth’s fair surface, the mineral constitution of the globe, or the history of its formation, is as a sealed book. The geologist, however, pointing out the parallel lines in a rock will tell us they indicate the glacial period. From a piece of coal he will describe the forests and plant life which formed the coal measures of the carboniferous era. He finds where volcanic action reveals strata from unknown depths, and reads their history like a printed page.

In architecture, the ages stamped, each its own, peculiarities upon column and temple, and the student of that science will declare the date of the ruins which accident or excavation have brought to view.

We see a tapering obelisk inscribed with hieroglyphics, and say this is Egyptian. The eye educated to discriminate will study the writings upon the stone that has been preserved from remote ages, and will say, this is the hieroglyphic proper; this ideographic; this the phonetic, or of this or that peculiar character, this is the Egyptian Hieratic; this the Phœnecian; these the Cuniform characters of the ancient Persian or Assyrian inscriptions, and few will challenge the correctness of the decipherings.

The savant will tell us that the environment, the nationality and personality are unmistakably impressed upon the literature of every country, mark the times and character of its people and the stage of its progress. Year by year, decade by decade, age by age, time passed and wrought its changes until that period was reached in which the English people of the present day are interested because of the discussion which it has aroused—the latter part of the XVIth and beginning of the XVIIth Centuries. Knighthood had passed its flower but the English Court still loved the tales of Knightly deeds and found[Pg 44] delight in the fancies of the Shepheard’s Calender and Faerie Queene. Legitimate drama began to develop, replacing masques and mysteries. History was written and its lessons emphasized by dramatic representations. Essays brought the truth “home to men’s bosoms and business,” and experimental science made clear that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

This was the age when Francis Bacon lived and wrote, and fantasy, and essay, and drama began to appear, at first anonymously, and then under names of men as authors, whose lives, habits and capabilities presented the most incongruous contrasts to the works produced. They were days of peril and secret intrigue, when the words from the lips of the Courtier were often farthest removed from the thought of the brain, and when all secret communications were committed to cipher.

Of all the weighty secrets of that time, none save the Queen of England herself bore any more momentous than that prolific author. So momentous were they that few traces of their import found place upon the public records in connected or intelligible form, and were supposed to have died with those most intimately connected with them.

Bacon placed in his De Augmentis Scientiarum the key to a simple but most useful Cipher, of his own invention, and we now find that through its instrumentality the secrets so jealously guarded in his life time, were committed to his works, and waited only the hand and vision of a decipherer to be revealed to the ages which should follow.

Because the writer of this article has for seven years worked upon the Ciphers of Bacon, not as a dilettante, but as one who realized the importance and vastness of the undertaking, urged on by the fascination of a great discovery and a growing interest in the developments of it, the statements made concerning the “Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon” are not “uninspired guesses,” nor mere conjecture, but such as come from knowledge gained by the hardest work and closest application, until the eye has been trained to that degree of discrimination by which, like that of the geologist, it is able to make hidden things plain.

In pursuit of the same objects as other students of things Baconian, my own investigations have been in quite a different field from theirs, and have met with most successful, as well as[Pg 45] most surprising results, not less surprising to myself, than they will be to my readers. I have been glad to submit the results of my years of study for the edification of those interested in the same subject, for they supply missing links in the literature of that era and explain much, if not all, that has been mysterious and difficult of explanation.

The last two numbers of Baconiana have presented varied comments upon the published results of my investigations. Naturally opinions differ, according to the point of view. Although the things discovered and brought to light are those which have been so diligently sought for, and believed to exist by the deepest students, yet the wider field unexpectedly disclosed and the marvelousness of it all, prompt to incredulity.

The objections urged against a belief in the cipher disclosures appear in a variety of forms. The astounding revelations are beyond the dreams of the most ardent believers that Bacon’s sphere of action and achievements were far greater than had been acknowledged, and some have gone so far as to think the recent publication of the “Bi-literal Cypher” must have been a romantic creation of my own, the words made to fit the differing forms of the Italic letters in the old books, and written out in imitation of the forms of thought and manner of speech of the old English language, enriched by the vocabulary of the great Francis. To suggest such a thing, with all that it implies, would bring its own refutation.

It is true that the Cipher Story does not in all respects accord, or stop with what has been supposed to be the “facts of history.” Authorities do not agree as to what the “facts” were, nor is it believed that all have found place on the records, and historians have filled gaps with deductions and conjectures, some of which have been most extravagant and impossible. Especially does this appear to be true in the light of the cipher disclosures, and whatever of variation there may be will furnish a profitable field for the investigators, and there is little reason to doubt their ultimate harmony. Cyphers would not be used to hide known facts, and could be useful only in recording those that had been suppressed.

Some have given expression to the thought that the Cipher Story shows a most unpleasant phase of character in Bacon, and a lack of that princely spirit which should have actuated the son of Elizabeth, entitled to the throne, in not trying to[Pg 46] possess himself of royal power at any cost. Essex, of a more martial spirit, essayed to seize it, when Francis refused to make open claim to being Prince, in the face of the denials of the Queen,—and Essex was beheaded for the attempt. The murder of two princes of the blood royal by Richard Third; the imprisonment and execution of another, by Henry Seventh; the juggling with all rights by Henry Eighth, were not remote,—quite near enough to chill the blood of the peace-loving student and deter him from making himself sufficiently obnoxious to invite a similar fate. Later, his own account, in the Cipher, of the reasons for not striving to establish himself upon the throne appear quite adequate,—the succession established by law, and quite satisfactory to the people,—“our witnesses dead, our certificates destroyed,” etc., (pages 33, 38, 47, 201, and other references). He submitted to the inevitable as did Prince Napoleon, and as others have done in our own time,—for “what will not a man yield up for his life.”

Whether or not Bacon has “told the truth” in the Cipher, is not in the province of the decipherer to discuss. A decipherer can only disclose what is infolded. As to “slandering the Queen” in the statements which the Cipher records,—if so, Bacon would not be alone, for the old MSS, and as reliable and recent an authority as the National Dictionary of Biography admit the motherhood of Elizabeth, though they do not give the names of the offspring. This is supplied by the Cipher, written by the one person most likely to know. If the Cipher exists, and we know that it does, there must be some more reasonable theory for its being written into so many published books for more than fifty years, than for the purpose of slander or falsification. The peril of its discovery in the early days of its infolding would be enhanced by its being a slander, and the head would have “stood tickle on the shoulders” of anyone guilty of so causeless a crime.

Francis would have been more “lunatic” for risking such matter in cipher if not true, than “coward” for not daring openly to proclaim the truth which was being so carefully suppressed.

Many inquiries have reached me, asking “how is the Cipher worked,” and expressing disappointment that the inquirer had been unable to grasp the system or its application. It would be difficult to teach Greek or Sanscrit, in a few written lines,[Pg 47] or to learn it by a few hours study. It is equally so with the Cipher. Deciphering the Bi-literal Cipher, as it appears in Bacon’s works, will be impossible to those who are not possessed of an eyesight of the keenest, and perfect accuracy of vision in distinguishing minute differences in form, lines, angles and curves in the printed letters. Other things absolutely essential are unlimited time and patience, persistency, and aptitude, love for overcoming puzzling difficulties and, I sometimes think, inspiration. As not every one can be a poet, an artist, an astronomer, or adept in other branches requiring special aptitude, so, and for the same reasons, not every one will be able to master the intricacies of the Cipher, for in many ways it is most intricate and puzzling,—not in the system itself, but in its use in the books. “It must not be made too plain lest it be discovered too quickly nor hid too deep, lest it never see the light of day,” is the substance of the inventor’s thought many times repeated in the work.

The system has been recognized, and used, since the day that De Augmentis was published, and has had its place in every translation and publication since, but the ages have waited to learn that it was embedded in the original books themselves from the date of his earliest writings (1579 as now known) and infolded his secret personal history. To disbelieve the Cipher because not “every one” can decipher it, would be as great a mistake as it would be to say that the translations of the character writings and hieroglyphics of older times, which have been deciphered, were without foundation or significance, because we could not ourselves master them in a few hours of inefficient trial. I would repeat, Ciphers are used to hide things, not to make them plain.

The different editions of the same work form each a separate study and tell a different Cipher Story. The two editions of De Augmentis form an illustration. The first, or “London” edition, was issued, according to Spedding, in October, 1623. The next, or “Paris” edition, was issued in 1624. They differ in the Italic printing, and some errors in the second do not occur in the first. The 1624 edition has been deciphered; and the hidden story appears in the “Bi-literal Cypher” (page 310). The 1623 edition has not, as yet, been deciphered. It seems to be a rare edition. I found a copy in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian library at Oxford, two in Cambridge, and one in[Pg 48] the choice collection of old books in the library of Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence.

In the course of my work, Marlowe’s Edward Second had been deciphered before De Augmentis was taken up. At the end of Edward Second occurs this “veiled” statement, referring to De Augmentis (page 152 Bi-literal Cypher). “... the story it contains (our twelft king’s nativity since our sovereign, whose tragedy we relate in this way) shall now know the day....” Had Francis succeeded to the throne, he would have been the twelfth king (omitting the queens) after Edward Second, hence the inference that De Augmentis would contain much of his personal history. My disappointment was great when instead of this the hidden matter was found to be the Argument of the Odyssey, something not anticipated, or wanted, and would never have been the result of my own choice or imagination. At the close of the deciphered work in Burton’s Anatomy, in which the Argument of the Iliad was most unexpectedly found—another great disappointment—is this “veiled” statement: (page 309) “... while a Latin work—De Augmentis—will give aid upon the other (meaning the Odyssey). As in this work (meaning the Iliad) favorite parts are enlarged (in blank verse) yet as it lendeth ayde ...,” etc.,—i. e., sets a pattern for the writing out of the Odyssey in the Word Cipher. This explained the 1624 edition, and the inference is that the 1623 edition will disclose the personal history referred to on page 152.

In the 1624 edition there are some errors in the illustration of the cipher methods and in the Cicero Epistle which do not occur in the 1623 edition. The Latin words midway on page 282, “qui pauci sunt” in the 1623 edition, are “qui parati sunt” in the 1624, page 309,—an error referred to on page 10 of the Introduction of the “Bi-literal Cypher” as wrong termination, there being too many letters for the group, and one letter must be omitted. Other variations show errors in making up the forms on pages 307 and 308 in the 1624 edition, whether purposely for confusion or otherwise, it is impossible to tell. The line on page 307,

should be placed above the example of the adaptation just preceding. The repetition of twelve letters of the bi-formed alphabet could hardly be called a printer’s error, as they are of another form, unlike those on the preceding page, and may be taken as an example of the statement that “any two forms will do.” In these illustrations the letters seem to be drawn with a pen and are a mixture of script and peculiar forms, and unlike any in the regular fonts of type used in the printed matter. No part of the Cipher Story is embodied in the script or pen letters on these pages. Whether or not the changing of the lines was done purposely, the grouping of the Italic letters from the regular fonts is consecutive as the printed lines stand, the wrong make-up causing no break in the connected narration. There are many “veiled” statements throughout the “Bi-literal Cypher,” such as are noted in Edward Second and in Burton. To the decipherer they have a meaning, indicating what to look for and where to find that which is necessary for correct and completed work, as well as to guard against errors and incorrect translation.

My researches among the old books in the British Museum the past season have borne rich fruit, for there were found the earlier cipher writings. Shepheard’s Calendar, which appeared anonymously in 1579, contains the first, and discloses the signification of the mysterious initials “E. K.” and the identity of this person with the author of the work. The Cipher narrative begins thus: “E. K. will be found to be nothing less than the letters signifying the future Sovereign, or England’s King.... In event of death of Her Ma., who bore in honorable wedlock, Robert, now known as sonne to Walter Devereaux, as well as him who now speaketh to the unknown aidant decypherer ... we, the eldest borne should by Divine right of a law of God, and made binding on man, inherit scepter and throne.... We devised two Cyphers, now used for the first time, for this said history, as safe, clear and undecipherable, whilst containing the keys in each which open the most important.... Till a decypherer find a prepared or readily discovered alphabet, it seemeth to us almost impossible, save by Divine gift and heavenly instinct, that he should be able to read what is thus revealed.”

Following Shepheard’s Calender, the works between 1579 and 1590, so far deciphered (but as yet unpublished) are:

Euphues, 1587; Morando, 1587. These two also join together, with an incomplete word at the end of the first finding its completion in the commencement of the Cipher in the second.

Spanish Masquerado, 1589. Two editions of this work bear date the same year, but have different Italicising. In one edition the Cipher Story is complete, closing with the signature: “Fr. Prince.” In the other the story is not complete, the book ending with an incomplete cipher word, the remainder of which will be found in some work of near that date which has not yet been indicated and deciphered.

These, while not all the works in which Cipher will be found between the years 1579 and 1590, unmistakably connect the earlier writings with those of later date than 1590 which have been deciphered—as published in the “Bi-literal Cypher”—so that we now know that the Cipher writings were being continuously infolded in Bacon’s works, from the first to the last of his literary productions.

[Mrs. Gallup professes to find in certain of Bacon’s works, the first folio of Shakespeare, and other books of the period, two distinctive founts of italic type employed. All the letters of one fount stand for the letter a in the cipher, those of the other for b. Hence it is possible to translate, as it were, any given line of type into a series of abbba, abaab, baaba, abaaa. and so on, according to the type employed, and thereby, to spell out words and sentences in accordance with the principles laid down by Bacon himself in his account of the so-called “Bi-literal” cypher in his “De Augmentis Scientiarium.” In a further article which she is now preparing Mrs. Gallup will deal with a number of the individual writers who have taken part in the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy during the last few weeks, whose criticisms, we learn by cablegram, and only now before her. This preliminary paper will enable our readers to acquaint themselves with the nature of Mrs. Gallup’s laborious investigations.—Ed. P. M. M.].

It is a pleasure to respond to the cabled invitation from the Pall Mall Magazine to write an article upon the “Bacon-Shakespeare Controversy,” although I have really never been concerned with it, except incidentally. I did not find myself a Baconian until the discovery of the Bacon ciphers answered the questions in such a final way that controversy should end.

I think my best plan will be to give a clear, authoritative, and somewhat popular exposition of my book, The Bi-literal Cypher of Sir Francis Bacon, which was recently very kindly and appreciatively reviewed by Mr. Mallock in the Nineteenth Century and After. I had not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Mallock, and his article was wholly a surprise.

In giving to the world the results of my researches, I have felt, as have my publishers, that my work should be left without attempt upon our part to influence or mould opinion in any way other than by setting forth what I have found.

Some one has said, “any man’s opinion is the measure of his knowledge.” If his knowledge is ample his judgment should be true, and I am well aware there has been little opportunity for men of letters or the reading public to know about this new phase of the old subject.

The book itself is much wider in its range, and much more far-reaching in its literary and historical consequences, than the mere settlement of the Bacon-Shakespeare question. It concerns not only the authorship of much of the best literature of the Elizabethan period, but the regularity of successions to the throne of England; and it transfers the “controversy” from the realm of literary opinion and criticism to the determination of the question whether I have correctly and truthfully transcribed a cipher.

That this will at once meet with universal acceptance is not expected. On the face of things it seems improbable—almost as improbable to the world as the revolution of the earth about the sun was to Lord Bacon, who declared it could in nowise be accepted. “Galileo built his theory ... supposing the earth revolved.... But this he devised upon an assumption that cannot be allowed—viz. that the earth moves.” (Nov. Org.)

Two limited editions of the book were published, mostly for private circulation, while my researches were going on, but with little effort to obtain public audience, awaiting the time, now arrived, when I could present the first of the cipher writings from early editions of works in the British Museum.

The interest it has excited has been considerable, varying in its expression from more or less good-natured doubts as to my sanity and veracity, from those who are satisfied with first impressions; to the careful examination by such writers as Mr. Mallock and some others who have regarded it as worthy of serious consideration.

For myself, I have been satisfied to wait for the verdict. It will be that I have at great cost put before the public a most detailed and elaborate hoax—or worse; or that Francis Bacon was a cipher writer and the most extraordinary personage in literature the world has yet known.

Assuming for the moment the cipher as a fact, what are the claims made in it for himself? Briefly, but startlingly stated, they are: That he was the author of the works attributed[Pg 53] to Edmund Spenser, and those of Greene, Peele, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, a portion of those published by Ben Jonson, also the Anatomy of Melancholy known as Burton’s, besides the works to which Bacon’s name is attached; that these, instead of being in fact the outpourings of literary inspiration, are literary mosaics, the repository of other literature—much of it then dangerous to Bacon to expose—made consecutive by transposition, and gaining in literary interest by the new relations. The bi-literal cipher gives the rules by which the constituent parts of these mosaics are to be reassembled in their original form by the “word-cipher,” so called, a second system permeating the same works and hiding a larger and more varied literature than the first. It is also asserted that Bacon was the true heir to the throne of England, through a secret marriage between the Earl of Leicester and Elizabeth, which took place prior to her accession, while both were confined in the Tower of London; that for obvious reasons of state the marriage could not be announced before the coronation, and that the Queen afterwards refused to acknowledge it publicly; that the unfortunate Essex was in fact his younger brother, and the otherwise inexplicable rebellion was undertaken by Essex to compel from the Queen recognition of his descent, with expectation of the throne if denied to, or not claimed by, Francis.

The personal matter, scattered in the bi-literal cipher through the numerous volumes, is repeated in different forms many times—evidently in the hope that the claims asserted to the throne and the events of his life would be detected and deciphered, from some, if not from all his works, at some future time.

The book itself contains about 385 pages of deciphered matter, written in the old English of the Elizabethan period, and relating to men and things, literary and historical, then existing. It affords the most ample and serious materials for what may be called “the higher criticism”; and such criticism is very cordially invited, for reasons more important than anything concerning my own abilities or personality. The most sceptical will admit industry, and some sort of capability, in producing a work of the kind. It is due to the public that in a presentation of this kind I should offer a prima-facie case.

The question most nearly related to the Bacon-Shakespeare[Pg 54] controversy, from a literary standpoint, is: Was Bacon’s imagination, fancy and ability, equal to the production of such poetic and dramatic literature as is embraced in the Shakespeare plays and other works named? The dicta obtainable from mere comparisons of style are scarcely final. Individual judgments, in this field, are far from conclusive or satisfactory. There is as much difference in style between the laboured, interminable sentences of Bacon’s philosophical works and the polished sentences of the Essays as there is between the Essays and the epigrams of the Plays.

Bacon has been somewhat out of fashion of late. His philosophy, once strong and new, has been developed into the daily practice of these forceful and effective times, and is now interesting principally to the curious. His life,—reduced by Pope to the inconclusive epigram, “the wisest, brightest, and meanest of mankind,”—ending in his disgrace, does not now attract the average reader, while the compactness of the Essays deters many from a second reading. It is well, therefore, to refresh our minds concerning the man, and the estimation in which he was held before the present-day rush for new things had become so absorbing.

Briefly, the well-considered opinions of those best fitted to judge are, that his abilities were transcendent in every field. Lord Macaulay tells us that Bacon’s mind was “the most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been bestowed upon any of the children of men”; Pope, that “Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any other country, ever produced”; Sir Alexander Grant, that “it is as an inspired seer, the prose-poet of modern science, that I reverence Bacon”; Alexander Smith, that “he seems to have written his Essays with the pen of Shakespeare.” Mackintosh calls his literature “the utmost splendour of imagery.” Addison says, that “he possessed at once all those extraordinary talents which were divided among the greatest authors of antiquity ... one does not know which to admire most in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination.” Mr. Welch assures us: “Lord Bacon was a poet. His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm which satisfies the sense, no less than the superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect.” While H. A. Taine, a Frenchman, recognising throughout the[Pg 55] differences of language the force of the poetic thought, gives us this in his English Literature:—

“In this band of scholars, dreamers, and inquirers, appears the most comprehensive, sensible, originative of the minds of the age—Francis Bacon, a great and luminous intellect, one of the finest of this poetic progeny.... There is nothing in English prose superior to his diction.... His thought is in the manner of artists and poets, and he speaks after the manner of prophets and seers.... Shakespeare and the seers do not contain more vigorous or expressive condensations of thought, more resembling inspiration.... His process is that of the creators: it is inspiration, not reasoning.”

Again, Lord Macaulay tells us: “No man ever had an imagination at once so strong and so thoroughly subjugated. In truth, much of Bacon’s life was spent in a visionary world, amidst things as strange as any that are described in the Arabian tales.”—“A man so rare in knowledge of so many several kinds, endued with the facility and felicity of expressing it all in so elegant, significant, so abundant, and yet so choice and ravishing array of words, of metaphors and allusions, as perhaps the world has not seen since it was a world,” said Sir Tobie Mathew.

The German Schlegel, in his History of Literature, calls him “this mighty genius,” and adds, “Stimulated by his capacious and stirring intellect ... intellectual culture, nay, the social organisation of modern Europe generally, assumed a new shape and complexion.” While again from Lord Macaulay we quote this: “With great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any human being.”

In the Encyclopoedia Britannica we read: “The thoughts are weighty, and, even when not original, have acquired a peculiar and unique tone or cast by passing through the crucible of Bacon’s mind. A sentence from the Essays can rarely be mistaken for the production of any other writer. The short, pithy sayings,

have become popular mottoes and household words. The style is quaint, original, abounding in allusions and witticisms, and rich, even to gorgeousness, with piled-up analogies and metaphors.”

In the presence of these acknowledged masters in literary judgment, I may well be silent. These quotations might be extended indefinitely. Anything I could add of my own would be repetition. In the face of these well-considered opinions, the flippant adverse judgment of newspaper critics, in the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, thrown off in the hurry of daily issues, may for the present be disregarded. The writers of such articles have never read Bacon well, if at all,—perhaps not Shakespeare thoroughly.

My work in the past eight years of constant study of the subject has led me, of necessity, through every line and word that Bacon wrote, both acknowledged and concealed, so far as the latter has been developed. The work I have done upon the word-cipher in reassembling his literature from the mosaic to its original form has given me a critical knowledge at least, and a basis perhaps possessed by few for forming, to the extent of my abilities, a critical judgment; but I would merely add, that he was, assuredly, master in many fields of which even they who knew him best were unaware.

Granting him these literary powers, was he at the same time a cipher writer? and did he particularly affect this bi-literal method of cipher writing?

For the first I refer, for brevity’s sake, to the article on cryptograms in the Encyclopoedia Britannica; and for the second to the original Latin De Augmentis Scientiarum (editions of 1623 and 1624), and its very excellent translation by Messrs. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, where the bi-literal cipher precisely as I have used it is described and illustrated by Bacon in full, with the statement that he invented it while at the Court of France. This was between his sixteenth and eighteenth years. His first reference to it was in 1605. Its first publication was in 1623, after he had used it continuously forty-four years, confiding to it his wrongs and woes, and intending, in thus explaining and giving the key, that at some near or distant day his sorrows and his claims should be known by its decipherment.

The cipher, described by Bacon in De Augmentis Scientiarum, is simplicity itself, being in principle mere combinations and alternations of any two unlike things, and in practice as used by him consisting of alternations of letters from two slightly different founts of Italic type, arranged in groups of five. This affords thirty-two possible combinations, being eight in excess of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet he used. The free use of these Italics is a notable feature in all his literature, and has been the cause of much speculation. Sometimes the differences between the letters of the two founts are bold and marked, often delicate and very difficult for the novice to distinguish, but possible of determination by the practised eye. The differences, especially in the capitals used in the 1623 Folio of the Shakespeare Plays, are apparent to the dullest vision, and photographic copies of it are in nearly every public and many private libraries, and so accessible to all.

In making up his alphabet the two founts are called by him the 'a fount’ and the 'b fount,’ and the several groups of five, representing each letter of the alphabet he used in the cipher, are as follows: aaaaa, a; aaaab, b; aaaba, c; etc., etc.

After the full exposition of this cipher by Mr. Mallock, a repetition here would seem superfluous, and I will only take space to say that the detailed explanation is to be found in De Augmentis Scientiarum in every edition of Bacon’s complete works.

One of the interesting incidents of the use of this bi-literal method is, that it did not at all require taking the printer into the writer’s confidence. A peculiar mark under the letter would indicate the fount from which the letter was to be taken. The printer may have thought Bacon insane, or what not, but the marking gave him no clue to the cipher.

Perhaps I cannot better illustrate the scope of the researches that have brought out such strange and unexpected disclosures than by giving the bibliography of my work. This will have an attraction for many, who will sympathise with me in the pleasure I have known in working in these rare and costly old books.

and also a beautifully bound full folio facsimile of the 1623 edition of the Shakespeare plays, bearing the name of Coleridge on the title page.

In the library of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence I was able to decipher, from the Treatise of Melancholy, some pages that were missing from the copy at the British Museum.

I wish here to express my deep obligation to the management of the British Museum, and to those numerous friends I was so fortunate as to make while in London, for their uniform kindness to me—a stranger among them—and for the facilities which they, to the extent of their power, never failed to afford me in my work.

Every Italic letter in all the books named has been examined, studied, classified, and set down “in groups of five” and the results transcribed. Each book deciphered has its own peculiarities and forms of type, and must be made a separate study.

The 1623 Folio has the largest variety of letters and irregularities; but the most difficult work was Bacon’s History of[Pg 60] Henry the Seventh, the mysteries of which it took me the greater part of three months of almost constant study to master. The reason came to light as the work progressed, and will appear from the reading of the first page of the deciphered matter, with its explanations of “sudden shifts” to puzzle would-be decipherers.

In the deciphering of the different works mentioned, surprise followed surprise as the hidden messages were disclosed, and disappointment as well was not infrequently encountered. Some of the disclosures are of a nature repugnant, in many respects, to my very soul, as they were to all my preconceived convictions, and they would never have seen the light, except as a correct transcription of what the cipher revealed. As a decipherer I had no choice, and I am in no way responsible for the disclosures, except as to the correctness of the transcription.

Bacon, throughout the Bi-literal Cypher, makes frequent mention of his translations of Homer, which he considered one of his “great works and worthy of preservation,” and which had been scattered through the mosaic of his other writings. One of the strongest of his expressed desires was that it should be gathered and reconstructed in its original form.

Perhaps the greatest surprise that came to me in all my work relates to what was found in the Anatomy of Melancholy. Several other of the works had been finished before this book was taken up. After a few pages had been deciphered, relating to points in Bacon’s history, to my great disappointment the cipher suddenly changed the subject of its disclosures to this:

“As hath been said, much of th’ materiall of th’ Iliad may be found here, as well as Homer his second wondrous storie, telling of Odysseus his worthy adventures. Th’ first nam’d is of greater worth, beautie and interesse, alone, in my estimation, than all my other work together, for it is th’ crowning triumph of Homer’s pen; and he outstrips all th’ others in th’ race, as though his wits had beene Atalanta’s heeles. Next we see Virgill, and close behind them, striving to attaine unto th’ hights which they mounted, do I presse on to th’ lofty goale. In th’ plays lately publisht, I have approacht my modell closelie, and yet it doth ever seem beyond my attainment.

“Here are the diverse bookes, their arguments and sundry examples of th’ lines, in our bi-literal cipher.”

These “arguments,” or outlines, are intended as a framework about which, with the aid of the keys given, the fuller deciphering from the printed lines is to take form through the methods of the Word-Cipher.

The presence of lines, identical—or nearly so—with those of Homer, have been noted by close students in all the works now named as belonging to Bacon, and it has needed but to bring the lines together from their scattered positions, transpose names and arrange the parts in proper sequence, to form the connected narrative.

I can best illustrate this—and it will be of interest to those fond of the classics—by adding a few of the lines from some of my unfinished and unpublished work, before I had discovered the bi-literal cipher in the typography of the books I was using. I will say regarding this part of my incomplete work, that a very considerable portion of the material for the first four books of the fuller translation of the Iliad had been collected and arranged in sequence by the word-cipher before the work was laid aside, four years ago, on account of the discovery of the bi-literal, the development of which, it became at once apparent, was of first importance. These directions regarding it occur in the Bi-literal Cypher:

“Keepe lines, though somewhat be added to Homer; in fact, it might be more truly Homeric to consider it a poeme of the times, rather than a historie of true events.” (p. 168.) “... In all places, be heedfull of the meaning, but do not consider the order of the words in the sentences. I should join my examples and rules together, you will say. So I will. In the 'Faerie Queene,’ booke one, canto two, second and third lines of the seventh stanzo, thus speaking of Aurora, write:

“Or in the eleventh canto, booke two, five-and-thirtieth stanzo, arrange the matter thus, to relate in verse the great attacke at the ships, at that pointe of time at which the great Trojan took up a weighty missile, the gods giving strength to the hero’s arme: it begins in the sixth verse:

Illustrative of the argument, the incident in Book I., where the priest Chryses “was evilly dismissed by Agamemnon,” the bi-literal epitome reads:

“And th’ Priest, in silence, walk’d along th’ shore of the resounding sea. After awhile with many a prayer and teare th’ old man cried aloud unto Apollo, and his voice was heard.”

In the fuller translation by means of the word-cipher, the lines collected from the different books result in the following rendering of the passage:

A little farther on, after Achilles had “summon’d a councill” and charged Calchas to declare the cause of the pestilence, Bacon’s lines—that he warns the decipherer to retain, “though somewhat be added to Homer”—gives the altercation thus:

The translation by William Sotheby, M. R. S. L., book 1, page 16, line 21, runs as follows:

It is true that the presence of the bi-literal cipher in any work does not prove authorship, being merely a matter of typography which can be incorporated in any printed page, as it was in fact in Ben Jonson’s writings, for Bacon’s purposes. But when it is worked out, and its chief purpose is found to be to teach the word-cipher, and that the latter produces practicable results such as given above, the confirmation of both ciphers is unmistakable. On the other hand, the word-cipher is a complete demonstration of the fact that the author of the interior work was the author of the exterior.

I am not infrequently asked, and it is a very natural question, why should Bacon put translations of the Iliad and Odyssey in his works, when neither required secrecy? I quote a sentence from the Bi-literal Cypher (p. 341), deciphered from Natural History:

“Finding that one important story within manie others produc’d a most ordinarie play, poem, history, essay, law-maxime, or other kind, class, or description of work, I tried th’ experiment of placing my tra’slations of Homer and Virgil within my other Cypher. When one work has been so incorporated into others, these are then in like manner treated, separated into parts and widely scatter’d into my numerous books.”

In this connection I will add another extract from Advancement of Learning (original edition, 1605, p. 52):

“And Cicero himselfe, being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainely: That whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speake of (if hee will take the paines), he may have it in effect premeditate, and handled in these. So that when hee commeth to a particular, he shall have nothing to doe, but to put too Names, and times, and places; and such other Circumstances of Individuals.”

In other words, Bacon first constructed, then reconstructed from the first writing, such portions as would fit the “names and times and places, and such other Circumstances of Individuals,” about which he wished to build a new structure of history, drama, or essay. The first literary mosaic, containing dangerous matter, as well as much that was not, was transposed—the relative position of its component parts changed—to form the one we have known. The decipherer’s work is to restore the fragments to their original form.

As intimated at the beginning, the value of anything I could say upon the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy resolves itself into a question of fact—Have I found a cipher, and has it been corectly applied?

I repeat, the question is out of the realm of literary comparisons altogether. Literary probabilities or improbabilities have no longer any bearing, and their discussion has become purely agitations of the air: the sole question is—What are the facts? These cannot be determined by slight or imperfect examinations, preconceived ideas, abstract contemplation, or vigour of denunciation.

During a somewhat lengthy literary life, I have come to perceive the sharp distinction between convictions on any subject and the possession of knowledge. I know it is no light thing to say to those who love the literature ascribed to Shakespeare, “You have worshiped a true divinity at the wrong shrine,” and the iconoclast should come with knowledge before he assails a faith.

The limits of this article will not permit me to do more in the way of illustration; but I beg to assure the English public that I speak from knowledge obtained at a cost of time, money,[Pg 66] and injury to eye-sight and health greater than I should care to mention.

I am satisfied that my work will not be disregarded; but instead, given a respectful, kindly and intelligent examination in Great Britain, the home of Shakespeare and Bacon.

I say nothing at this time of the validity of all the claims Bacon has made; but if they are accepted there will presently be accorded to one of the line of English kings the royal title of “the greatest literary genius of all time.”

Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup Throws New Light Upon the Mystifying Question—The Bi-Literal Cipher.

It is always difficult to make headway against a well-established tradition. Hence argument going to prove that Shakespeare did not write the dramas that have come down to us in his name, is discredited largely because we have so long accepted his authorship as a matter of fact. But the literature of the anti-Shakespeareans is increasing, and the time is past when a contemptuous ejaculation or a shrug of the shoulders can dispose of the evidence they have so carefully and patiently constructed. In truth, the opponents of Shakespeare have been met so often by this sort of rebuttal that they are becoming stronger and more numerous every year.

That Shakespeare’s plays were not written by the William Shaksper of Stratford, was probably first suggested by the discrepancy between the plays and what we know of the man. That Francis Bacon, the great scholar, profound thinker and literary genius of the Elizabethan era might be their author was first suggested by similarity of philosophy and sentiment, and parallelisms of thought and expression.

That Bacon’s was the greatest mind of his age is incontrovertible. Pope calls him “the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any other country, ever produced.” Lord Macaulay says: “Bacon’s mind was the most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been bestowed upon any of the children of men;” while Edmund Burke is even more eulogistic: “Who is there that, hearing the name of Bacon, does not instantly recognize everything; of genius, the most profound; of literature, the most extensive; of discovery, the most penetrating; of observation of human life, the most distinguishing and refined.”

If we can accept Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup’s new book, “The Bi-Literal Cipher of Francis Bacon,” as a genuine discovery and the story it tells for what it purports to be—Bacon’s own—the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy is forever at rest. There can be no further doubt that Bacon wrote not only the plays ascribed to Shakespeare, but also the works appearing[Pg 70] under the names of Spenser and Peele, Greene and Marlowe, and Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. Mrs. Gallup’s discovery of a cipher running through them all explains the remarkable similarities that have perplexed critics by demonstrating beyond a shadow of doubt—if we accept it at all—that Bacon’s genius originated them all.

Some inquiries naturally suggest themselves. The first and most natural question is, Was Bacon a writer of ciphers? The business of statesmanship required skill in ciphers in his day, and little important court and diplomatic business was carried on except under such cover. Bacon’s earliest public experience was with Sir Amyas Paulet for three years in the court of France, and his was one of the brightest intellects of his time.

The next question is, Did he possess the cipher here used? This must be answered in the affirmative, for it is found fully explained and its uses pointed out in his Latin work, “De Augmentis,” the original of which, published in 1624, has been submitted to the writer for examination. It is found also translated in full in the standard Spedding, Ellis & Heath edition of Bacon’s works, found in every library.

A third question is, What is the nature and method of the cipher? We cannot do better than quote directly from Bacon’s “Advancement of Learning,” copied from this volume:

“For by this art a way is opened whereby a man may express and signify the intentions of his mind at any distance of place, by objects which may be presented to the eye and accommodated to the ear, provided those objects be capable of a two-fold difference only—as by bells, by trumpets, by lights and torches, by the reports of muskets, and any instruments of a like nature.

“But to pursue our enterprise, when you address yourself to write resolve your inward infolded letter into this Bi-literarie alphabet, * * * together with this you must have a bi-formed alphabet, as well capital letters as the smaller characters, in a double form, as fits every man’s occasion.”

Bacon calls this the “omnia per omnia,” the all in all cipher, and speaks of it as an invention of his own made while at the Court of France, when he was but 16 or 18 years of age.

This cipher and its obvious adaptations, it is stated, is the basis of nearly every alphabetical cipher code in present general use—the alternating dot and dash of the Morse telegraph code, the long and short exposure of light in the heliographic telegraph and the “wig-wag” signals of flags or lights in the armies and navies of the world.

As used by Bacon, two slightly differing fonts of Italic type were employed, one font representing the letter a, the other the letter b. These were alternated in groups of five in his literature, each group of five letters representing one letter of the alphabet in the secret work. The full alphabet and several illustrations of the working of the cipher in the original works are given; in fact, every possible aid to the student and investigator who wishes to verify for himself the existence of the cipher and the mode of its deciphering is freely offered in the introduction, prefaces and fac-similes in Mrs. Gallup’s work.

Assuming that the cipher is Bacon’s and that it has been accurately transcribed, the story told the world in it is beyond the dreams of romance; it is simply astounding.

The cipher story asserts that Bacon was the grandson of Henry VIII., the son of Queen Elizabeth and rightful heir to the throne of England. That while imprisoned in the Tower of London, where Lord Leicester was also confined, Elizabeth, before becoming queen, was secretly married to Leicester. The issue of the marriage was two sons, the so-called Francis Bacon—whose life was, there is little reason to doubt, preserved through the womanly pity and compassion of Mistress Anne Bacon—and Robert Devereaux, afterward Earl of Essex. The political exigencies of the time did not admit the public acknowledgment of the marriage. Francis was raised as the son of Nicholas and Anne Bacon, and Elizabeth crowned as the Virgin Queen. It pleased her to continue the deceit and Francis remained ignorant of his descent until about sixteen years of age, when Elizabeth, in one of her historic rages, revealed the truth to him and banished him to France.

Thenceforward Bacon’s life was one long disappointed hope, which found expression in the secrecy of the cipher. This he interwove in every original edition of his works, hoping, and intending, that in the long future the cipher would be read, and he be justified in the opinion of mankind. If his cipher was discovered too soon, his life would pay the forfeit, if never, his labor would be in vain. In 1623, when 62 years of age and near his death, he published the key to the cipher in “De Augmentis” in the hope that it would lead to the unraveling. If this volume is correct, it took 300 years of time and a bright American woman to separate the web and woof.

If this story seems incredible, the literary claim is still more so. The literary and philosophical works of Bacon are sufficiently wonderful, without more. All reviewers and biographers regard him as possessing one of the most wonderful intellects[Pg 72] in the world’s history. These opinions were based upon his known works. We are now asked to believe that not only these, but the works ascribed to Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Burton, and part of Ben Jonson’s were written by him, and that in each and every one of them this bi-literal cipher was placed, to the end that his rights and claims, wrongs and sufferings could become known, at some time, to the world.

Not the least of these marvels is that the “Anatomy of Melancholy” of Robert Burton is found to have been published under the name of T. Bright, when Burton was 10 years of age. A later edition is now found to contain, in the bi-literal cipher, the Argument of the Iliad, with portions freely translated into blank verse, differing in form from any translation heretofore made and remarkable for elegance of style and diction. Take for example a passage describing the outbreak between the Greeks and Trojans, incited by Minerva by the order of Jove, at the solicitation of Juno:

Still another chapter in the romance of Bacon’s life is disclosed in the cipher. Because of a late and somewhat mercenary marriage, he has been considered as having a cold nature, a conclusion hightened by the loveless comments of his Essay on Love. But the cipher writing discloses an early disappointment as the cause. While in France, and 17, he was violently enamored of the beautiful but dissolute Marguerite, wife of Henry of Navarre, and his senior by something like eight years. A divorce from Henry and her union with Bacon, the rightful Prince of Wales, was actually planned. The fair Marguerite proved fickle also, but his writings are filled with references to his affection for her which her falseness could not, apparently, extinguish. He tells us himself that “Romeo and Juliet” was written to picture their love, saying: “The joy of life ebb’d from our hearts with our parting, and it never came againe into this bosom in full flood-tide.” Another interesting episode brought out is Bacon’s account of his brother’s treason and his self-justification and remorse at his own part in the punishment that was meted out to him.

The verity of the cipher Mrs. Gallup has so painstakingly and with such unwearied patience unfolded would seem to be sustained by the fact that it is Bacon’s own invention, fully—even elaborately—set forth in one of his later writings, when, Elizabeth being dead and he himself near his end, he had less fear of consequences should his secret be discovered—indeed, he came to fear it would not be discovered and that he would not be justified to posterity.

So much of reserve as is due to lack of personal demonstration is maintained by the writer, but here are 360 pages of deciphered matter, with sufficient means of proof to satisfy any investigator. There can be no middle ground; one must accept or deny it in toto. Either the decipherer has made a most remarkable discovery to which the key has been open for three centuries, or the book is equally remarkable from an entirely different point of view. If accepted, truly “th’ tardy epistle shall turn over an unknowne leaf of the historie of our land.”

Before these lines are printed, Mrs. Gallup’s very important work on “The Biliteral Cipher of Francis Bacon”[1] will have been for two months in the hands of the public. Since it is probable that there may be due discussion of its wonderful contents, it seems desirable to say a few words, not by way of review or mere expression of personal opinion (in such a case valueless), but in order to draw attention to certain points which, if not at present capable of absolute verification or contradiction, yet surely demand and are worthy of the closest investigation. Questions of this kind must naturally arise, “Is this cipher such as any person of ordinary intelligence can follow? Is it provably correct? Has any one besides Mrs. Gallup succeeded in depihering by the same means, and with similar results?”

These questions may without hesitation be answered in the affirmative. With the explanation given by the great inventor himself, anyone can master the method described in the De Augmentis (Book VI.). Ordinary patience and contrivance enable us to arrange two different alphabets of Italic letters and to insert these in the printed type, forming cipher sentences one-fifth in length of the “exterior” sentence or passage. Thus to bury one story within another is easy enough. To unearth it is another matter, and more difficult.

In the first place, there is nothing which particularly invites the decipherer to discriminate between the two forms of Italic letters which are essential to this typographical cipher; or, if differences or deformities in letters are observed, we have been required to believe them “errors,” defects in printing, carelessness of the compositor, or anything else which may explain them away. Be not deceived; there is no error, but consummate skill and subtle contrivance, all helping towards the cryptographer’s great ends.

Before beginning the work of deciphering, it is needful thoroughly to learn by heart the Biliteral Alphabet given by its Inventor in the De Augmentis. Here we see that the letters of the common Alphabet are formed by the combination of the letters A and B in five places, these two letters (A and B) being represented by two distinct “founts” of Italic type. To discriminate between these two founts, is the initial difficulty; but observing that, in the Biliteral Alphabet, A’s preponderate, and that no combination begins with two B’s, we judge that the most frequent forms of Italic letters are almost certain to be A’s. A decision is best arrived at by repeatedly tracing and drawing out the various letters; and the decipherer must have keen eyes and powers of observation to detect the minute differences. For our Francis would not make things too easy. He speaks of “marks” and “signs” to be heeded, and Roman letters are often interspersed. It is also patent (and was found by Mrs. Gallup, and independently by others) that, in every biliteral alphabet, letters are here and there intentionally exchanged, as a device to confuse and confound the would-be decipherer.

In many cases we find alphabets suddenly reversed—A becoming B, and B, A, a change hinted by some “mark” or “sign,” as a tiny dot. These changes seem to occur most frequently in very small books, where the limited space makes it the more needful to set snares and stumbling-blocks at every turn. Such things show that, besides the good eyes and keen wits required for successful deciphering, there must be no small amount of that “eternal patience” which Michael Angelo honored with the title of “genius.”

Let us contemplate the goodly volume presented to us by Mrs. Gallup, and try to realize the fact that every one of those 350 pages of deciphered matter was worked out letter by letter; that each ONE letter in this deciphered work represents FIVE letters extracted from the deciphered book—say, Shakespeare, or Spenser, Burton, or any of the eight groups of works indicated in the cipher. Not only should such reflections cause us highly to respect the “endless patience,” perseverance, and skill of the cryptographer to whose labors we are so deeply indebted, but they should warn us from depreciating or discrediting statements or methods which we ourselves are incapable of testing. “Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,” is a good, sound principle to begin upon, and Francis (“cunyng in the humours of persons”) had evidently observed the tendency of the human mind to fly from things troublesome, or to take refuge in disparagement[Pg 76] and ridicule. His notes teem with reflections on this matter. “Things above us are nothing to us”—“just nothing.” “Many things are thought impossible until they are discovered, then men wonder that they had not been seen long before.” On the other hand, he continually encourages himself with thoughts, texts and proverbial philosophy, which we find him instilling into his disciples. “Everything is subtile till it is conceived.” “By trying, men gained Troy,” and so forth. But we must “woorke as God woorkes,” wisely, quietly, with persistent patience and unremitting care, and “from a good beginning cometh a good ending.”

So much, then, for the “biliteral” itself. Another crop of inquiries springs up when we attempt briefly to rehearse the wonderful revelations now before us, and which it is within our power to examine and essay to prove.

Elizabeth, when princess, and prisoner in the hands of Mary, secretly married Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Of this secret marriage two sons were born. Francis the elder would have been “put away privilie” by the wicked woman whom he never could bring himself to think of as “mother.” Lady Anne Bacon, however, saved his life, and under an oath of secrecy adopted him as her own son. The scene when these facts came to his knowledge, and again when they were tearfully confirmed by his “deare,” “sweete mother,” Lady Anne, are graphically described in the cipher narrative extracted from the “History of Henry VII.” (Ed. 1622). Further details of the same extraordinary episode are, as may be remembered, introduced in the “word cipher,” discovered, and in part published, by Dr. Owen, some seven years ago. From the disclosures made in the books deciphered, “it is evident,” says Mrs. Gallup, “that Bacon expected the biliteral cipher to be the first discovered, and that it would lead to the finding of his principal or word cipher which it fully explains, and to which is intrusted the larger subjects he desired to have preserved. This order has been reversed, in fact, and the earlier discovery by Dr. Owen becomes a more remarkable achievement, being entirely evolved without the aids which Bacon had prepared in this for its elucidation.”

Francis was now sent abroad by Elizabeth’s orders (not, as has been declared by his biographers, because Sir Nicholas Bacon wished him to see the wonders of the world abroad, but) in order to get him out of the way at the time when he had been the unwitting cause of a Court scandal. He left England in[Pg 77] the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet, the English Ambassador. We know a little, and surmise more, concerning his travels, and the places which he visited, or where he stayed studying and writing. The sad story of his ill-fated love for “My Marguerite” is briefly touched upon, rather as a thing understood to the reader than as a record, and of this more will be related in a future volume. The present extracts are from the undated 4to. of Romeo and Juliet, where we may read:

“This stage-play, in part, will tell our real love-tale. A part is in the Play previously nam’d or mention’d as having therein one pretty scene acted by the two. So rare and most briefe the hard-won happinesse, it affords us great content to re-live in the Play all that as mist, in summer morning did roule away. It hath place in the dramas containing a scene and theame of this nature, since our fond love interpreted th’ harts o’ others, and in this joy, th’ joy of heaven was faintlie guessed.”

“Join Romeo with Troy’s famous Cressida if you wish to know my story. Cressida in this play with Juliet b——,” which, says the Editor,[2] “ends the cipher in King John with an incomplete word. Turning to Romeo and Juliet (p. 53), the remainder of the word and of the broken sentence is continued, being a part of the description of Marguerite, and the love Francis entertained for her.”

This love never faded from his heart, although before he married, at the age of 47, he had, he says, hung up, as it were, the picture of his love on the walls of memory. We remember the calm and uneffusive fashion in which he then imparted to his friends the news that he had found “a handsome maiden who pleased him well.” The tones in which he bewailed his lost love are pitched in a different key.

“It is sometimes said, no man can be wise and love, and yet it would be well to observe many will be wiser after a lesson such as wee long ago conn’d. There was noe ease to our sufferi’g heart til our yeares of life were eight lustres.[3] The faire face liveth ever in dreames, but in inner pleasances only doth th’ sunnie vision come. This will make clearlie seene why i’ the part a man doth play heerein and where-ere man’s love is evident, strength hath remained unto the end—the want’n Paris recov’ring by his latter venture much previouslie lost.”

A second son was born to Elizabeth, and named Robert, after his father, the Earl of Leicester. Robert was “made ward” of Walter Devereaux, Earl of Essex, who “died” conveniently and unexpectedly, when Robert was old enough to succeed to his title and estates. At what period the brothers became aware of their kinship has not yet been told in the cipher. Francis describes the personal beauty, gallantry, and boldness of his brother, and says that for these qualities Robert was a great favorite with the Queen, who thought that he resembled herself. The tale is still incomplete; but enough has already been disclosed to give us a firm sketch of the miserable outline. We see Robert taking advantage of the Queen’s doting fondness for him, and Francis endeavoring to keep his ambition within bounds, and to smooth matters with his irascible mother when, as was often the case, she became irritated beyond endurance by his arrogant audacity. The aim of Essex was, not only in the future to supplant his elder brother, but even in the Queen’s lifetime to seize the crown, and rule as king. It is a dark and painful page in history, and the more we read the less we marvel at the efforts made by Elizabeth to destroy or garble the records of her own private life, and of the times in which she lived. Having spoilt and indulged Essex so long as she believed him devoted to herself, she turned upon him “in a tigerlike spirit” when his treachery became patent, and because Francis had spoken strongly on his brother’s behalf, and had endeavored to shield him from the wrath of the Queen, she punished him by forcing him, under pain of death, to conduct the case (in his official capacity) against Essex, whom she had foredoomed to execution. An allusion is made to the ring which the Queen expected Essex to send her, but which miscarried. This story has been held doubtful, but it seems as though we may find it true.

The sentence passed upon Essex was just; but the horror of the trial and the circumstances connected with the execution, haunted Francis for the rest of his life, his tender and sensitive nature, and his highly strung imagination continually reviving, whilst they shrank from, the recollection of the horrible details of which hereafter we shall have to read. Although Francis speaks in affectionate terms of his “deere” and cruelly used brother, we cannot but think that the tenderness grew out of a deep pity; for Robert had long ago proved himself a most selfish and unsatisfactory person, and a perpetual thorn in his brother’s side, but, however this may have been, the gruesome tragedy remained imprinted on his soul, and clouded and embittered[Pg 79] his whole life. “His references to the trial and execution of Essex, and the part he was forced to take in his prosecution, are the subject of a wail of unhappiness and ever-present remorse, with hopes and prayers that the truth hidden in this cipher may be found out, and published to the world in his justification.

“O God! forgiveness cometh from Thee; shut not this truest book, my God! Shut out my past—love’s little sunny hour—if it soe please Thee, and some of man’s worthy work; yet Essex’s tragedy here shew forth; then posterity shall know him truly.”[4]

The Queen commanded Francis to write for publication an account of the Earl of Essex’s treasons, and he did so. But the report was too lenient, too tender for the reputation of the Earl to satisfy his vindictive mother. She destroyed the document and with her own hand wrote another which was published under his name, and for which he has been held responsible. Such matters as these were State secrets, and we cannot wonder that Elizabeth should have taken care by all means in her power to prevent them from becoming public property by appearing in print. We may well believe that, as the cipher tells us, all papers were destroyed which were likely to bring dark things to light. Nevertheless much must have gradually leaked out through the actors themselves, and more must have been suspected, and only through dread of the consequences withheld from general discussion. “See what a ready tongue suspicion hath”; in private letters and hidden records the value of which is perhaps now for the first time fully understood, evidence is forthcoming to substantiate statements made in the deciphered pages of Mrs. Gallup, and her forerunner, Dr. Owen.

The matter gathered from the deciphered pages is not limited to personal or political history. For instance, speaking of the “Anatomy of Melancholy” (edition, 1628), the Editor says:—“The extraordinary part is that this edition conceals, in cipher, a very full and extended prose summary—argument, Bacon calls it—of a translation of Homer’s Iliad. In order that there may be no mistake as to its being Bacon’s works, he precedes the translation with a brief reference to his royal birth, and the wrongs he has suffered.... In the De Augmentis is found a similar extended synopsis of a translation of the Odyssey. This, too, is introduced with a reference to Bacon’s personal history, and although the text of the book is in Latin, the cipher is in English.

“The decipherer is not a Greek scholar, and would be incapable of creating these extended arguments, which differ widely in phrasing from any translation extant, and are written in a free and flowing style.”[5]

Readers must not expect to find in this book which we are noticing, a complete and shapely narrative explaining everything, and pouring out before us the true story of our wonderful “concealed man” from beginning to end. The cipher utterances are, for the most part, nothing if not fragmentary. The writer himself says so, and adds that his objects in thus trusting his secrets to the care of his friends and to the judgment of time were, First, that he might hand down to the future age the only faithful account of himself and his history, which would ever be allowed to reach them. Secondly, he proposed to link his unacknowledged works one with another in such a way that hereafter his sons of science should from the hints given in one work be led on to another, and so to another, until the vast mass of books, Historical, Scientific, Poetical, Dramatical, Philosophical, which he wrote, should be connected, welded together like an endless chain, and the true history of the Great Restauration and of the English Renaissance fully revealed.

Dr. Rawley, “his Lordship’s first and last chaplain,” relates in his Life of Lord Bacon that “when his History of King Henry the Seventh was to come forth, it was delivered to the old Lord Brooke to be perused by him, who, when he had dispatched it, returned it to the author with this eulogy: 'bid him take care to get good paper and inke; for the work is incomparable.’” We think “the old Lord Brooke” would have been justified in sending this message (with a change of pronoun) to the authoress of The Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon (for in its own way it is incomparable), and we think he would have been satisfied with the result.

The book is divided into two parts, the first containing introductory chapters, portraits, and facsimiles, while the second, rather more than three-quarters of the book, consists entirely of the story deciphered. The introductory chapters are short, pithy, and well-written, and are full of literary interest. The first chapter, from the pen of Mrs. Gallup herself, tells how she came to discover the existence of the cipher in certain books, and gives a brief account of her work, a work, to quote her own words, “arduous, exhausting and prolonged”; and shows how, though her discovery “may change the names of some of our idols,” we are gainers, not losers, by the change. If we can find a fault in this chapter, it is that there is only enough of it to whet our appetite for more details of the progress of her work. Perhaps we may hope that she will satisfy us in this respect on a future occasion when her work becomes widely known and read, as it deserves to be. After Mrs. Gallup’s “personal” chapter there follows the introduction to the first edition—printed for private circulation only. It gives a short summary of the principal facts of the cipher story, and touches on points of interest in connection with the cipher, two of which we will briefly allude to here. It shows how the cipher explains the reason for the extraordinary[Pg 82] mispaging of the original editions, carefully adhered to in all the copies, and of which no one had previously been able to offer a satisfactory explanation; and it touches on the curious history of The Anatomy of Melancholy, which for nearly three centuries has been attributed to Burton, but which the British Museum catalogue shows to have been first published under another name when Burton was about ten years old, and of which in the cipher story Francis Bacon claims the authorship. The preface of the second edition, the one we are now considering and the first given to the public, shows the cogent reasons Bacon had for using the cipher. “Two distinct purposes,” says the author, “are served by the two ciphers. The Biliteral was the foundation which was intended to lead to the other, and is of prime importance in its directions concerning the construction of the Word Cipher, the keys, and the epitome of the topics which were to be written out by its aid. It seems also to have been * * * a sort of diary * * * * and, as in many another diary, we find the trend of the mind as affected by the varying moods—sometimes sad and mournful—again defiant and rebellious—and again despondent, almost in despair, that his wrongs might fail of discovery, even in the times and land afar off to which he looked for greater honor and fame, as well as vindication.

“Chafing under the cloud upon his birth, the victim of a destiny beyond his control, which ever placed him in a false position, defrauded of his birthright, which was of the highest, he committed to this cipher the plaints of an outraged soul. * * * To the decipherer, he unbends—to the rest of the world maintains the dignity which marked his outward life. * * * It is a wonderful revelation of the undercurrents of a hidden life.”

“Some Notes on the Shakespeare Plays,” and a reprint of an article on Shorthand in the days of Elizabeth from the able pen of Mrs. H. Pott, whose clear and logical mind, no less than her deep research into the literature of Bacon’s time, makes her writings always welcome; and lastly a brief sketch of the outlines of Bacon’s life, complete the original portion of Part I. While the importance of these introductory chapters lies for our immediate purpose in their application to the Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon, it would be difficult to overestimate their intrinsic merit, literary and historical. We owe a debt of gratitude to the authoress and publishers for their liberality in the matter of facsimiles by which they enable us not only to follow the deciphering but also to familiarize ourselves with the style and appearance of the original editions of many old favorites, a privilege[Pg 83] hitherto almost confined to those who have time and opportunity for visiting the great libraries. In this part are comprised Bacon’s description of his Biliteral Cipher, with examples and double alphabet; the frontispiece and preface to the Novum Organum, preceded by a table of the double alphabet, by means of which the cipher is unfolded; the Droeshout portrait and all the introductory pages of the famous 1623 folio of the Shakespeare plays; and the title pages of several other of the deciphered works. The preface to the Novum Organum is also given in modern type, the two founts being marked a and b respectively, thus enabling the reader to follow in extenso the method of deciphering.

The portraits of Bacon, two in number, to which we have alluded, are the well-known one in which he is seen in his Chancellor’s robes, and the exquisite miniature of Hilyard surrounded by the noblest halo that ever adorned a human portrait—“Si tabula daretur digna, animum mallem” (“If it were possible to have a canvas worthy, I had rather paint his mind”).

Of the second part, because it is the most important, we shall say least. The story it tells is startling, fascinating, strange. As fiction it would be unique; as history, though truth is proverbially stranger than fiction, it is unparalleled. Nothing that can give interest to a book is wanting. There is the excitement of discovery; the triumph of hidden truth brought to light, of error refuted; the romance of a great prince, robbed of his birthright, who finds his consolation in winning a nobler realm—the kingdom of the mind; the tragedy of a younger brother, a wild though generous spirit, seduced by misdirected ambition into the thorny path of rebellion that leads to the question and the block; the pathos of a noble soul torn by the pangs of remorse for the part he was forced to take in that brother’s death by the inexorable power of the loftiest sense of justice—that power which impelled Lucius Junius Brutus to “call his sons to punishment,” Marcus Brutus to robe his dagger in the imperial purple of liberty drawn from the veins of his “best lover”; while the one note wanting to complete the full chord of romance is struck in the tale of a fruitless passion for the fair Queen of Navarre. Besides the story of Bacon’s own life and times, or rather of that part of his life and times hitherto unknown to history, the deciphered story gives directions for working out his “Word Cipher,” and summaries of those noble poems of Homer, the Illiad and Odyssey, with some passages translated into blank verse, which we think will compare favorably with any previous translations.

A few words must suffice as to the style. As we have already quoted, the book is a diary; and the exigencies of secrecy necessitate much repetition. For, as Bacon himself notes in the cipher story, he could not tell what book might be lost, or in which of those that survived, his decipherer would first light on the discovery. Yet in parts the writing rises to a great height of eloquence. We cannot resist the temptation to quote two passages from the cipher which seem to us, each in its own way, eminently beautiful. The first, though it refers only to the difficulty of constructing the Word Cipher can, we think, hardly be surpassed for happiness of metaphors or grace of diction. “’Tis the labour of years,” says Bacon, “to provide th’ widely varied prose in which the lines of verse have a faire haven, and lye anchor’d untill a day when th’ coming pow’r may say: 'Hoist sayle, away! For the windes of heav’n kisse your fairy streamers, and th’ tide is afloode. On to thy destiny!’”

“O Source infinite of light, ere Time in existence was, save in Thy creative plan, all this tragedy unfolded before Thee. A night of Stygian darknesse encloseth us. My hope banish’d to realms above, taketh its flight through th’ clear aire of the Scyences unto bright daye with Thyselfe. As thou didst conceale Thy lawes in thick clouds, enfolde them in shades of mysterious gloom, Thou didst infuse from Thy spirit a desire to put the day’s glad work, th’ evening’s thought, and midnight’s meditation to finde out their secret workings.

“Only thus can I banish from my thoughts my beloved brother’s untimely cutting off and my wrongfull part in his tryale. O, had I then one thought of th’ great change his death would cause—how life’s worth would shrinke, and this world’s little golden sunshine be but as collied night’s swifte lightning—this had never come as a hound of th’ hunt to my idle thoughts.” Mrs. Gallup’s claim to have discovered the existence of Francis Bacon’s Biliteral Cipher in many of the works of his time is one which, in view of the story deciphered, will, if substantiated, oblige us to rewrite a page of history and to tear a mask from many an idol before which we have bowed for three centuries. We shall, therefore, require the most convincing proofs of the bona fides of the discovery. The discussion of this question, however, we leave to a future article.

Last week we reviewed the subject matter of “The Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon” by Mrs. Gallup. This week we have to redeem the promise then made to discuss the claims which the discovery embodied in it has on our credence. Let us first clearly define what that discovery claims to be. It is not that Francis Bacon invented a cipher which he calls “Biliteral.” That is a fact which has been known to the world for three centuries. What the authoress claims to have discovered is that this cipher is used in all the original editions of Bacon’s printed works, and that she has deciphered the hidden story by means of it. If this claim can be substantiated, it will decide once for all the Bacon v. Shakespeare controversy in favor of the former, for in the deciphered story Bacon claims the authorship of the Shakespeare plays and poems, as well as of other works which we have been accustomed to attribute, in some cases on little or no evidence, to others of his “masques.”

Some fifty years ago the theory was started, independently on both sides of the Atlantic, that “Shakespeare” was in reality only a pen-name of Francis Bacon, and that it is to that great genius, not to the actor of Stratford-on-Avon, that the world owes its finest dramas. A storm of derision, of course, greeted the theory, as it does every theory that attacks a generally accepted belief, however erroneous; and it was only necessary to hold the theory to be at once classed with the inmates of a lunatic asylum—though one would hardly have supposed such an institution a suitable residence (exempli gratia) for Lord Palmerston. Just such a storm of ridicule, coupled with persecution, happily for “Baconians” impossible in the nineteenth century, greeted Galileo’s discovery that the earth moves round the sun. “E puo si muove,” and during the past fifty years the Baconian theory, under the influence of careful and patient investigation of internal and external evidence, has been steadily gaining ground. A fair example of the way in which the Baconian theory is met by its adversaries is the reply which was given to a friend of the present[Pg 86] writer by a well-known scholar and “Shakespearian” authority: “If Shakespeare were to rise from the grave and tell me that Bacon was the author of the plays, I would not believe him.” Take another typical specimen; it is a criticism (save the mark!) on the work we are now considering that appeared recently in a daily contemporary:—“A fresh campaign by the Baconian zealots is threatened. Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup claims to have discovered and deciphered the mysterious secrets which Bacon, she would have us believe, buried in his writings. In the 'Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon,’ Greene, Peele, and Marlowe, as well as Shakespeare, all go by the board; Sir Francis explains to Mrs. Gallup that their dramatic works were written by him alone. The proofs, she says, are 'overwhelming and irresistible.’ The day will come when Macaulay’s New Zealander will debate whether Bacon was a solar myth or a sort of Homer, who gathered together all Elizabethan literature in a—cipher.” But ridicule and invective are not argument, prejudice is not proof. “Some of our friends,” we used to be told in our childhood, “are for warning, others for example.” Taking those we have quoted for warning, let us give a fair and open-minded consideration to Mrs. Gallup’s claims.

To do this it will be necessary to describe Bacon’s Biliteral Cipher. His own description of it may be seen in any edition of his De Augmentis. Its principle is extremely simple, being, in fact, that of the Morse Code at present used in telegraphy—namely, various combinations of two differences. Thus, if we have two dissimilar things or sets of things, represented, let us suppose, by a and b respectively, there are thirty-two different ways in which we can arrange them in sets of five; as, for example, aaaaa, aaaab, aaaba, and so on. (It should be noted that in these groups a and b are merely used as symbols to represent two differences which might be equally well represented by dots and dashes or any other convenient symbols.) Now, by using twenty-four such groups, out of the possible thirty-two, and letting each stand for a different letter of the alphabet (in Bacon’s day I and J counted as one letter, as did also U and V), we can communicate by means of two differences with anyone who knows what letter each group stands for. Bacon’s method, the advantage of which lies in being able to insert anything in anything—omnia per omnia, as he says—is to have two complete sets, or “founts” as they are called, of type, which he designates the a and b fount respectively. All that is then necessary is to write out the secret message in its biliteral form letter for letter over or[Pg 87] under the matter to be printed, and, as each letter is required, to take it from the a or b fount according as the one or the other letter appears against it. For example, suppose the words to be printed are “The Court Journal,” and that we want to “infold” in this the signature “Fr. B.,” and suppose our a fount to consist of Latin and our b fount of Italic letters. Now, in Bacon’s biliteral alphabet F is represented by a a b a b, R by b a a a a, and B by a a a a b. Our MS. would, therefore, appear thus:

In printing we should take the T and H from the a fount, the E from the b fount, and so on. The words would then appear thus:

The decipherer would mark the letters according to their respective founts, divide it into groups of five, and, knowing what letter each group stands for, would read “Fr. B.”

In these days of publicity we find it hard to accept anything that savors of mystery, and tolerance of opinion and freedom of speech have made it difficult to credit that a man should have had motive sufficient for putting a cipher in his books. Yet, at the present day all internal state correspondence is carried on in cipher. Why? Because every other state is a potential enemy. And this same reason made cipher writing common among individuals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for in those days when “a man’s head stood tickle on his shoulders” every other individual, with perhaps the exception of a few intimates, was a potential enemy. But in the case of Francis Bacon there are special reasons why we should not wonder at his putting a cipher, and that his own Biliteral Cipher, into his published works; and we shall be able to show that so far from its being strange that he should do so, it would be strange had he not. He invented this cipher at the age of about sixteen or seventeen, when he was in Paris. Nearly thirty years later, in 1605, he published his great philosophical work Of the Advancement of Learning. It is significant that he should have thought ciphers of sufficient importance to be touched on in his work, and that he should have alluded to this particular cipher as “the highest degree of cyphers which is to write OMNIA PER OMNIA.”

In 1623 he published a Latin version of The Advancement under the title De Augmentis Scientiarum. This is not even a mere translation. The book has been entirely rewritten and[Pg 88] greatly enlarged, and is translated into Latin professedly because he feared that the English language wanted stability, while he believed that Latin would be the language of the learned for all time. Surely now, after nearly two crowded decades of Statecraft, of Law, of Philosophy, in which he has “sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,” the eminent statesman, the learned lawyer, the profound philosopher will find no room in his immortal work for what we are apt to consider an ingenious amusement for a schoolboy. Far from being omitted, however, the paragraph on ciphers is enlarged to some pages, the greater part devoted to a detailed description and examples of the cipher alluded to by him nearly a score of years before, invented by him nearly half a century earlier. But before we can realize the full force of these facts it will be necessary to glance at some of the leading traits of Bacon’s character. It is not too much to say that most people’s knowledge of this great man is derived—directly or indirectly—almost exclusively from one essay and one line of poetry; while few have read anything of his writings except his essays. Macaulay’s essay, as far as it deals with the moral side of Bacon’s character, is probably the greatest libel on a great man that ever masqueraded in the “weed” of criticism, and Pope’s line is the text of Macaulay’s essay in half a dozen words. Both have painted as the portrait of Bacon a figure impossible in human nature, “a vast idol,” as Hepworth Dixon well expresses it, “the head of gold and feet of clay.” But this writer and Spedding have dipped deep into the well of Truth, and with her waters have washed away the mud which had been flung by the envious hands of the pigmy contemporaries over whom Francis Bacon towered, and have shown the whole figure to be sterling gold from head to foot. Even Macaulay and Pope, however, while they mistake Bacon’s moral nature, acknowledge the vastness and exquisiteness of his intellect, though again on this side they fail to appreciate fully his “infinite capacity for taking pains.” “His understanding,” says the brilliant essayist, “with great minuteness of observation had an aptitude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other human being. The small fine mind of Labruyere had not a more delicate tact than the large intellect of Bacon. * * * His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanov gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold it; and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady. Spread it; and the armies of powerful Sultans might repose beneath its shade.”

Bacon’s, then, was just such a temperament as would have delighted in the continual application of his cipher; one to which the great labor involved—a labor which to most would be insufferable drudgery—would have been a congenial exercise or might have proved a welcome distraction from painful memories. There is one more point which has an important bearing in this connection. The guiding star of Bacon’s life was utility. Everything he studied—and what did he not study?—he studied with a view to the use that could be made of it. And utility was the mainspring of his least actions no less than of his loftiest philosophy. If this be granted, and we believe no one will for a moment dispute it, we have the strongest probability, nay, the absolute certainty, that he used the cipher which he invented and published. But where? Only one answer is possible—“In his printed works.” For we have seen that it is to be performed by means of two founts of type. One more question naturally suggests itself. “Had he adequate motives for imposing on himself the labor which the extensive use of the cipher involves?” This can only be answered when the secret is no longer a secret, when the cipher is deciphered. The story as deciphered by Mrs. Gallup gives an emphatic answer in the affirmative. The statements unfolded by her are such that, while their publication during his lifetime would have been productive of no good, it would have cost him his life. But in the interests of truth and for his own justification he wished them to be given to a future age. It was with this object that he began to use the cipher, and he continued its use as a distraction from the agonies of retrospection. We have now established, as we think, beyond contradiction, the fact that so far from being incredulous as to the existence of the biliteral cipher in Bacon’s works, we ought to expect it. How is it, then, the reader will say, that it has remained undiscovered for so long? It is the old story once more of Columbus and the egg, or, as Mrs. Gallup aptly quotes from Bacon himself, “in which sort of things it is the manner of men, first to wonder that such a thing should be possible, and after it is found out, to wonder again how the world should miss it so long.”

Our discussion of this question last week led us by à priori argument to the conclusion that Francis Bacon had put a cipher story into his printed works.

Now, either this long-neglected cipher has at last been discovered and deciphered or it has not. That is a truism. In the latter case two, and only two, hypotheses are possible; if they can be shown to be false, the affirmative proposition is established. These two hypotheses are—(1) that a deliberate fraud is being perpetrated; (2) that with perfectly honest intentions our authoress has, to use a familiar expression, “cooked” the cipher, and consequently the story is in reality the creation of her own brain. It would be a wonderful brain, indeed, that could have devised and executed such a work. The first supposition, we do not hesitate to say, will be at once dismissed by anyone who has even a slight acquaintance with the authoress. But as this is a privilege necessarily denied to the great majority of our readers, let us examine the question impersonally and impartially on its own merits. The “fraud” hypothesis would mean this—that the author had deliberately invented the whole story, and stated without the slightest foundation in fact that when resolved into Francis Bacon’s biliteral alphabet it would be found to correspond, letter by letter, with the two founts of Italic type which occur in such profusion in the works deciphered—for it is through the Italics that the cipher runs. Of the existence of different founts of Italic type in these works there is no question. It has long been known, though never hitherto explained; and anyone can verify this assertion by a glance at the original editions, or at the facsimiles in The Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon.

Now, to ensure this correspondence between the cipher story and the Italic print it would be necessary to count the letters in the latter—in itself a task almost as great as the genuine deciphering. And this would be but a small part of the labor required. It would be far surpassed by the immense amount of literary, linguistic, and historical knowledge and research indispensable for the avoidance of errors which would[Pg 91] soon be detected by the critics, and which would at once expose the fraud. Again, we might easily conceive that the author of our hypothetical fraud would pretend to find a secret history of Bacon’s time, with all its tragic interest, but it would be hard indeed to imagine that the idea would suggest itself of pretending to find summaries of and poetical translations from the Iliad and the Odyssey, or that the author would be capable of expressing them with such true Baconian intuition and freedom as they display. Still less is it likely that the author would run the risk of wearying his readers with directions for working out another cipher, which would also, presumably, be non-existent, or with frequent repetitions, which, however, will be seen to be necessary if the cipher is genuine. These considerations, we are aware, though they amount to a moral certainty of the impossibility of the “fraud” hypothesis, do not constitute a mathematical proof of it. There is, however, one which seems to us to do so. In the case of some of the letters the differences between the two founts are so slight that it would be difficult, without more study than most people would be prepared to give, to pronounce with certainty to which fount these letters belonged. But, on the other hand, in the case of many of the letters—most of the capitals and some of the small letters—the differences are “so plaine as thou canst not erre therein.” Now, as these letters stand in fixed places and must be marked always a or b according to their respective founts, the fraud would at once be detected, for it is a mathematical impossibility that the a's and b's of the biliteral form of a story not composed with reference to the actual letters could always fall in the right place. So much for the fraud hypothesis. The hypothesis of unintentional “cooking” may be very briefly dismissed. We had intended to give some rough calculations which would have demonstrated the untenability of this theory, but space and our readers’ patience, or rather the certain want of the one and the probable exhaustion of the other, forbid. When, however, it is considered that the cipher story has to be got out letter by letter from the printed matter; that it takes five letters of the latter to make one of the former; and that if one letter were got out it would give no assistance in extracting the next; unless there were a cipher there, it will be seen that no assistance would be obtained from the doubtful letters, and that it would be impossible to obtain any sense in this way. We have now fairly examined the only two hypotheses on which it is possible that Mrs. Gallup’s claim can be a “bogus” one, and proved them false. Thus we are driven by the inexorable force of logic to the only[Pg 92] remaining conclusion: That Francis Bacon did put a cipher into his printed works; that Mrs. Gallup has discovered it and has translated it.

We had intended to produce much corroborative evidence which, though we now find it superfluous, we believe would have been interesting. The exigencies of space again prevent us. One piece, however, is so curious that we feel sure our readers will pardon us if we produce it. We can vouch for the fact that it was unknown to our authoress when the statement it corroborates was deciphered. In the north of London there is still standing a square building of red brick, dating from the reign of Henry VIII., which is known as Canonbury Tower. That in no history of the tower, nor in any life of Bacon is mention made of its being connected with him, is only one of the numerous instances of the mystery which always meets us when we try to search deeper into the life of Francis Bacon. Yet research at one of the public libraries has recently elicited the fact that he took a lease of it for ninety-nine years, that he lived there for some time, apparently in charge of the Princes Henry and Charles, sons of James I., and that he was actually living there at the time he received the seals.

Close under the ceiling, on the wall, in a dark corner of a passage in the Tower, is painted an inscription consisting of the Sovereigns of England from the Conquest. The names are mostly abbreviated, and with one exception follow each other in the recognized order. But between Elizabeth and James stands, in the same way as the other abbreviations, Fr. No explanation of this interpolation appeared until the deciphered story brought to light the facts that Queen Elizabeth was secretly married to the Earl of Leicester, and that the great man whom we have known as Francis Bacon was in reality her first-born son, and therefore the true, though unacknowledged, heir to the throne.

We must not conclude without a slight tribute, not the less sincere that it must of necessity be brief, to the merits of Mrs. Gallup’s brilliant discovery, and the patient diligence with which she has gradually unrolled the cerements and brought to light one by one truths so long buried. We feel almost tempted to envy the feelings which must have swept over her as the first sentence came to light from its cipher tomb. They must have been such as stirred the soul of Columbus when, after the long night of impatient expectation, the light of morning broke and revealed to his triumphant gaze the shores of the new continent. Let us frankly confess[Pg 93] our gratitude to our authoress, who has enabled us to feel once more the “touch of a vanished hand,” to hear once more “the sound of a voice that is still”—a hand that was ever stretched down from lofty height to help and raise humanity, a voice that will ring trumpet-tongued through all ages—the hand and voice of one who “had an aspect as if he pitied men.”

Of all the critical paradoxes that have ever been seriously advocated, few have been received with such general and derisive indifference as that which declares Bacon to have been the author of the dramas ascribed to Shakespeare, and which couples this declaration with another—more startling still—that these dramas are not dramas only, but are besides a series of writings in cypher, whose inner meaning bears no relation whatever to their ostensible meaning as dramas, but which consist of memoranda or memoirs concerning Bacon himself, and secrets of Queen Elizabeth. The mere theory that Bacon was the real author of the plays, though the mass of Shakespeare’s readers still set it down as an illusion, does not, indeed, contain anything essentially shocking to common sense. On the contrary, it is generally recognised that on purely à priori grounds there is less to shock common sense in the idea that those wonderful compositions were the work of a scholar, a philosopher, a statesman, and a profound man of the world, than there is in the idea that they were the work of a notoriously ill-educated actor, who seems to have found some difficulty in signing his own name. This latter idea, which is still generally accepted, has little evidence to support it beyond tradition, which is strong, and strong only, in the absence of evidence to the contrary; and were such evidence forthcoming, it would be impossible for the candid mind to reject it on the grounds that it pointed to any improbable conclusion.

But with regard to the theory of the cypher the case is different. This is generally rejected or neglected both by scholars[Pg 95] and the reading public, not on the ground that the evidence for it is insufficient, but on the ground that it is in itself so unlikely, so fantastic, so impossible that it is not worth a sane man’s while to consider the misguided ingenuities by which a few literary monomaniacs have endeavoured to make it plausible. How is it possible, the ordinary man asks, to believe that the finest and profoundest poetry in the world—that the verses which give us in music the love of Romeo and Juliet, the torture of Hamlet’s philosophy, the majestic calm of Prospero’s—was composed, or rather constructed, as an elaborate verbal puzzle, the object of which was to preserve for some future decipherer a collection of political and mainly personal information, which the author was too timid to confide himself to his contemporaries? We might just as well believe that Paradise Lost is in reality a kind of Pepys’ Diary, in which the poet has recorded for posterity the curtain-lectures of Mrs. Milton. Such is the argument which the ordinary man uses; and if he consents to consider the matter a little farther, and finds, as he will find, that the advocates of the cypher theory maintain that Bacon, in the Shakespearian plays, has hidden away not one cypher but six, his dismissal of their theory will be yet more curt and contemptuous. Of this attitude of mind I am able to speak with sympathy, for the excellent reason that it was till lately my own. A remarkable volume, however, known at present to surprisingly few readers, has been recently published, dealing with the subject before us—a volume which at first I glanced at with apathetic distrust, but which has caused me, when I read it carefully, to reconsider the question. The contents of this volume I shall here briefly summarise, leaving the reader to escape from its conclusions if he can. The volume is called The Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon. It was first, I believe, printed privately, less than two years ago; and a small second edition was issued last year to the public. I will begin with describing its exact scope, which is limited. Of the six Baconian cyphers alleged to exist in Shakespeare, this volume deals only with one; and it is with this one only that I shall ask the reader to concern himself.

The biliteral cypher possesses two remarkable characteristics, which it is desirable to mention at starting, because they at once dispose of all those à priori objections which suggest themselves, as we have just seen, against the cypher theory generally.[Pg 96] In the first place this cypher, whether it exists in the Shakespearian plays or not, is demonstrably not the invention of any modern literary lunatic. It was invented by Bacon himself; and an elaborate account of it, together with examples of its use, is to be found, as will be shown presently, in one of his most celebrated works. In the second place—and this is a point which it is still more important to urge on the à priori sceptic—the biliteral cypher has nothing whatever to do with the composition or the wording of the works into which it is introduced. There might be a biliteral cypher in Hamlet from end to end, without any thought of a cypher having been present to the author when he was writing it. It is, in other words, altogether a matter of typography. It depends not on what the author writes, but on the manner in which he is printed. Accordingly, when what we may call the Baconian party informs the world that they have discovered a biliteral cypher, of which the author is Bacon, running through the plays of Shakespeare, they are really indulging in a gross inaccuracy of language, which does much to prevent a fair hearing being accorded to them. What they really mean is that this biliteral cypher runs not through the plays themselves, but through one particular edition of them—that is to say, the celebrated first folio. This edition, as every student knows, is remarkable for many extraordinary anomalies in its typography. Of these anomalies an explanation is now for the first time offered to us. They are presented to us—and it is claimed that they are thus explained completely—as part and parcel of the newly discovered typographical cypher. If we take these devices away the cypher disappears with them. If we resort, with the aid of the printer, to devices of the same kind, we could embody the cypher anew, and every sentence that Bacon committed to it, in any book we might choose to reprint, so far as its length permitted—in Pickwick, in Vanity Fair, in Tupper’s Proverbial Philosophy, in the Apocalypse of St. John, or in the advertisement-sheet of the Times.

I will now proceed to describe what the nature of the cypher is; and it shall first be introduced to the reader in the words of Bacon himself. In the De Augmentis Scientiarum Bacon writes thus:[7]

Let us come to Cyphars. Their kinds are many, as Cyphars simple, Cyphars intermixt with Nulloes, or Non-significant characters; Cyphars of double letters under one character; Wheele-cyphars, Kay-cyphars, Cyphars of Words, Others.... But that jealousies may be taken away, we will annexe one other invention, which, in truth, we devised in our own youth, when we were in Paris: and it is a thing which yet seemeth to us not worthy to be lost. It containeth the highest degree of Cypher, which is to signify omnia per omnia, yet so as the writng infolding may bear a quintuple relation to the writing infolded. No other condition or restriction whatsoever is required. It shall be performed thus. First, let all the letters of the alphabet, by transposition, be resolved into two letters onely; for the transposition of two letters by five placings will be sufficient for thirty-two differences, much more for twenty-four, which is the number of the alphabet. The example of such an alphabet is in this wise:

A	aaaaa	I	abaaa	R	baaaa
B	aaaab	K	abaab	S	baaab
C	aaaba	L	ababa	T	baaba
D	aaabb	M	ababb	V	baabb
E	aabaa	N	abbaa	W	babaa
F	aabab	O	abbab	X	babab
G	aabba	P	abbba	Y	babba
H	aabbb	Q	abbbb	Z	babbb

... When you addresse yourself to write, resolve your inward infolded letter into this Bi-literarie Alphabet. Say the interior letter be 'Fuge.’

Example of Solution

F	U	G	E
aabab	baabb	aabba	aabaa

Together with this you must have ready at hand a bi-formed Alphabet, which may represent all the letters of the Common Alphabet, as well Capitall Letters as the Smaller Characters, in a double forme, as may fit every man’s occasion.

{	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab
{	AAaa	BBbb	CCcc	DDdd	EEee	FFff
{	abab	abab	ababab	abab	abab	abab
{	GGgg	HHhh	IIiijj	KKkk	LLll	MMmm
{	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab
{	NNnn	OOoo	PPpp	QQqq	RRrr	SSss
{	abab	ababab	abab	abab	abab	abab
{	TTtt	VVvvuu	WWww	XXxx	YYyy	ZZzz

Now to the interior letter which is bi-literate, you shall fit a bi-formed exterior letter, which shall answer the other, letter for letter, and afterwards set it downe. Let the exterior example be, Manere te volo, donec Venero.

An Example of Accommodation.

F	U	G	E
aabab	. baabb	. aabba	. aabaa
Maner	etevo	lodon	ecven	[ero]

[Pg 98]

From this short example Bacon then proceeds to a longer one. He takes an entire page from one of Cicero’s letters, and so prints it in italics from two founts, similar to those in the alphabet just given, that it infolds an interior letter from a Spartan general, 'Sent once in a scytale, or round cypher’d staffe.’ The quotation from Cicero it is unnecessary to give here. It is sufficient to say that, as printed by Bacon, the ordinary reader would detect nothing out of the common in it; but when once his eye is made alert by the knowledge that its characters are drawn from two different founts of type, he can, by the aid of the alphabets supplied by Bacon, easily decipher for himself the Spartan message infolded in it.

It is the above passage, occurring in Bacon’s own work, which has led to the alleged discovery set forth in the volume with which we are now dealing; and the history of the discovery, as we there find it, is curious. For a considerable time an American student, Dr. Owen, had been working at the elucidation of another cypher altogether, also alleged to be Bacon’s, and to exist in the Shakespearian plays. This is the word-cypher. With its details we need not here concern ourselves. It is enough to say that an American lady, Mrs. Gallup, was his assistant. The above passage from Bacon arrested her attention, and she became convinced that the Bi-literal Cypher had been described by its inventor with special ulterior purpose and might possibly be found co-existing in Shakespearian plays with the others. She was fortified in this idea by the well known and unexplained peculiarities in the printing of the first folio to which I have already alluded, and she claims that on examining this volume she found her suspicions correct. The result has been the book under review. After its publication Mrs. Gallup came to England, her sole object being to examine certain rare old books which could not be procured in America and find if possible the first inception of the cypher writings, and in this she claims to have been successful.[8] Before going farther I will direct the reader’s attention once again to the bi-literal cypher itself, and endeavor to make the nature of it clearer to him than it will probably have been made by Bacon’s own, somewhat clumsy, exposition of it.

In the first place it should be observed that Bacon’s own name for it—'bi-literal’—is essentially inaccurate and misleading. He means by the word 'bi-literal’ that the letters of his second alphabet are all formed out of two—that is to say, 'a’ and 'b,’ by arranging them variously in so many groups of five. But the letters 'a’ and 'b,’ when used for this purpose, are properly speaking not letters at all. They have no phonetic value, they are simply arbitrary signs. Their function would be fulfilled equally well or better by dots and dashes (. and —), or else by the longs and shorts (- and °) which are familiar to every schoolboy as symbols of prosodical quantity. The cypher is a cypher of two signs, not of two letters. It is, in fact, merely a species of Morse Code. Let the reader look back to the bi-literal code or alphabet, as formulated by Bacon himself; and, for an example, let him take four letters—a, b, e, and l—which I choose merely because several different words can be spelt with them. He will see that for 'a’ the symbol is five 'a’s (a a a a a), for 'b’ four 'a’s and a 'b’ (a a a a b), for 'e’ two 'a’s, a 'b’, and two 'a’s (a a b a a), and for 'l’ two consecutive 'a b’s and one 'a’ (a b a b a). Let him rid himself of these 'a’s and 'b’s, and substitute dots and dashes; let every 'b’ be a dash, and every 'a’ a dot. The result will be just the same, and his mind will most likely be clearer. His code signs for these four letters will be as follows: A .....; B ....—; E ..—..; L .—.—. Now let him write, in this code, 'ale,’ 'all,’ 'ball,’ 'bell,’ 'Abel.’ No exercise could be easier. 'Ale’ will be ..... .—.—. ..—..; 'All’ will be ..... .—.—. .—.—.; 'Ball’ will be ....— ..... .—.—. .—.—.; 'Bell’ will be ....— ..—.. .—.—. .—.—.; and 'Abel’ will be ..... ....— ..—.. .—.—. Now we come to the next part of our problem. Having written 'ale,’ 'all,’ 'ball,’ 'bell,’ and 'Abel’ in dots and dashes—which constitutes, we will suppose, some message which we wish to convey—our next task is to hide this in a series of words with which, seemingly, our message shall have no connection. For the moment, instead of adopting the precise method of Bacon, let us take a much cruder one, which will be at once grasped by everybody. Let us make every capital letter signify a dot in our code, and every small letter a dash; and let us arrange the code symbols of our five words in a line, thus:

We have here a series of ninety dots and dashes, and all we need now do is to take any sentence we please—any chance fragment, whether of prose or poetry—which contains not less than ninety letters, and ignoring the ordinary use of small letters and capitals, write it in such a way as to put a capital for every dot and a small letter for every dash. Let us take, for example, the first verses of Gray’s 'Elegy,’ and write it in this manner. What we shall get is as follows:

All the five words with which we started are here contained in our cypher; and the decipherer has only to perform the childishly simple task of putting a dot under each capital and a dash under each small letter, and he has them back again in the form given above. To illustrate the complete independence of what Bacon calls the 'infolding’ document from the 'infolded,’ let us set, one under the other, one of Gray’s lines, and some different sets of words altogether.

Every one of these lines, when resolved into dots and dashes, will be the same, and will read thus:

Bacon’s system differs from this merely in the fact that, instead of using the capitals and the small letters of one ordinary alphabet as the equivalents respectively of his 'a’s and 'b’s—that is to say, of his dots and dashes—he uses two italic alphabets, of capitals and small letters, complete; both the capitals and small letters of one meaning dots or 'a’s, and the capitals and small[Pg 101] letters of the other meaning dashes or 'b’s. Let us now proceed to adopt his system a little more nearly ourselves, diverging from it only in the fact that our two complete alphabets, instead of being two slightly different varieties of italics, shall consist, the one of italics and the other of ordinary type, the italics representing the 'a’s or dots, the ordinary letters the 'b’s or dashes; and we will, as preliminary examples, imagine two cases, parallel to that which is alleged to be Bacon’s own. The following lines are Byron’s, which I quote from memory; and they are printed in accordance with the principles just laid down:

To this passage, before examining it, let us add some others from Milton, printed in the same manner; and let us imagine, for reasons which will appear presently, that we have an edition of Milton in which certain passages, and certain passages only—those which we shall quote being among them—are printed in these two characters, and are consequently at once distinguishable from the rest of the text.

Now in the above passages, if we except only the fact that the dots and dashes of the cypher are represented in these by italics and ordinary letters, whereas Bacon employs two slightly different forms of italics, we have the biliteral cypher exemplified completely, though with extreme simplicity. But we have not this only. As the reader will see presently, we have exemplified in them also another of the claims now made for Bacon in relation to works published under another name. It may amuse some readers to extract the cypher in these passages for themselves. They will begin thus, putting dots under the italics and dashes under the ordinary letters:

They will then divide these dots and dashes into groups of five, thus: ._..., _._.., ._...; and on turning to Bacon’s code, already given, they will find that these three groups mean I. W. I. Pursuing this method, they will find that in the passage from Byron the following meaning is 'infolded:’

'I, William Wordsworth, am the author of the Byron poems. Don Juan contains my private prayers.’

'I, S. Pepys, in this and oth’r poems [Now to my Sams’n] hide my secret frailties [Now to Lycidas] lest my wife, poor fool, should know.’

The reader will see from these examples how easily, if it were not for the existence of copyright, any author might republish the works of any other, introducing a cypher into them, in which he claimed them as his own composition, and deposited in them any secrets which he wished both to record and hide. The passages taken from Milton illustrate certain farther points. The bi-literal cypher of Bacon exists, it is alleged, in the first folio of Shakespeare, in those parts only which are printed in italics, the end of one fragment of the secret writing often breaking off in the middle of a letter, which is completed at the beginning of another italic passage farther on, and sometimes[Pg 103] in another play; and parentheses occur like those in our imagined cypher by Pepys, directing the decipherer where to look for the continuations.

The general character, then, of this biliteral cypher, and the manner in which it is alleged to have been inserted in one edition of the Shakespearian plays, must now be perfectly clear to even the most careless reader; and we may therefore pass on to another portion of our subject; for the claim of the Baconian theorists does not by any means end with what they declare they have proved with regard to the first folio of Shakespeare. They claim that the same cypher has been introduced by Bacon into early or first editions of a number of other works, some bearing his own name, and admittedly written by himself, others bearing the name of well known persons, his contemporaries. These include his own Advancement of Learning, 1605, his Novum Organum, 1620, and his History of Henry VII., 1622; the Complaints, 1591, and the Colin Clout, 1595, published under the name of Spenser, and the edition of the Faerie Queen, 1596; certain editions of certain plays ascribed to the four dramatists, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson; and the edition published in 1628 of The Anatomy of Melancholy. Some of these works, in spite of the presence of the cypher in them, it is not even claimed that Bacon wrote himself. For example, so we are told, he expressly says in his cypher that he used certain plays of Ben Jonson, with Ben Jonson’s own permission, as a vehicle for his secret writing, having had, with the exception of a few short masques, no part in the composition of any of them. Bacon does claim, however, unless his cypher is altogether an illusion, that of many of the works into which the cypher was printed, he was himself the actual author—notably The Anatomy of Melancholy, and the whole of the plays called Shakespeare’s. On this latter point he insists over and over again, declaring that he borrowed Shakespeare’s name as a pseudonym, and describing him as being nothing more than the most accomplished actor of his time.

I say this, let me repeat, on the supposition that the cypher is not altogether an illusion. Before considering whether this supposition is correct, let us accept it for the moment as being so, and see what are the conclusions which it forces on us. Of the four hundred and fifty pages of which Mrs. Gallup’s volume,[Pg 104] The Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon, consists, about three hundred and fifty are occupied with what purport to be secret writings of Bacon’s, deciphered letter by letter, from the passages printed in italics, in certain specified editions of certain works, some published under other names, some admittedly his own. Of these three hundred and fifty pages of secret writings, about fifteen have been extracted from Spenser, Greene, Peele, and Marlowe, and twenty-three from Ben Jonson; about a hundred and twenty-five from writings admittedly his own, such as the Novum Organum and The New Atlantis, more than ninety from Burton, and more than fifty from the first folio of Shakespeare. Much more, however, it is averred, remains to be deciphered still.

And now let us ask what, continuing to suppose them genuine, these secret writings contain, and why the author wrote them in such a way. Described generally, they are a species of diary, comparable to that of Pepys, also written in cypher—a diary to which the author confides thoughts and hopes and feelings too intimate to be revealed to contemporaries, and secrets the mere hinting of which would have placed his life in danger. Of these it is enough for our present purpose to mention a few.

Bacon declares in his cypher over and over again that he was not what he appeared to be. He was not, as the world supposed, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, but the son of the Queen of England by a private marriage with Leicester—her eldest son and rightful heir to the throne. He was ignorant of the fact till he reached his sixteenth year, when he heard the story hinted by one of the ladies of the Court. The Queen, in a fit of anger, admitted to him that it was true, the marriage having taken place secretly in the Tower of London, when the Queen, before her accession, and Leicester were both confined there. For political reasons it was necessary to keep this a profound secret, and the child was confided to Anne and Nicholas Bacon, to be brought up as their own and educated as a private person, the Queen being determined never, under any circumstances, to acknowledge him. To reveal the truth himself would, he believed, be to forfeit his life; and hence, smarting under an obstinate sense of wrong, he confided his history to the keeping of elaborate cyphers, trusting that future students would unravel[Pg 105] them for a future age. The moment the Queen found that the boy had discovered his parentage he was sent to France under the care of Sir Amyas Paulet, and did not come back to England till the death of his foster-father. When in France he conceived an absorbing and romantic passion for Marguerite, wife of Henry of Navarre, who returned or pretended to return it. Expectations were rife at the time that she and her husband were to be divorced; and Sir Amyas Paulet attempted to arrange with Queen Elizabeth that, should the divorce take place, Marguerite and Bacon should be married. The divorce, however, was not obtained, nor would Queen Elizabeth listen to the proposal. This early romance made a profound impression on Bacon, and he wrote, long afterwards, Romeo and Juliet in commemoration of it.

Another part of the story which he tells is this. He was not, he says, the Queen’s only child by Leicester. He had a brother, and this brother was Essex; and of all the incidents of his life with regard to which he is most anxious to set forth the truth and with regard to which he fears that his memory is most likely to be wronged, those connected with his conduct towards his unfortunate brother stand foremost.

That he does not venture openly to give even a hint of the truth with regard to this matter, or his parentage and rightful position, he declares with an almost wearisome and not very dignified persistence; and he is, he says, driven to hide himself in tortuous cyphers, which will keep him safe as a coney hiding in a valley of rocks.

On the contents of the biliteral cypher, considered under their more general aspect, we need not dwell longer. Enough has been said to show that, if it be a genuine document, the author had intelligible reasons for embodying it in this singular form. What mainly concerns us here is its purely literary significance, especially as regards the authorship of the so-called plays of Shakespeare. The mere fact that this biliteral Baconian cypher is incorporated in the first collected edition of these plays does not in itself prove, as we have seen already, that Bacon was the author of King John and Romeo and Juliet, any more than it proves that he was the author of The Fox, which, though the same cypher occurs in it, is admitted to be Ben Jonson’s. The only evidence as to this point with which the biliteral cypher[Pg 106] supplies us consists not in its existence in an edition of Shakespeare’s plays, but solely in the assertions which it contains that Bacon did actually write them, coupled with further statements relating to other cyphers—the word-cypher more particularly, also alleged to be contained in them. So far as concerns the biliteral cypher itself, the mere assertions as to authorship which Bacon makes by means of it have as much or as little value as they would have had had he made them openly. Their value depends on the value we are inclined to attach to his word, coupled with the probabilities of the case as estimated by the critic and the historian. The word-cypher, however, stands on a different footing. It depends on the text itself, not on the manner in which the text is printed; and the author of this cypher must necessarily have been the author of the plays. Now the biliteral cypher contains, if it really be a genuine document, elaborate instructions as to the word-cypher, and directions as to the method of unravelling it. That such instructions should be given if the word-cypher is a mere illusion, we need hardly say is incredible. Hence, according to all rules of common sense, our belief in the former carries with it a belief in the latter; and a belief in the latter—the word-cypher—also carries with it the further belief that Bacon actually was the author of the Shakespearian plays.

Whether such be the case or no, it is not my purpose to inquire. All that at this moment I am anxious to impress upon the reader is the fact that, in taking their stand on this new alleged discovery—this discovery of a cypher heretofore not dreamed of—a typographical cypher depending on the use of two printer’s alphabets, nearly alike but yet ascertainably different, the Baconians have shifted this controversy to wholly novel ground. The word-cypher is a cypher which, even those who believe in it admit, requires for its interpretation a certain amount of conjecture; but the biliteral cypher, if it exists at all, can be proved to exist, or, in the opposite case, it can be proved to be a mere hallucination, by the aid of a magnifying-glass applied to certain printed pages. There is no occasion here for any abstruse literary reasoning. There is no occasion for any literary reasoning at all. Either certain editions of the various books in question—the first folio of Shakespeare being the most important and the most famous of them—are, in so far as the[Pg 107] italicised portions of them are concerned, systematically printed in letters from two different founts of type, or they are not. If, as is absolutely indisputable, two different founts are used, the letters from these founts are used in such a manner that, when separated into groups of five, and expressed as dots and dashes, each of these groups will denote a single letter, in accordance with the code set forth by Bacon himself; or else they will not do this, or will do so only by accident, most of the groups having no meaning whatsoever. And lastly, if these groups do assume a consecutive meaning, and actually give us a series of single letters, the letters will form words and intelligible sentences, or they will not. The whole case is one for simple ocular demonstration.

To make this demonstration conclusive in the eyes of the world generally would, no doubt, demand some time and labour. The question is, are there sufficient primâ facie grounds for supposing that possibly the Baconian theory is true, to make it worth while for sceptics to undertake the inquiry? For my own part, unhesitatingly I venture to say that there are. In the first place, this cypher, as no one can deny, was familiar to Bacon, who claims to have himself invented it. He has himself admittedly supplied us with our specimen page of it, a passage from Cicero, reproduced by Mrs. Gallup in photographic facsimile, together with a companion page, in which Bacon has placed side by side the two alphabets employed, so that the differences between their respective letters may be more easily realised. Thus the biliteral cypher exists in one page of Bacon’s works at all events. There is nothing, therefore, fantastic in the idea that it may exist elsewhere. The only possibility of any doubt with regard to the question is due altogether to a purely physical circumstance. The types employed in printing the specimen passage from Cicero were designedly made of such a size, and the differences between the two alphabets were accentuated in such a manner, that the ordinary eye could readily learn to distinguish the letters that stand for dashes from those that stand for dots. Even here, however, the differences are for the most part so small and delicate that, in order to perceive them, we must scrutinise the page attentively; and an hour of such attention may elapse before we cease to be puzzled. But in the first folio of Shakespeare, as in most of the other volumes in which it[Pg 108] is contended that the same type occurs, the type is much smaller. Although even the naked eye can be soon trained to perceive that in many cases the letters belong to different founts, yet these differences are of so minute a kind that in other cases they elude the eye without the aid of a magnifying-glass; and even with the aid of a magnifying-glass—I say this from experience—the eye of the amateur, at all events, remains doubtful, and unable to assign the letters to this alphabet or to that. The majority of educated persons, therefore, in the present state of the controversy, if they give to the italicised passages of the first Shakespearian folio and the other books in question only so much time and attention as may be expected from interested amateurs, may reasonably, if not rightly, entertain the opinion that the larger part of the differences alleged to exist between the italic letters employed are entirely imaginary, since their eyes are unable to detect them; that the supposed cypher is altogether a delusion, and has been read into the texts, not out of them, by Mrs. Gallup and her coadjutors.

On the other hand, the fact that the amateur finds himself, after weeks of study, still completely bewildered in his attempt to allocate the various letters to two different founts of type, in such a way as to elicit a sentence or even a word in groups of dots and dashes, according to the Baconian code, must not be taken too hastily as a proof that the alleged cypher is imaginary. Mrs. Gallup has done much, though not so much as she might have done, to enable her readers to settle this point for themselves. She has reproduced in facsimile from the original editions Bacon’s preface to the Novum Organum, 1620; and the Epistle Dedicatory of the so-called Spenser’s Complaints, 1591, in both of which it is contended that the Baconian cypher occurs. She gives similar facsimiles also of the Epistle Dedicatory, and the Commendatory Verses prefixed to the first folio of Shakespeare. She gives also an enlarged diagram of the different forms of italics used by Bacon in the printing of the Novum Organum; and of his preface to that work, and of the Epistle Dedicatory of Spenser’s Complaints, she gives the cypher meaning extracted letter by letter, each italic being thus allocated to its own alleged fount. Is this allocation merely fanciful or not?

I have studied for some weeks Mrs. Gallup’s facsimilies myself, and I give my experience, purely as that of an amateur,[Pg 109] for what it is worth. When I examined the facsimiles first I could make nothing out of them; and of those from the first folio I can make very little still. All the letters seemed too much alike to allow of my separating them systematically into two founts of type. Differences which I thought I had discovered at one moment altogether vanished the next, and gave place to others, which soon, in their turn, escaped me. But with regard to the facsimiles from the Novum Organum and Spenser’s Complaints the case was otherwise, and for a very simple reason. In the facsimiles from the folio the type is extremely small, the original page having been reduced so as to accommodate it to an octavo volume. But in the Bacon and Spenser facsimiles the type is of the size of the original. It is comparatively large, and a study of it is proportionately easier. In these pages I was very soon able to distinguish the different founts to which several of the letters belong. I could presently do the same with regard to several letters more; and at last I was more or less master of two-thirds of the alphabet in such a way that I was able, with some confidence, to translate them, when in one form into a dot, and when in another form into a dash. I have tried this experiment with a large number of passages, and, comparing my interpretations with that of Mrs. Gallup herself, I have found that it coincides with hers, sometimes in four cases out of seven, and not infrequently in five. Many of the letters still continued to baffle me; but with regard to some I found myself always right; and the dots or dashes into which I had resolved these have invariably coincided with the requirements of the cypher, as Mrs. Gallup interprets it. It appears to me to be almost inconceivable that multiplied coincidences such as these can be the work of chance, or that they can originate otherwise than in the fact that in these pages at all events—the preface to the Novum Organum, printed in 1620, and in the Dedication of Spenser’s Complaints, printed in 1591—a biliteral cypher exists, in both cases the work of Bacon; and if such a cypher really exists here, the probabilities are overwhelming that Mrs. Gallup is right, and that we shall find it existing in the first folio of Shakespeare also.

It is unfortunate that Mrs. Gallup, whilst giving us the facsimiles already mentioned, has not given us any from the Shakespearian plays themselves, together with specimens of the cypher[Pg 110] in them, interpreted letter by letter. I doubt, however, if such facsimiles would be conclusive if the page of the original folio were reduced to the size of an octavo. The process which ought to be adopted is one entirely the reverse of this. Passages from the first folio should be given not in a reduced but in an enlarged facsimile, so that the letters should, if possible, be something like half an inch high. Copies, moreover, of the letters, in all the forms in which they occur, should be arranged side by side in alphabets, according to the founts to which they belong; and a very few passages, if enlarged and illustrated thus, would be sufficient to show whether the admitted peculiarities of the type are merely accidental, as has vaguely been assumed hitherto, or are really the vehicle of an elaborately arranged cypher.

In order to show the reader that Bacon’s biliteral cypher can easily be printed in such a way that the inexperienced eye would wholly fail to detect it, and the uninstructed critic would reject its existence as a myth, I subjoin a passage taken from Bacon’s own chapter on cyphers:

Founts of italic type might be found the differences between which would be much more minute than those existing between the two used here, but which would yet be visible to the trained eye of a printer’s reader, and by means of which a cypher might be printed quite legible to the expert, but undistinguishable for all the world besides. If, therefore, a biliteral Bacon’s cypher does really exist in the first folio of Shakespeare, we must be prepared to find that the unravelling of it is a matter of considerable difficulty, and that the ocular evidences of its existence are a long time in becoming plain to us.

I must now draw attention to another aspect of the question. If the cypher does not really exist, the entire matter, amounting to between three and four hundred pages, which Mrs. Gallup professes to have deciphered, is an elaborate literary forgery. I recommend the reader to study these pages, and ask if their character is such as to suggest this conclusion. I can here quote one passage only, which is alleged to have been printed, not into the Shakespearian folio, but into the New Atlantis. It refers to the writer’s supposed early love affair. If it be a forgery, it is one of extraordinary ingenuity; so full does it seem to me of pathetic and dignified beauty, and so strongly does it bear the marks of genuine and acute sincerity.

Th’ fame of th’ gay French Court had come to me even then, and it was flattering to th’ youthfull and most naturall love o’ th’ affaires taking us from my native land, insomuch as th’ secret commission had been entrusted to me, which required most true wisdome for safer, speedier conduct then ’twould have if left to th’ common course of businesse. Soe with much interessed, though sometimes apprehensive minde, I made myself ready to accompany Sir Amyias to that sunny land o’ th’ South I learned so supremely to love, that afterwards I would have left England and every hope of advancement, to remain my whole life there. Nor yet could this be due to th’ delight of th’ country by itselfe; for love o’ sweete Marguerite, th’ beautifull young sister o’ th’ king (married to gallant Henry th’ King o’ Navarre) did make it Eden to my innocent heart; and even when I learned her perfidie, love did keepe her like th’ angels in my thoughts half o’ th’ time—as to th’ other half she was devilish, and I myselfe was plung’d into hell. This lasted duri’g many yeares, and, not until four decades or eight lustres o’ my life were outliv’d, did I take any other to my sore heart. Then I married th’ woman who hath put Marguerite from my memorie—rather I should say hath banished her portrait to th’ walles of memorie only, where it doth hang in th’ pure undimmed beauty of those early dayes.

W. H. Mallock.

That smoldering question which nothing seems able to extinguish, “Did Shakespeare write the Shakespeare plays?” and the related question, “Is there a cipher hidden in those plays, which not only reveals their real authorship but betrays important state secrets of the time of Queen Elizabeth?” have just been brought before the public mind in a new and startling aspect.

And this time the problem is presented in a form which renders it capable of being submitted to something like a scientific test. It is, in fact, put upon a mechanical basis, so that it becomes a mere question of distinguishing between different shapes of printers’ types.

Mrs. Elizabeth W. Gallup, of Detroit, Michigan, avers that while engaged in an examination of old editions of the works of Francis Bacon, trying to trace there a “Cipher Story,” the key to which was discovered by Dr. O. W. Owen, to whom she was acting as an assistant, she became convinced that the careful explanation which Bacon has given in his celebrated work, De Augmentis Scientiarum, of a species of secret writing, invented by him, and which he calls a “Bi-literal Cipher,” was intended to serve some other purpose besides that of a mere treatise on the subject.

This Cipher is based upon the use of two slightly different fonts of type and, as we shall presently see, has nothing whatever to do with the literary form or sense of the books in which it is alleged to be concealed.

Remembering those puzzling italicized passages that occur in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, published in 1623, and for which no satisfactory explanation has ever been[Pg 113] offered, Mrs. Gallup immediately examined them to see if, perchance, the bi-literal cipher described by Bacon might not be found in them. Apparently she was not confident of success, but, to her great surprise, as she affirms, the cipher was there!

She began to read it out, and if the story of what she says she found is true, nobody can wonder that she felt she had made the literary discovery of the age.

Let us say at once that it is not only in the Shakespeare Plays that the alleged cipher is hidden, but it appears also in the works that were published under Bacon’s own name, being confined, as in the plays, to the italicized portions—italicized for no discoverable reason—and also, surprising to relate, in a variety of other books of the Elizabethan period, such as Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar and Faerie Queene, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, the plays of Peele, Greene and Marlowe, and even some parts of the plays of Ben Jonson.

Through all of these works, according to Mrs. Gallup, who has just filled a large octavo volume with her asserted revelations, runs a story, composed by Francis Bacon, and repeated over and over again, in varying, but never contradictory, forms, in which he affirms that he was the son of Queen Elizabeth by Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, to whom she was secretly married in the Tower of London when before her accession to the throne, both she and the Earl were imprisoned there; that, in order to keep his birth secret, he was given, while a child, to Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife Anne, who brought him up as if he were their own son; that he did not discover the truth about his birth until he was sixteen years old, when an intimation of it reached his ears through the indiscretion of a lady of the court, and then his mother, the Queen, in a fit of passion, confessed the truth to him, and immediately afterward sent him away to France in charge of Sir Amyas Paulet; and that while he was in southern France he fell in love with Marguerite, the beautiful wife of King Henry of Navarre, and the play of Romeo and Juliet was afterward based upon this romantic episode in his life. In other parts of the story Bacon is represented as affirming that Queen Elizabeth had another son from her secret union[Pg 114] with the Earl of Leicester, this being no less a person than the Earl of Essex, who was afterward executed for high treason by his mother’s command. Essex was thus, according to the story, Bacon’s younger brother, and, in the Cipher, Bacon appears as constantly lamenting the share which he unwillingly had in the tragic fate of his brother.

This story, whether it truly exists in the alleged Cipher or is the product of imagination, cannot fail to hold the reader’s attention, but before pursuing it farther let us see what the Bi-literal Cipher is.

In his work, De Augmentis Scientiarum, Bacon first shows that a cipher alphabet can be formed by various transpositions of the two leading letters of the ordinary alphabet, a and b, in sets of five, each set representing one letter of the Cipher, thus:

Such an alphabet in itself would be of no use for secret writing. For instance, let us print the word “Bacon” in it. It would run: aaaab, aaaaa, aaaba, abbab, abbaa. If a series of sentences were written, or printed, in that manner it is evident that the merest tyro would quickly discover the key and decipher the message.

Bacon’s next step, then, is to contrive a way in which the alphabet above described can be “infolded” in a printed book so that each set of five successive letters composing the words of the book, without changing their order and without reference to the meaning that they convey to the ordinary reader, shall represent one of the letters of the hidden Cipher. For this purpose it is necessary to employ two fonts of type, in which the forms of the letters slightly differ. Call one the “a font” and the other the “b font;” then every letter in the “a font” will stand for “a” in making up the sets of five a’s and b’s that compose the letters of the cipher alphabet, and similarly every letter of the b-font will stand for “b.”

Thus, by simply printing three sentences, containing one hundred and twenty-five letters in two kinds of type, another entirely different sentence, containing only twenty-five letters, is inclosed in them, and can be read only by one who holds the clue to the double system of types, which Bacon calls a Bi-literal Cipher. It is not necessary in any manner to interfere with the order of the words in the original work, and any book in existence could be made to hold a cipher of this kind. The only restriction upon the proceedings of the person who inserts the cipher is imposed by the necessity of using up five letters of the original for every one letter of his inclosed cipher.

In Bacon’s alleged use of the Cipher he is said to have included it only in the italicized portions of the books wherein it is found, using two fonts of Italic letters.

Now, even if the existence of such a Cipher in the Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, whose typographical eccentricities have long been a puzzle, can be established, that fact would not in itself affect the question of the authorship of the Plays. Being simply a matter of the types employed, any printer, if he had the opportunity—not to speak of a sufficient motive—could have inserted the story which Mrs. Gallup professes to have extracted.

Of course Bacon himself could thus have inserted it without having had anything to do with the original composition of the Plays. In fact, however, he claims in the alleged Cipher Story that he was the real author of those immortal compositions, as well as of other books, such as Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Marlowe’s plays.

But the reader is likely to say: “This is so simple a matter that it should have been cleared up long ago. If there are two kinds of type used in the Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, and if all the italicized portions are printed in that manner, and filled with a secret story, it ought to be the easiest thing in the world to establish the fact by simple examination.” So it would be if the fonts of type alleged to have been employed by Bacon were as clearly distinguished from one another as are those which he used in illustrating the principle of the Bi-literal Cipher in his De Augmentis, or[Pg 116] those which we have selected for a similar purpose. But, in fact, there is no such clear distinction. It may indeed be said that Bacon would have defeated his own end by making the differences of type manifest at the first glance. He had to choose letters which should be so nearly alike that they would pass under the ordinary reader’s eyes without exciting suspicion, and yet should be sufficiently varied to be distinguished without too great difficulty when at last the key was discovered and the deciphering begun.

Not only are the differences admitted by Mrs. Gallup, especially in the case of the small characters, to be so slight that very close examination is required to preceive them, but she avers that Bacon was not satisfied with using only two fonts; he employed many different fonts, and sometimes changed the order of their distribution among the “A’s” and “B’s,” apparently for the purpose of more surely concealing his cipher, for he is represented as saying that his life would be in danger if the fact became known that he was using this method of handing down to posterity secrets concerning the highest personages in the State which the few who were acquainted with them dared not whisper above their breath.

As Mr. Mallock has suggested, the thing to do is not to photograph the pages said to contain the cipher down to the dimensions of an octavo, as has been done, but to magnify them, in order that the typographical variations may be made more evident. By adopting that plan it may be possible to submit the whole question to a decisive test. At any rate, it is a question that can be tested by a mechanical examination, and there certainly seems to be no occasion for the display of heat and bad temper that has been called forth in some quarters by the discussion. On the contrary, it is full of interest, whichever way it may be decided.

Returning to the revelations which Mrs. Gallup assures us have been extracted from the books named with the aid of the Bi-literal Cipher, we come upon another point more surprising still. The Bi-literal Cipher is believed by her to have been intended as a key to other, more difficult, forms of cipher embedded by Bacon in his various works. The most important of these is described as a “word-cipher,” the translation of which does not depend upon the use of any special[Pg 117] type, but is to be effected by means of certain key-words and directions given in the Bi-literal Cipher. This Word-Cipher, if it exists, could not have been inserted in a work originally composed without reference to it, but could only be worked into the web and woof of the composition by the original author, and to assert, as the story does, that Bacon was able to compose the finest plays that we know under the name of Shakespeare merely as cloaks for other hidden plays and narratives is indeed to tax credulity to its limit.

It will be observed that the “word-cipher” does not admit of any such mechanical test as can be applied to the Bi-literal Cipher, but is a subject for choice, judgment and ingenuity in interpretation, so that, to anybody not predisposed to accept it, it can never appeal with convincing force, as the Bi-literal would do if once the typographical differences on which it is based could be completely established. Let the Bi-literal Cipher’s presence be demonstrated beyond a peradventure, and then the word-cipher would stand a better chance of acceptance, because the other asserts its existence. The word-cipher compels those who accept it to believe that the person, who put the ciphers in Shakespeare’s plays and Bacon’s learned treatises and the poems and dramatic compositions of Marlowe, Spenser, Peele and Greene and the Anatomy of Melancholy called Burton’s, actually produced all of those works.

Using the Word-Cipher, and following the clues accorded by the Bi-literal, Mrs. Gallup has recently deciphered, as she avers, one of the concealed tragedies of Bacon. It is called The Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, and is made up of bits from many of Shakespeare’s plays, matched together. For instance, we find Romeo’s words put into the mouth of King Henry VIII, and applied by him to Anne Boleyn:

All this is well calculated to repel dispassionate investigation of Mrs. Gallup’s claims because it so far offends the common sense and judgment of the reader that he must be[Pg 118] tempted to throw the whole thing overboard at once. If the alleged discovery can ever be rendered acceptable to unprejudiced investigation, it must be on the basis of the Bi-literal Cipher alone. Let Mrs. Gallup successfully meet Mr. Mallock’s challenge by taking, as he suggests, the epistle from Macbeth to Lady Macbeth (Macbeth, Act. I, Scene 5), which is one of the passages in the first Folio printed in Italics, and indicating under each letter the font to which, according to her interpretation, it belongs. Then let Mr. Mallock have the passage photographically enlarged, so that the dullest eye can detect the smallest differences in the letters, and when the result is printed the public will have a fair chance to judge for itself.

But, whatever the outcome of the discussion aroused by Mrs. Gallup’s book may be, the story that Francis Bacon appears to tell in its pages does not fail in interest. The well-known fact that historical rumor has long whispered hints touching many of his alleged revelations serves to draw attention to them. Some of Mrs. Gallup’s critics intimate that those rumors may really be the sole foundation of her decipherings. But they do not accuse her of wilful invention, and if she has dreamed these things it must be admitted that she dreams interestingly.

Listen to Bacon’s complaint of the injustice done him, as Mrs. Gallup says she reads it in the double types of the “Advancement of Learning”:

“Queen Elizabeth, the late soveraigne, wedded, secretly, th’ Earle, my father, at th’ Tower of London, and afterwards at th’ house of Lord P—— this ceremony was repeated, but not with any of the pompe and ceremonie that sorteth wel with queenly espousals, yet with a sufficient number of witnesses.

“I therfore, being the first borne sonne of this union should sit upon the throne, ruling the people over whom the Supreame Soveraigne doth shewe my right, as hath beene said, whilst suff’ring others to keepe the royall power.

“A foxe, seen oft at our Court in th’ forme and outward appearance of a man, named Robert Cecill—the hunchback—must answer at th’ Divine Araignment to my charge agains’[Pg 119] him, for he despoyled me ruthlessly. Th’ Queene, my mother, might in course of events which follow’d their revelations regarding my birth and parentage, without doubt having some naturall pride in her offspring, often have shewne us no little attenntion had not the crafty foxe aroused in that tiger-like spiritt th’ jealousy that did so tormente the Queene [that] neyther night nor day brought her respite from such suggestio’s about my hope that I might bee England’s King.

“He told her my endeavours were all for sov’raigntie and honour, a perpetuall intending and constant hourlie practising some one thing urged or imposed, it should seeme, by that absolute, inhere’t, honorably deriv’d necessitie of a conservation of roiail dignity.

“He bade her observe the strength, breadth and compasse, at an early age, of th’ intellectual powers I displaied, and ev’n deprecated th’ gen’rous disposition or graces of speech which wonne me manie friends, implying that my gifts would thus, no doubt, uproot her, because I would, like Absalom, steale awaie th’ people’s harts and usurp the throne whilst my mother was yet alive.”

Bacon appears also as frequently lamenting the tragic death of his (alleged) brother Robert, Earl of Essex, and in King Lear Mrs. Gallup reads from the Bi-literal Cipher a statement that Essex’s life might have been saved if a signet-ring that he desired to have presented to his mother had reached her: “As hee had beene led to bel’eve he had but to send the ring to her and th’ same would at a mome’t’s warni’g bring rescue or reliefe, he relyed vainly, alas! on this promis’d ayde.... It shal bee well depicted in a play, and you wil be instructted to discypher it fully.”

In Ben Jonson’s Masques, Mrs. Gallup says, she finds among other things this statement in Bacon’s Bi-literal Cipher:

In the same work Bacon is represented as saying that Spenser, Greene, Peele and Marlowe have sold him their names. This, it would appear, was not the case with Ben Jonson, of whom he speaks as his friend, and the implication is that Jonson knew what Bacon was doing with regard to the others.

Several times Bacon is made to refer to the murder of Amy Robsart, the Earl of Leicester’s wife, of whom he intimates, as rumor has long done, that the Earl wished to rid himself in order to marry Elizabeth.

The stories of his royal birth, of his love for Marguerite of Navarre, and all the rest of the tale are repeated again and again from the various books in which the Cipher is said to lie. Frequently Bacon appeals to the unknown decipherer whom he trusts some future time to produce, urging him to spare no pains to unearth the hidden things and promising him undying fame for his labor.

Among other things alleged to be contained in Bacon’s Ciphers are translations of Homer and of Virgil, part of which, in resounding blank verse, Mrs. Gallup publishes in her book. And some of her critics aver that it bears evidence of having been based upon Pope’s translation of the Iliad, because it contains names and descriptions that Pope introduced without any warrant from Homer.

It is strongly urged by some of Mrs. Gallup’s critics that if Bacon wished to tell such a story as is here put in his mouth he would never have done it in so cumbrous a fashion, but would simply have written it down and placed it under seal, in trustworthy hands, to be opened and read by posterity. But if, in spite of such objections, the existence of the Cipher should be proved, the question would then arise: “Who did put it there, if Bacon didn’t, and for what end?”

From reading the January number of the Magazine, it would seem that I had at least furnished a new topic for discussion, and given a new impetus to the study of things Baconian, in the discovery that the Bi-literal Cipher of Francis Bacon was incorporated in the printing of his works, and that a secret story of the great Author was hidden in them. This in itself is a distinct gain for the study had seemed to languish for material upon which to feed until the opening of new channels of thought and research and comparison of ideas upon the new discovery. The object of the Society is investigation, First: of Bacon’s authorship of a much wider range of literature than has been accredited to him upon the title pages of the books of his time. Secondly: many have believed that Ciphers would be found that would present new phases of his life history which has seemed so mysterious, if only the right “key” could be touched. The limits of novelty in the discussion of all these things seemed to have been reached, however. Paralellisms in philosophy, language and thought had been urged until variety of phrases had been exhausted in comparing them, yet all arguments, while morally conclusive to the party urging them, were tinged with inconclusiveness in the lack of physical demonstration. The Ciphers found furnish the missing links which explain much, if not all.

Naturally the Ciphers and what they tell invite investigation and the pages of Baconiania would seem a not inappropriate forum for their discussion.

The understandings of different individuals concerning the same subject are almost as varied as the individuals themselves, hence we must expect a variety of opinions. Concourse[Pg 123] of words has such different meanings to different people that we are compelled to believe that the brain is like a plastic matter of varying degrees of hardness, receiving but the faintest impression, or none, of some things, while others are deeply imprinted upon the recording tablets of memory. Then, too, the sources of information are so varied that the results of studying them are like looking through glasses of differing color and focus, and the individual receives and describes the impression from their own particular lense and confidently asserts that to be the only truth, hence investigation, comparison and discussion are needful in the clarifying process.

Investigation, however, does not mean rejection of that which is new or unpleasant or not in accord with our preconceived ideas, else my own labors upon old books would have stopped years ago, and I should not now be engaged in explaining what I have found, and the old beliefs would not have suffered the jar of a “Cipher discovery”.

Fully conscious of the absolute veracity of the work I have done, and my responsibility in the expression, I know that the Bi-literal Cipher exists in the printing of Bacon’s works: I know that others can follow over the same course, if they have the aptitude and patience for it, and can reach no other correct results. To those who have availed themselves of the opportunity carefully to study and follow my work, no argument is needed to convince them of my assertion. Doubts and objections come from those who have not had that opportunity or have given the work but slight attention.

There are those who seem to think the deciphered work as published is a creation of my own,—or that I am self-deceived. They do me too much honor,—or too little. It is an honor to be thought capable of such a production, through the gathering of historical facts, aided by a romantic imagination, and the power to express it all in the pure old English language of Francis Bacon. Did I possess such creative powers I would have devoted them to some more popular theme and spared eyes and brain from the nervous exhaustion of examining seven thousand pages of old English printing for the peculiarities of the Italic letters in them. I cannot aspire to the honor of such a “creation.”

On the other hand, it is not complimentary to my judgment, or that of my publishers, that I, or they, should go through the constant researches of the last seven years in libraries so widely scattered,—self deceived as to the resulting work, expending so much of time and strength and substance in developing something that was non-existent;—or if not that—and the Cipher has no reason for existence—what shall be said of so stupendous and brain-racking effort to deceive my readers with so purposeless a production.

It is urged that the Cipher disclosures do not accord with history. This is a field for the investigators. I can only record what I find as I find it. “The facts of history” is an elastic term and the deductions drawn from public records of the earlier ages vary greatly. The conviction is growing that much of interest was not recorded and it is certain that sources of information are too diverse and greatly scattered to be all brought together into an exact statement of facts. If the Cipher had a purpose, it was to record that which was being suppressed. It would have been a work of supererogation to put into Cipher the open records of the day.

Many inquiries have reached me asking “How is the Cipher worked?” and expressing disappointment that the writer had been unable after some hours of study, to grasp the system or its application.

It would be difficult, and hardly to be expected that an understanding of Greek or Sanscrit could be reached with the aid of a few written lines or with a few hours study. It is equally so with the Cipher. Deciphering the Bi-literal Cipher as it appears in Bacon’s works will be impossible to those who are not possessed of an eyesight of the keenest and perfect accuracy of vision in distinguishing minute differences in form, lines, angles and curves in the printed letters. Other things absolutely essential are unlimited time and patience, and aptitude, love for overcoming puzzling difficulties and, I sometimes think, inspiration. As not every one can be a poet, an artist, an astronomer or adept in other branches requiring special aptitude, so, and for the same reasons, not every one will be able to master the intricacies of the Cipher, for, in many ways it is most intricate and puzzling, not in the[Pg 125] system itself, but in its application, as it is found in the old books. It must not be made too plain, lest it be discovered too quickly, nor hid too deep lest it never see the light of day, is the substance of the thought of the inventor, many times repeated in the work. The system has been recognized since the first publication of De Augmentis, but the ages since have waited to learn of its application to Bacon’s works; and yet the idea seems to be prevalent that “any one” should be able to do the work, once the bi-literal alphabet is known. This is as great a mistake as it would be to reject the translations of the character writings and hieroglyphics of older times which have been deciphered because we could not in a few hours master them ourselves. Ciphers are used to hide things, not to make them clear.

To the March number of the Pall Mall Magazine Mrs. Gallup contributed a preliminary paper on the controversy which has so stirred the literary world. We now place before our readers a second article in which Mrs. Gallup deals specifically with a number of points which have been raised by certain individual writers during the progress of the controversy. This Mrs. Gallup has not been able to do before, because, as we have already stated, the criticisms were not in her possession when her first contribution left America. In sending us her second contribution Mrs. Gallup wishes us to point out that the articles to which she is now replying occupied considerable space in the magazines publishing them, and the answers, to be at all full and correspondingly valuable, require much greater space than was placed at her disposal by the Pall Mall Magazine. In fairness to Mrs. Gallup we think it right to precede her paper with this explanation.

Ed. P. M. M.

I gladly avail myself of the opportunity of replying to some of my critics in the Pall Mall Magazine, as discussions in the daily press sometimes become acrimonious and detrimental to real study and calm judgment, while a presentation of the subject in the pages of a fireside companion can be enjoyed in the hours of leisure and recreation.

In view of the remarkable expressions in the Times and other papers, and in two or three magazines in England, I should perhaps regard myself fortunate that there is now no Inquisition to compel a discoverer to recant, under penalty of the rack; and I can already sympathise with a contemporary of Bacon who, when forced publicly to deny what he knew to be truth, was said to have muttered, as he withdrew, “E pur si muove!”

The torrent of questions, objections, suggestions, inferences, and imaginings that have overwhelmed the press over Bacon’s Bi-literal Cypher, has shown an astonishing interest in[Pg 127] the subject, and I may congratulate myself, at any rate, upon being the innocent cause of what somebody has called a “tremendous propulsion of thought currents.” Much of this energy has been expended along lines in no way relating to me or the validity of my work, but we may suppose there is “no exercise of brain force without its value,” and in the swirl there may be others who will say with me, “the world does move.”

I had expected, if not hoped, that with the aids I had set out, some adept in ciphers—sufficiently curious to enjoy solving Sphinxlike riddles—would have followed, and so proved my work. I have been surprised to find how few have been able to grasp the system of its application, and how much defective vision affects the judgment. I also regret very seriously the superficiality of most of the investigations. I am therefore obliged to go into details, when I had expected eager research by others would have made it a fascinating race to forestall me in deciphering the old books I was unable to obtain.

“A Correspondent,” in the Times, fully discusses and sets out objections, summarising them finally under the following ten heads:

1. “There are discernible distinct differences of form in certain individual Italic letters used by printers of the period.”

This is an important admission of one important fact. Less careful investigators have directly, or by inference, denied that any such discernible differences exist at all. In the Bi-literal Cypher, p. 310, Bacon says: “Where, by a slighte alteration of the common Italicke letters, the alphabets of a bi-literate cypher having the two forms are readily obtain’d,” etc., which states clearly enough that he had few changes to make to secure his double alphabet.

It is admitted also that the full explanation of the bi-literal cipher is given in De Augmentis Scientiarum. Gilbert Wats’s translation says: “Together with this, you must have ready at hand a Bi-formed Alphabet, which may represent all the Letters of the common Alphabet, as well Capitall Letters as the Smaller Characters in double forme, as may fit every man’s occasion.” He also says: “Certainly it is an Art which requires great paines and a good witt, and is consecrate to the Counsels of Princes.”

So we have, in analysing this first objection, made good progress when we have learned—(1) the admitted differences in the types; (2) from Bacon himself of the use of bi-formed alphabets; (3) the clear and full explanation of the cipher itself, which can be applied to these differences; (4) his statement that it is an art which requires great pains and a good wit (and good vision as well); (5) that its importance is so great that it is consecrate to the counsels of princes. This really leaves but one question: did Bacon print this particular cipher into his books? I answer from a study of months and years that he did, and that I have correctly transcribed it.

2. The correspondent says: “These differences were by no means confined to the period when Bacon lived, or to the books in which Mrs. Gallup alleges a secret cypher—in fact, they are to be detected in similar profusion in books published thirty-five years after Bacon’s death—notably in the third folio of Shakespeare, 1661.”

I replied to this in a former communication to the Times, stating that in some old books of the period similar founts of type in two or more forms are used; that I have endeavoured to find the cipher in some of these, but found the forms were used promiscuously, without method, and the differences could not be classified to produce, when separated into “groups of five,” words and sentences in the bi-literal cipher. But this has no direct bearing on the subject. As Bacon’s invention consisted in making use (by slight alteration) of varieties and forms of type then, as now, in common use, he would have nothing to do with the introduction of the forms, their general use, or continuance. He employed a method by which two forms were arranged in a definite way, to serve his purpose in his own publications, while the method would be absolutely beyond discovery without the key. This key he withheld until 1623. We now know that Bacon used this method from 1579 to the end of his career, and that Rawley employed it until 1635 for cipher purposes. How much later it was used I have been unable to learn, that being the latest date of my deciphering.

3. “These differences, in so far as they are well marked, uniform, and coherent, appear to be confined to very few types—in the case of Shakespeare’s plays (first, second, and third folios, 1623, 1632, 1661) to some ten or twelve at most of the capital letters.”

This is incorrect, as I have observed in replying to Objection 1. But starting with twelve capitals, there is half that alphabet. The others can be found by closer observation. Many of the small letters are as well marked in some of the types, not only in the First Folio, but especially in the Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh (1622), and in the first edition of De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623).

4. He states: “Apart from such well-defined differences, there are to be observed in the Italic types of the period innumerable and unclassifiable differences of form, due, it would seem, to many contributory causes, such as defective manufacture, broken face, careless locking of formes (involving bad alignment or improper inclination of individual letters), bad ink, bad paper, and the great age of the impression.”

It is true there are differences that are not the distinctive differences governing their use, but it is very rarely indeed that a letter is found that is not paired with another, which, though like in some respects, is unlike in certain definite features. It involves no more difficulty to find how a number of letters similar, yet with certain distinctive differences, are to be separated into two classes, than to distinguish in the same way a number of letters in entirely different forms. Bacon himself speaks of the multi- or bi-formed type. We have difficulties arising from very natural causes, but there are none that cannot be overcome with time and patient study.

5. “Mrs. Gallup’s manipulation of these minor differences follows no clear and consistent rule or rules; so that types of many differing characteristics are classed by her as belonging to[Pg 130] one fount, while others closely resembling each other are classed by her as belonging to two different founts on different occasions.”

This is erroneous. There is no “manipulation,” and the rules are consistent. In a few instances the same kinds of letters are wrongly marked as a and b because of printers’ errors, which are detected by methods elsewhere more specifically set out, or they may be changed in value by a peculiar mark, as explained on the first page of the deciphered work from Henry Seventh. Printers’ errors are not infrequent in the works. They are found in Bacon’s own illustration in De Augmentis Scientiarum (1624), e.g. In conquiesti, line 5, and in quos, line 10, the letter q is from the “b fount.” It should be an “a-fount” letter, and was so printed in the first or “London edition” (1623). An l in line 12, and another in line 14, is from the wrong fount. There is also an error in grouping in the 1624 edition, which does not occur in the 1623.

As it happened, similar printers’ errors occurred in one of Mr. Mallock’s examples in the Nineteenth Century—the passage from De Augmentis in which he concealed his own couplet: “The star of Shakespeare, etc.”—and that work was done by twentieth-century printers, of Mr. Mallock’s own selection; The passage he quotes, printed in the two forms of types, cannot be deciphered as printed on account of an error in the tenth group, and a few letters used from wrong founts. I have sent Mr. Mallock the correction; but I have been wondering since whether it were not incorporated intentionally, to test my powers of observation, for after the tenth group the rest of the passage is simply impossible to read in bi-literal cipher, until the short group is detected and a new division made. I cannot think Mr. Mallock made these mistakes in marking his MS. Some errors exist in our own work, which have been discovered since publication, and may quite possibly be found by those who study the book.

6. “In the period when the writings under discussion were published, printers made a liberal use of digraphs, such as 'ft,’ 'fh,’ 'ct,’ 'fl,’ etc. (In one page of 24 lines, from which[Pg 131] Mrs. Gallup derives her cipher narrative, there are 26 digraphs.) With regard to the deciphering of these, Mrs. Gallup suggests no rules and obeys no laws.”

Again this is erroneous in the last clause. I quote from a preceding paragraph of this correspondent’s own article, regarding Bacon’s treatment of the digraph, as follows: “In the example which he gave of the enfolding of such a cipher in a portion of one of Cicero’s letters, he printed an æ (diphthong), occuring in the Latin word 'cæteris,’ not as a diphthong at all, but as two separate letters—ae. Similarly, he caused the ordinary digraph 'ct,’ invariably printed in one type in those days, to be printed as two separate letters—ct, showing, I think conclusively, that in his cipher, as applied to printing, digraphs must be—treated separately.” Our “Correspondent” says “digraphs must be kept out of the print,” but it is a wrong inference. These diphthongs and digraphs must be compared with one another, not with single letters, but the parts are to be considered separately. They will each be found to have distinctive features, and a decipherer who has become at all expert will at once determine their proper classification.

7. “In certain specific instances, Mrs. Gallup’s deciphering is arithmetically incorrect, or must be helped out with the help of an arbitrary employment of Roman types—on occasion even this device will not avail to produce the requisite number of letters for her alleged cipher message.”

For the specific instances where Roman type is used, Bacon’s instructions are found on pp. 66-67 of the Bi-literal Cypher, which “Correspondent” has evidently overlooked. I have used this passage on another occasion, but will quote again, as others have stumbled over the same difficulty:

“In order to conceale my Cypher more perfectly, I am preparing for th’ purpose a sette of alphabets in th’ Latine tipe, not for use in th’ greatest or lengthy story or epistle, but as another disguise, for, in ensample, a prologue, præfatio, the epilogues, and headlines attracted too much notice. Noe othe’ waie of diverting th’ curious could be used where th’ exterior[Pg 132] epistle is but briefe, however it will not thus turne aside my decipherer, for his eye is too well practis’d in artes that easily misleade others who enquire th’ waye.”

I found Roman type used in such places, and the differences in the letters are quite distinct, but no use was made of this new device, so far as I have found, until 1623, when it appeared in the First Folio, and in Vitae et Mortis.

An incident, for the moment mortifying, occurred in Boston, by which I discovered an error of our printers in the first edition issued. Those having copies of the first edition will notice the word “Baron” is left out of the signature, which reads in the later edition Francis, Baron of Verulam (p. 166), deciphered from the short poem signed “I. M.” in the Shakespeare Folio. When I visited Boston to continue my researches, friends previously interested in my work mentioned the difficulty they had in trying to decipher, as I did, this portion. I remarked the Roman letters must be used; to which they replied the number of Italic letters corresponded with the number of groups required, but the groups would not “read.” Upon deciphering it again, in the presence of these people, I found the word Baron had been dropped out in the printing, and the error was corrected in the second edition.

The answers already given meet the summarised objection of the correspondent’s eighth and ninth paragraphs.

10. “The nature of the Cipher is such, being in fact entirely dependent upon the presence and position of a certain number of b's, that, given a framework of such determining, factors (which might easily be supplied by the acknowledged differences in a few letters), a misdirected ingenuity could with patience supply all that a preconceived notion could possibly demand.”

The cipher alphabet Bacon illustrates in De Augmentis Scientiarum contains 68 a's and 52 b's. The proportion in general use was found to be about 5 to 3. Perhaps I cannot do better to clear myself from the aspersions here intimated than to explain the methods of the workroom by which the larger part of the deciphering was actually done. A type-writing[Pg 133] machine was changed in its mechanism to space automatically after each group of five letters. The operator alone copied every Italic letter, and the sheets came to me with the letters already grouped. The different forms of letters in the book to be deciphered were then made a study, the peculiarities of each fount classified and sketched in an enlarged and accentuated form upon a small chart, and the 'b fount’ (being the fewer) was thoroughly learned. The chart was always before me for use upon doubtful letters. I marked upon the sheet on which the letters had been grouped only those that I found to be of the 'b fount.’ An assistant marked the a's and transcribed the result, when I knew for the first time the reading of the deciphered product. It was thus impossible for me to “preconceive” it, and no amount of “ingenuity, misdirected” or otherwise, could have developed the hundreds of pages of MS. of these consecutive letters into anything except what the cipher letters would spell out.

Excepting, of course, occasional corrections of the errors of the operator in copying, or myself in determining the proper fount, the work stands exactly as it left the assistant’s hands. The original sheets are unchanged and in my possession. Errors occurred in the work as it progressed, but they were so guarded against by the system itself that the deciphering was quickly brought to a stop until they were corrected. Coming from the assistant, the words were without capitals, or punctuation, as would be the case by any method of deciphering a cipher. The work of capitalization and punctuation, in the book, is my own, and in this alone was choice permitted me.

The difficulty with “A Correspondent,” as with many observers, is that he jumps at once to conclusions from very superficial and limited examination, as well as unfamiliarity with the principles which underlie the work; and while his keenness of observation is greater than some evince, he has not, by any means, given the matter sufficient study to become an expert, or to warrant him in expressing a critical judgment. He would not expect to learn Greek in a day, nor to decipher hieroglyphics on an obelisk upon a first attempt. There are in the Plays five pairs of alphabets of twenty-four letters each (capital and[Pg 134] small) in the different styles and sizes of Italic type. In other words, four hundred and eighty different letters have to be compared with their fellows to determine the classification. It is not, then, the work of a day or a week to enable one to pass an opinion upon the Folio as a whole, and yet that is what he attempts to do.

The Times reproduces a page of facsimiles and an illustration taken from Spenser’s Complaints, and has also arranged in enlarged form some small letters. In fairness the captials should have appeared as well. In the processes necessary for reproduction, upon newspaper of coarse fibre and uneven surface with the speed of a modern press, many distinctive features of the letters have been lost or distorted to the skilled eye, and the unskilled should not be asked to form a judgment of the integrity of a difficult cipher from such utterly untrustworthy reproductions.

As explained in the Introduction to the second edition of my book, the facsimiles were not satisfactory. The difficulties arising from age, unequal absorption of ink, poor paper, and poor printing in the old books, cause some features to be exaggerated, while others disappear; and on account of unavoidable inaccuracies, they were omitted from the third edition.

It is strange how an inadvertent word or phrase, in the hands of those who choose to pervert, will return to plague one. In an article in Baconiana, I enumerated the requirements for the work of deciphering as “eyesight of the keenest and perfect accuracy of vision in distinguishing minute differences in form, lines, angles, and curves of the printed letters ... unlimited time and patience, persistency and aptitude, love for overcoming puzzling difficulties, and I sometimes think inspiration.” Any one who has worked long in an absorbing and difficult field, will know that the word in this connection meant only the light that breaks upon one’s mind, in the solution of some difficulty as the result of earnest effort; and for a critic to make from this a charge that I allege the cipher work to be one of inspiration on my part is such a misuse of terms as to be wholly[Pg 135] unjustifiable. I think I have the right to complain when the word so used is made the basis of sneering attack through the public press. The word was used by me in no other connection, and as my critics must know, in no other than this very harmless and allowable sense. This is particularly in reply to a lengthy editorial in the Times, which assumed that I made claims to “inspiration.”

Those who have read my book carefully will recall some of the difficulties recounted on page 11 of the Introduction, relating to a subject that has puzzled many students—i.e., the wrong paging of the Folio and some of the other old books. It is told in few words in the book, but they are totally inadequate to describe the strain upon eyes and nerves in those days of alternating struggle and elation as one by one the difficulties were overcome. I think my readers will pardon a careless, perhaps irrevelant use of the term, “I sometimes think inspiration”—may have prompted me to make one more trial.

I am also desired to refer to the writings of Mr. Lang, who, on several occasions, has made the Bi-literal Cypher the theme of much ironical pleasantry, more especially in the Monthly Review. Mr. Lang is one of those happy individuals possessed of a large vocabulary and of a vivid imagination that like Tennyson’s babbling brook “goes on for ever,” but he prefers the interrogation to the period—questions more than he asserts.

In the Monthly Review he cites again, from his Morning Post article (August 1901), some of the reasons for considering Bacon a lunatic. He has, however, omitted one query then made regarding “the new Atlantis men sought beyond the western sea:” “Was Bacon ignorant of the fact that America was discovered?” The question was not repeated after I called attention to the fact that in New Atlantis Bacon said, “Wee sailed from Peru.”

The Alpha and Omega of his article—since it appears on the first page and the last—is Mr. Sidney Lee’s declaration that the cipher cannot exist in the books in which I know it does exist. I pointed out in a recent communication to the[Pg 136] Times that Mr. Lee had not even understood the elementary principles of the cipher. This is betrayed in his statement: “Italic and Roman types were never intermingled in the manner which would be essential if the words embodied Bacon’s biliteral cipher”—for that is not the manner of its incorporation. Mr. Lang goes no farther than this very arbitrary decision in his examination of the cipher itself.

He says: “The consistency of Mrs. Gallup next amazes us. Greene, Peele, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, resemble each other in style (or so she says), because 'one hand wrote them all’ (i., p. 3). But Bacon (deciphered) avers, 'I varied my style to suit different men, since no two show the same taste and like imagination.’ (i., p. 34).... Bacon 'let his own [style] be seen.’” Mr. Lang should have quoted an additional line—“yet should [let] my owne bee seene, as a third o’ warpe in my entire fabricke,” and it would explain why there are both resemblances and differences in the style of those dramatic works, which have been commented upon by numberless writers as giving evidence of collaboration or of plagiarism.

Mr. Lang thinks the idea of the wifehood and motherhood of Elizabeth originated in Mr. Lee’s articles in the Dictionary of National Biography cited as corroborating the cipher. The facts set forth in Mr. Lee’s work are very good circumstantial evidence. Assuredly the statments in the word-cipher and in the bi-literal should accord, for in Bacon’s design the principal use of the one was to teach, and assist in deciphering, the others Mr. Lang quotes: “He learned from the interview and subsequent occurrences,” and exclaims, “how Elizabethan is the style!”

My critics would find it interesting and profitable to learn how many expressions, thought to be modern, are to be seen in the original works. They would be surprised—agreeably or otherwise—at the long list.

The next point is this: “His name, 'Fr. Bacon,’ is his only 'by adoption,’” and in a footnote Mr. Lang quotes: “'My name is Tidder, yet men speak of me as Bacon.’” In Bacon’s Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh (p. 151), we find the name of the first reigning Tudor spelled Tidder. The assertion “We be Tudor” merely shows that he belonged to the Royal house. It was certainly not from Robert Dudley that he claimed a title to the throne. I myself asked, “Why Francis I.?” when this passage was deciphered; and the answer is perhaps in this—as Elizabeth was “Queene of England, Fraunce, and Ireland, and of Virginia,” her son as king would be Francis III. of France and Francis I. of England, as James VI. of Scotland became James I. of England. The right to the French title is questionable, of course; but when the play of Edward the Third has been deciphered we shall know how Bacon regarded it.

In the expression, “our law giveth to the first-borne of the royall house the title of the Prince of Wales,” Bacon did not intend to say “the statute giveth.” Had he used custom no one would have cavilled, but custom is defined in law as “long-established practice, or usage, considered as unwritten law, and resting for authority on long consent,” and, even at that time, it had long been customary to invest the eldest son of the sovreign with this title. In the Historie of Henry the Seventh (p. 207), speaking of the time when “Henry, Duke of Yorke, was created Prince of Wales, and Earle of Chester and Flint,” he added, “For the Dukedom of Cornewall devolved to him by statute.” We see per contra that in this place he did not mean by custom.

As evidence of the superficiality of Mr. Lang’s knowledge of the book he attempts to criticise, I quote: “In 1596, in his 'Faerie Queene,’ Bacon grew wilder, in saying 'We were in good[Pg 138] hope that when our divers small poemes might bee seene in printed forme, th’ approval o’ Lord Leicester might be gain’d!’ The earliest of the small Bacon-Spenser works used here, by Mrs. Gallup, is of 1591. Leicester died in 1588. Only a raving maniac like Mrs. Gallup’s Bacon could hope to please Leicester, who died in 1588, by 'small poemes’ printed in 1591, if he means that.”

Has Mr. Lang read so carelessly that he thinks “he means that”? Does he really not preceive that Bacon was speaking of the small poems appearing between 1579 and 1588—Shepheards’ Calender in several editions, Virgil’s Gnat nearly ready for the printer and suggestively dedicated to the Earl of Leicester? If a careless reading, it discredits his criticism; if a wilful perversion, it is unworthy and without justification.

This is much like his remarkable statement in Longman’s Magazine regarding the Argument of the Iliad: “The right course with Mrs. Gallup is to ask her to explain why or how Bacon stole from Pope’s Homer ... and how he could be (as he certainly was) ignorant of facts of his own time.... These circumstances make it certain that, though the cipher may be a very nice cipher, Mrs. Gallup must have interpreted it all wrong. She will see that, she would have seen it long ago, if she had read Pope’s Homer and had known anything about Elizabethan history.”

We all know what this impossible charge—that “Bacon stole from Pope’s Homer,” and also the insinuation regarding Melville—covertly asserts. I have fully set out in another article the answer to this baseless accusation of Mr. Marston; but I will here repeat that any statement that I copied from Pope, or from any other source whatever, in obtaining the matter put forth as deciphered from Bacon’s works, is false in every particular.

Mr. Lang, and others, have asserted that Bacon refers to the first Lord Burghley as Robert. This is incorrect. Bacon says Robert Cecil when he means Robert Cecil, and at no other time. Robert is not only named, but described unmistakably. Mr. Lang says, “Robert Cecil was born in 1563, or thereabout, was younger than Bacon,” consequently could not have incited[Pg 139] the Queen against him, etc., and devotes a page to mis-statements and sarcasms. Here again is he ignorant, or indulges in wilful perversion. The encyclopædias say, “Robert Cecil was born in 1550.” He was therefore eleven years older than Bacon, and twenty-seven years of age when the incident referred to occurred. We learn also from the same source: “Of his cousin, Francis Bacon, he appears to have been jealous.” The “blunder” is Mr. Lang’s, not Bacon’s, and it is not an evidence that “either an ignorant American wrote all this, or Bacon was an idiot.”

In speaking of Elizabeth’s marriage, Mr. Lang says, “The second was 'after her ascent to royal power’ (1558). Any one but Bacon would have said, 'after the death of Dudley’s first wife,’ because only after that death could the marriage be legal.”

What Bacon really said is this: “Afte’ her ascent to royale power, before my birth, a second nuptiall rite duly witness’d was observed, soe that I was borne in holy wedlocke” (p. 154). Mr. Lang’s opinion of what any other man might have said is quite immaterial.

A question of Bacon’s legitimacy would, without a doubt, have been raised; and as Leicester favoured his second son, Essex, this may account for the express wish to have the story openly told. Such questions were debated concerning more than one royal title in those days, but Bacon believed his birth in holy wedlock was sufficient legitimation. The mere fact that both Mary and Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, although one or the other was not strictly legitimate, would confirm this opinion, and the history of the founding of the line of Tudor involved the same question.

I regret that lack of space prevents a reference to some of Mr. Lang’s other remarks, which are equally subject to criticism and correction. Brander Matthews, in Pen and Ink, formulates “Twelve Rules for Reviewers,” that will, I am very sure, commend themselves to those who desire to make criticism of value. Had Mr. Lang followed any of these rules he would have written in a different manner and more to his own credit.

I can only say that with regard to Mr. Schooling as with thousands of others, defective vision or superficial examination[Pg 140] is responsible for his criticism, for it culminates in the assertion, merely, that different founts of Italic type are not used in the books referred to, and that the work “can be regarded only as a phantasy of my imagining, wholly unworthy of credence.” I again assert, with that degree of positiveness which comes from a study of years, that the Italic types are from different founts and are used in the manner I have set forth. There is no room whatever for imagination in the work.

Mr. Schooling enters into particulars, and reports upon o's, n's, and p's in a few lines of small letters, and says “they are from the same fount, and the cipher, therefore, non-existent.” In this he is absolutely wrong. He makes no mention of the marked differences in the capitals, and, too, he should have studied the originals on many pages, as I have done, for in the photographic facsimiles of the book some of the distinctive features are lost. It is difficult to describe in words the particular lines in a drawing, and equally so those in several forms of type, but I will attempt to make the differences clear.

Extending these examples of Mr. Schooling, take for illustration the Italics in the first lines of the selection from Spenser. The type is large and clear, and there are several letters so close together that comparisons can easily be made.

There are two captial L's. The serif of the first is curved, of the second straight. At the bottom, the horizontal of the first gradually thickens, and the small line at the end is nearly vertical, while the horizontal of the second is of even thickness and the small line slanting.

There are three small a's. The oval of the first is narrow and pointed at the top, those of the other two are broad at the top. The small line at the bottom of the first is long and strong, of the other two short and weak.

There are three small e's. The ovals of the first two are broad, the letters themselves narrow; the oval of the last is longer and more pointed, but the letter itself is wide.

The two small i's do not stand at the same degree of inclination, and the dot of the first is slightly to the left.

The capital M is a striking form, and the plain M of that size of type must be familiar to Mr. Schooling and others.

Taking the next Italic line, the small n's are from different founts. The inclination of the second is greater than that of the first. The stem of the first n (in Honourable) is straight, that of the second (in and) is slightly curved. The small line at the bottom of the first stands well under the downward stroke, that of the second freely leaves the downward stroke.

In the next line, the difference in the small l's is very marked, and one is much longer than the other.

In the line below, an e from the “b fount” and one from the “a fount” stand together in the word bee. These can easily be discriminated, but the characteristics of the e in this size of type are the reverse of the same in the large size above.

The o in long is a wider oval than the o from the “a fount” in bountifull. It has already been pointed out why the n's in both words are “a-fount” letters, although the one in long is not a perfect letter—the lower part of the last stroke being blotted—but, as I have said on other occasions, where broken or blotted letters or errors of the printer occur in the original, the context will unmistakably indicate what they are.

In the Praefatio of Novum Organum, the first letter considered is the small o, and of this two examples given by Mr. Schooling are in the second line—in explorata and pronuntiare, The longest diameter produced until it intersects the line of writing does not make so large an angle in the first as in the second. The oval is much narrower in the first. The description of these two will suffice for all others not changed by a mark, unless a printer’s error occurs.

The two p's in propria are most easily compared, as the first is from the “a fount” and the second is from the “b fount.” The stem of the first is not quite so long as that of the second; and, in the first, the oval is somewhat angular on the right side at the top, in the second this angularity is seen at the bottom. The same rule applies to other cases. Of the half-dozen cited by Mr. Schooling, I have merely chosen two that stand close together. He would find as great difficulty in the differentiation[Pg 142] of the o's and c's of any two founts of modern Italic type, as in these he points out, for the differences are often as minute.

Mr. Schooling says, “Mrs. Gallup does not tell us how Lord Bacon managed to get his work set up by the compositor.”

Any printer will tell him, if he will inquire, that it is not more difficult to take certain letters that have been marked on the MS. from one case of Italic type, and certain other letters, not marked, from another case of Italic, than to take Roman from one case and Italic from another in ordinary composition. The system has the advantage that the printer, in following copy, could not know the cipher without the key, which in Bacon’s case was withheld until 1623—forty-four years after the cipher was invented and first used.

Perhaps I should thank Mr. Schooling for the implied compliment to my abilities in the realm of creation; for if not a deciphering, what is the alternative? I must first have conceived the plot of the entire fabric of 380 pages, its historical points, statements of facts not recorded in history—which in some particulars conflict with, in others supplement, the records. I must have imagined the moanings of remorse over the tragedy of Essex; the discovery of the motherhood of Elizabeth; guessed at the broadened field of Bacon’s literary powers to take in all the works which are disclosed as coming from his hand; the directions for writing out the word-cipher; the argument of the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn; the epitome of the Iliad and of the Odyssey; the explanatory letters of Dr. Rawley and Ben Jonson that are found in the cipher; the flights of fancy which occasionally appear in the deciphered work, and all the rest. This must all have been written out in the old English spelling and in the language of Bacon’s time; this previously written plot and story in the main narration must have been fitted to the exact number of Italic letters, and so arranged that the forms of the capital letters and those whose differences are easily perceived, must in every case fit into place as an a or a b, so that those letters, at least, should consistently follow Bacon’s biliteral cipher. The simple enumeration,[Pg 143] with all that these things imply, carries the refutation of the possibility of such a manner of production, to say nothing of the absurdity of attempting it. Had it been undertaken, it would have been along lines that were better known, and statments of facts would have been in accord with the records. Historical romance would never so far have transcended the beliefs of the world, nor subverted all previous ideas concerning authorship of literature which will be immortal. The only reason for the book’s existence is that it is the transcription of a cipher placed in the works for the purposes disclosed by its decipherment.

Sir,—Your issues of December 19, 20, and 21 have been forwarded to me by Messrs. Gay and Bird, and, while regretting that distance will cause much time to elapse between the issues and the time this can reach London, I yet desire space to reply to the communications of Mr. Marston and Mr. Lee concerning myself, and the book recently given to the public, “The Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon.” I trust I may not be refused because of lapse of time, or for any other reason.

I hope the gentlemen do not mean to be rude or do me an injustice, and I do not think they can persist in the characterization which their words imply.

The assertion that Mr. Mallock has become “addlepated,” because of thinking there may be something in the cipher, must be something of a shock to his friends.

Mr. Marston did me the honour of two favourable notices, in succeeding issues of the Publishers’ Circular. I was about to thank him for numbers sent to me when I learned that he had prepared and published an elaborate article attempting to discredit the entire work, because of doubts arising in his mind upon a single point. He does not base his disbelief upon any investigation he has made of the cipher itself, but because a fragment which forms a part of Bacon’s “Argument” or epitome (but not the full translation) of the Iliad, in that portion which catalogues the ships and the troops they transported, is similar—“nearly like”—Pope’s translation of the same passages, ergo, it must be that I paraphrased Pope, and hence that the whole cipher fabric is tumbled into dust. Because of this similarity he takes Mr. Mallock to task for considering my work seriously, and declares that, as I have, as he thinks, copied Pope in this, the results of my four years’ research in America[Pg 145] and in England, set down on 385 printed pages, must be pure invention, and Mr. Mallock a poor deluded mortal to have gone into the cipher at all. The statement of the case exhibits the value of the conclusion.

It does not appear just how much variation Mr. Marston would have between the translations of the identical Greek text, describing definite things, to prove which was the correct one, and which the copy. It will also be noted that this is not one of the portions of Homer’s wondrous story where imagination may run riot, and imagery and poetic license add lustre to the original.

The claim of identities set me to wondering whom else I might have paraphrased, or if it was not possible that Pope had copied from some one other than Bacon. An examination of six different English translations and one Latin shows me such substantial accord, that either of them could be called with equal justice a paraphrase of Pope, or that Pope had copied from the others.

In phrasing no two translations of the Iliad entirely agree, but are we to conclude that, because the translations of the same text are in substantial agreement (though not exact), that one of the two most nearly alike must be a paraphrase? The trifling additions showing some exterior knowledge of persons and places may be found in Bacon’s other works.

It will be observed by readers of the “Bi-literal Cypher” that the fragment of the Fourth Book of the Iliad which is injected by Bacon into the “Argument” is for illustration merely, and is clearly stated to be only “a supreme effort of memory” of the fuller translation which he had previously embedded as a part of the mosaic in his works, to be extracted and reconstructed through the methods of another cipher.

Surely there can be no more distressing condition than when critics refuse to know all the facts, and are guilty of drawing conclusions without them. Bacon, who knew human nature, has described this class of minds most precisely in his aphorisms, and it would almost seem he had this controversy[Pg 146] in view, or at least a permonition of it, when he says, in Number XXXIII:—

Mr. Lee, too, bases his disbelief on most inconclusive grounds. The witty author of “Democritus to the Reader” said that any one who sought what he did not want, or that would do him harm when found, wanted wisdom. To be exact, it was expressed less euphemistically, “He is a fool that seeks what he does not want.”

Mr. Lee insists that, because he has collated 25 copies of the plays, during which time he was not looking for a cipher, none exists. As well say that the stars of late discovery which are as yet unknown to any but the most skilled eye of the astronomer do not exist because Mr. Lee, with his unskilled eye, has not discovered them while looking for something else.

Mr. Sinnett, in the same issue of The Times, states the case fairly in the remark that there are two schools of thinkers on the subject—those who have studied the matter, and those who have not—and he illustrates the feelings of a surprisingly large class by the repetition of the remark of a friend, who, when asked if he had seriously considered certain points (of the Baconians), replied: “I would rather hang myself than consider anything so atrocious.” I have no doubt Mr. Lee would sympathize with, if not echo, this sentiment.

I wish politely, and with all due deference, to assert, with a positiveness as emphatic as that of Mr. Lee, that the cipher does exist in the typography of the Plays, and in the “Anatomy of Melancholy” and in the other works which I have deciphered. The difference between us is that I found what I was looking for (and much besides), while Mr. Lee did not find what he was not looking for.

If Mr. Lee has a vision sufficiently accurate to discriminate in form, and will spend as much time as I have spent upon the typography of the old books, he will find the letters can be classified, and starting from the proper points and placing in “groups of five” the Bi-literal Cipher will read as I have written, and will not read anything else.

P. S. Jan. 11.—Copies of your issue of December 26 and 27 have just reached me.

The articles on the “Bacon Bi-literal Cypher” show that The Times is not averse to whatever aids in elucidation of this new phase of the Bacon-Shakespeare question.

I am glad to note that “A Correspondent” has taken some of the preliminary steps to an actual examination of the cipher and apparently has the perception required to reach conclusions that Mr. Mallock and Mr. Sinnett have also reached as to distinctive variations in the forms of letters used in the old books. This denotes real progress in the investigation, and I think the gentleman, with patience, would easily become a decipherer. The peculiarities of the type are clear to the skilled artist or engraver, but they are not so quickly apparent to those less fitted for the closest observation.

Some of the difficulties encountered by the novice are explained by Mr. Sinnett in the issue of the 27th. I shall be greatly pleased to clear up some of this correspondent’s difficulties,[Pg 148] in another communication, but will only note in this two paragraphs. One difficulty he mentions is that in certain passages he does not find sufficient Italic letters to make up the extracted sentences. He had overlooked the application of the passage in the book, on pp. 66-67:—

“In order to conceale my Cypher more perfectly I am preparing for th’ purpose a sette of alphabets in th’ Latine tipe not for use in th’ greatest or lengthy story or epistle, but as another disguise, for, in ensample, a prologue, praefatio, the epilogues, and head lines attracted too much notice. I, therefore, have given much trouble to mine ayders by making two kinds or formes of these letters. These be not designed for other use than hath but now beene explain’d, nor must you looke to see them employ’d if a reason for th’ change appeare, but there will be warning given you for your instruction or guidance. Noe othe’ waie of diverting th’ curious could be used where th’ exteriour epistle is but briefe, however it will not thus turn aside my decipherer, for his eye is too well practs’d in artes that easily misleade others who enquire of th’ waie.”

There are a very few dedications, commendatory poems, headings, etc., in which Roman letters were used by Bacon. These are in his later printings.

Another thing this correspondent makes note of is that many of the old books of the Elizabethan period have the same differences. I have examined many of these, beside those belonging to Bacon in which differences occur. In some of them I was led to think the cipher might be found, but on examination it was seen that the different forms were used promiscuously, without method, and could not be grouped in fives to read in the bi-literal.

Replying to Mr. Lee’s communication in the issue of the 27th, I quote this extraordinary extract:

His idea of the intermingling of the Roman and Italic type as an essential is entirely wrong. If he had read my book understandingly, he would have known the different founts used by Bacon were in the differing forms of Italic type, not the Roman, except in the very few instances noted above. The cipher letters are not produced by intermingling Roman[Pg 149] and Italic type in the Plays. He will find on every page of the Plays more than one fount or form of these Italic letters, and that not proper names only, but much besides was printed in them. See especially pp. 42-43, Merry Wives of Windsor.

Quoting again from Mr. Lee:—“To assert that a bi-literal cipher can or does appear in a text printed as the First Folio is printed is a bold denial of plain facts.” I wish to repeat, with equal earnestness and entire certainty, that to assert that the cipher cannot and does not exist in the text is a denial of a fact which I have demonstrated.

He mistakenly says, “The proper names figuring in the text of the plays alone appear in a different type.” To these must be added the abbreviated names of the speakers, the running titles, etc., and all other words in Italic type, which together make up when deciphered over 50 pages of my book that are extracted from the folio.

Mr. Mallock “addlepated!” and “half-educated!” Lord Palmerston “feeble-witted”—“with a tendency to monomania!” Is this temperate discussion of a new discovery? Is true criticism of this subject and its believers reduced to vituperation, and this the end of the argument?

The public will refuse to accept Mr. Lee’s dictum as having any weight at all over against the examination made, and being made, by Mr. Mallock, Mr. Sinnett, and many others. I must assume them to be the peers of Mr. Lee in intelligence and discrimination, for he is most surely wrong and refuses knowledge, while they are willing to study the subject with patience and candour.

Sir:—There is a sense of relief after the worst has been said, in the assurance that nothing more dreadful can be expected. Since the “critic” of the Literary World has consigned me to that Avernus whose horrors all good people hope to escape, I should be beyond attack, as none would willingly follow me into the infernal regions.

After reading the article entitled Galluping in Avernum, my eyes fell upon a clipping in which George Brandes is named as the “famous Danish critic, and the greatest of living Shakespearean commentators.” It says: “He dismisses the whole 'Baconian Craze’ with the remark that it is on the one hand a piece of weak and inartistic feminine criticism, and on the other an Americanism and therefore lacking in spiritual delicacy.”

The criticism in the Literary World of Bacon’s Bi-literal Cypher and of the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn is not, I think, feminine nor American, but somehow the quality of spiritual delicacy seems lacking, and it can hardly be called artistic.

It is only recently that I have noticed—this rule has not reached America—that some writers apparently think it is good form to pun, or play, upon another’s surname. If the name is not pleasing to the ear, the mortal who bears it has perhaps a lifelong affliction, yet it is certainly a misfortune rather than a fault. Nor did I suppose, until I saw the articles of a large number of reviewers, that any—except writers more intent on filling space than careful of the value of the matter—rushed into print before the subject discussed, or book reviewed was half read. And yet it is this critic’s own confession, regarding the Bi-literal Cypher, that he has read but “half the book, and a few scattered sentences of the rest.” From this admittedly superficial reading he concludes a “Phantom personating[Pg 151] Bacon claims to have written all the plays” etc.—the literature throughout which the ciphers have with infinite pains been traced, and the principles upon which they are based, the keys and directions for their decipherment, ascertained and set out in the work he attempts to criticise.

After quoting the statement that Elizabeth and Dudley were honorably married, and that Bacon and Essex were the issue of this union, our critic asks, “when were Elizabeth and Leicester again married?” This is answered in the Bi-literal Cypher (p. 154).

A little farther on critic says: “If there had been a marriage, which there wasn’t, sometime in the four months between Lady Dudley’s (Amy Robsart’s) death and (the supposed) Bacon’s birth, it would have legitimated Bacon; but then he would not have been a Tudor but a Dudley.”

Bacon evidently considered himself legitimated by “this second nuptial rite,” and when he wrote, probably knew quite as much of the law, and of the time the marriage took place, as our critic. It was not descent from Dudley that made him prince. Long-established custom was the law that gave “to the first borne of the sovereign the title of Prince of Wales.”

Our critic makes a point of the use and spelling of Brittain and of the expression 'in the throne,’ quoting: “Ended now is my great desire to sit in the British throne.”

In the Advancement of Learning (1605) he may read: “Queene Elizabeth, your immediate Predecessor in this part of Brittaine” (B. 1, p. 36); while in Shakespeare he will find:

Our critic has not read his Shakespeare well, if he thinks the term unusual in Bacon’s time.

He also objects to the phrase, “Every land in which the English language hath a place.” Bacon wrote his cipher history to be read, when deciphered, in all parts of the world. The reference to our colonies, etc., was a prophecy more than half realized even then, and he claimed for Elizabeth command of the sea which he called a “universal monarchy.”

Critic again quotes: “We spent our greatest labours in making cyphares’ (a noble occupation!)” Certainly, and a natural one when seeking means of communicating important matters. Some one has suggested that instead of committing his secret history to ciphers, he should have written it out and confided the papers to the keeping of trusted literary executors. But that would have been the action of mature years, or of one who believed he was about to leave this life. Bacon then was an eager youth, hardly yet upon the threshold of manhood, and he believed his claims would ultimately be acknowledged. As to the nobleness of the occupation, Bacon says of it: “These Arts (cyphers) being here placed with the principal and supreame Sciences, seeme petty thinges: yet to such as have chosen them to spende their labours studies in them, they seem great Matters”—Adv. of Learn. B. 2, p. 61. (1605).

Our critic states: “To the real Bacon Elizabeth’s movements in January 1560-1 would have been known.”

To an infant of days? That is very good. These things became known to him in the way he states.

Again, “Robert Cecil, at the period referred to, was about fourteen years of age.” Critic must have copied this from Mr. Andrew Lang who makes the same mistake. The encyclopaedias give the date of Robert Cecil’s birth as 1550. He was therefore eleven years older than Bacon and about twenty-seven years of age when, Bacon says, he caused the tempestuous scene that resulted in the disclosure to Francis that he was the son of the Queen.

Could Bacon record in the types of a play then appearing for the first time, that it had “breasted the wave gallantly?” Whatever the play or whenever it was “new,” it could not be the 1611 edition of Hamlet.

The critic further says: “For Bacon’s style we know—compact, well-built, grammatical, lucid; no feeble tautology, dilutions, or repetitions; harmonious, and satisfying to the ear; pregnant with meaning, and grateful to the intellect. But what about the Phantoms? Here we find clumsy and sprawling sentences of half a page, or nearly, with shambling subordinate clauses 'spatch-cocked’ in between brackets or dashes” etc.

“Antonius Pius, who succeeded him, was a Prince excellently learned; and had the Patient and subtile witte of a Schoole man: insomuch as in common speech, (which leaves no vertue untaxed) hee was called Cymini Sector, a carver, or a divider of Comine seede, which is one of the least seedes: such a patience hee had and setled spirite, to enter into the least and most exact differences of causes; a fruit no doubt of the exceeding tranquillitie, and serenitie of his minde: which being no wayes charged or incombred, either with feares, remorses, or scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodnesse without all fiction or affectation, that raigned or lived: made his minde continually present and entier: he likewise approached a degree neerer unto Christianitie, and became as Agrippa sayd unto S. Paule, Halfe a Christian; holding their Religion and Law in good opinion: and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of Christians.” (B. 1, p. 35).

“Compact, well-built, lucid,” “satisfying to the ear,” “not clumsy, sprawling sentences of half a page”—and yet here is nearly a page before Bacon completed his period, and what about unity of subject?

“In which kind I cannot but mencion Honoris causa your Maiesties exellent book touching the duty of a king: a woorke ritchlye compounded of Divinity Morality and Policy, with great aspersion of all other artes: & being in myne opinion one of the moste sound & healthful writings that I have read: not distempered in the heat of invention nor in the Couldnes of negligence: not sick of Dusinesse as those are who leese themselves in their order; nor of Convulsions as those which Crampe in matters impertinent; not savoring of perfumes & paintings as those doe who seek to please the Reader more than Nature[Pg 154] beareth, and chiefelye wel disposed in the spirits thereof, beeing agreeable to truth, and apt for action: and farre remooved from that Natural infirmity, whereunto I noted those, that write in their own professions to be subject, which is, that they exalt it above measure.” (B. 1, 2d p. 69).

“This kinde of degenerate learning did chiefely raigne amongst the Schoole-men, who having sharpe and stronge wits, and aboundance of leasure, and smal varietie of reading; but their with being shut up in the Cels of a few Authors (chiefely Aristotle their Dictator) as their persons were shut up in the Cells of Monasteries and Colledges, and knowing little Historie, either of Nature or time, did out of no great quantitie of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webbes of Learning which are extant in their Bookes,” (B. 1, 2d p. 18).

In eleven lines we are told that 'this kind of learning did reign among schoolmen who did spin out to us those webs of learning extant in their books.’

Many such examples could be quoted, but these will suffice to show that this critic has not read Bacon well even in modern editions, and not at all in the old English of the original editions. So slightly familiar is he with the great author, that he has failed to discriminate betwen the compact, forceful style of the Essays and Apothegms and the “clumsy, sprawling sentences,” of his scientific works—a variation in the manner of writing so marked that one might think these were not from the same pen.

Mr. Candler has kindly replied to the objection to the sentence, “Such things doth burn,” but I will add other instances: “Which Religion and the holy faith doth conduct men unto” (A. of L. B. 2, 4th p. 69); “which the example and countenance of twoo so learned Princes ... hath wrought” (A. of L. B. 1, p. 11); “like Ants which is a wise creature for itself” (B. 2, st p. 93).

Our critic next quotes: “'Whilst writing these interior works these keies and joining words did deter [it means retard] th’ advancement’ (pretty, to see keys and words writing).”

On page 26 of the Advancement of Learning Bacon says: “For I am not ignorant howe much that diverteth and interrupteth[Pg 155] the prosecution, and advancement of knowledge”; and on page 27, “which hath not onely given impediment to the proficience of Learning.”

Preceding examples have shown want of unity in the subject, but I will give an additional illustration to follow “whilst writing these interior works” etc. It is this: “Hearing that you are at leisure to peruse Stories a desire took me to make an Experiment,” (Letter to the King).

A little farther on the critic states: “Especially careful is the real Bacon in the use of the present conditional, (if, lest, tho’) it be, &c.; but here we sometimes find may stuck in,—'Dread lest our secret history may be found out’; 'ere the pleasure may disappear,’” &c.

In a letter to Essex (1598) the critic will find: “If the main conditions may be good.”

And again: “Sometimes a future indicative, 'If it shall not be (for be not) found.’”

In a letter to the King we have: “If it shall be deprived”; in A. of L. (p. 5) “if any man shall thinke.”

Again: “Many of the Phantom’s tautologies are positively imbecile, e.g.: 'Frequently, aye many a time'; 'a narrative of a story'; 'the play previously named or mentioned'; 'very pleasing to such a degree'; 'a most cleare playne ensample’; 'fulmin’d lightning'; 'a coming people in the future'; and the like.”

In the History of Henry the Seventh is the peculiar combination, “then a young Youth” (p. 247); and in the Advancement of Learning (1605) these lines: “True bounds and limitations, whereby humane knowledge is confined and circumscribed: and yet without any such contraction or coarctation”; “being steeped and infused in the humors of the affections”; “not referred to the good of Men and Mankind” (p. 5); “let men endeavour an endlesse progresse or proficience in both ... and again that they doe not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together” (p. 6); “the accuser of Socrates layd it as an Article of charge & accusation against him”; “and to suppresse truth by force of eloquence and speech”; “there hath beene a meeting, and concurrence” (p. 7); “the modern loosenes or negligence;” “it is a thing personall and individual”; “have an influence and operation” (p. 13); “to pierce and penetrate” (p. 15); “fit and proper for”; “can taxe or[Pg 156] condemme” (1st p. 16); “have sought to vaile over and conceale” (p. 22); “Man’s owne individuall Nature” (B. 2, p. 56); “which cannot but cease and stoppe all progression. For no perfect discoverie can bee made uppon a flatte, or a levell” (p. 34); “which hath been likewise handled. But howe? rather in a satyre & Cinicaly, then seriously & wisely for men have rather sought by wit to deride and traduce” (B. 2, 1st p. 77); “being set downe and strongly planted doth judge and determine most of the Controversies” (B. 2, p. 72); “For Narrations and Relations” (B. 2, p. 14); also “But as for the Narrations ... they are either not true, or not Naturall; and therefore impertinent for the Storie of Nature” (B. 2, 2d p. 6).

Again “The real Bacon, as a pretty good classic, could not have spelt Illiad, spirrit, Brittain, Citty, instructted &c., with doubled consonants; or comon, sufer’d, &c., with a single one; and rarely, if ever, did he adopt that curious growth of the old genitive suffix (-es)—is into the detached possessive his (in imitation of which, her came to be similarly used); yet in the Phantom’s twaddle instances abound—'Essex his plea’; 'the author his poems’; 'the Queen her crown’; &c., &c.”

In Love’s Labours Lost (5-2) Illion; in Troilus and Cressida (1-2) Illium; in All’s Well (3-5) Citty; in Advancement of Learning (B. 2, p. 32) Brittaine; Book 2, (p. 18) maner, comonly; (p. 36) canot; (p. 74) amogst, comand; (p. 74) comoly; (p. 87) wisedom; and on page 92 circurence (circumference).

In printing the deciphered work, similar elisions when they occurred were marked with an apostrophe, the modern abbreviation, rather than mar the page with such seeming errors.

I have already given six examples from the History of Henry the Seventh of the detached possessive his, and many others could be cited. “A thing familiar in my Mistris her times” occurs in a letter to Northumberland; “I. S. his day is past and well past”—Letter to the King (29th of April, 1615).

“It needeth no proof of the fact that” is characterized as modern padding, but in Advancement of Learning we read, “where there is assurance and cleere evidence of the fact.”

Most, if not all the so-called modern expressions that have been criticized—including some noted by another critic—are[Pg 157] found (mildly, exciting, headings), and in 2 H. IV. (1-1) is the line, “You cast the event of war.”

A prominent assertion is that concerning repetitions. Most overlook the fact that the cipher narrative was placed in a large number of books and at different dates. The contents of the Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon were deciphered from fifty-five works, some of them subdivided into many separate parts, as in the Shakespeare First Folio and Ben Jonson’s Folio. Bacon declares his reason for reiteration was that he could not know in which book the cipher would be discovered, nor could he suppose that it would be followed through all the works.

The article concludes with a promise of more to follow—then I trust I may be granted space for further reply.

Sir:—It is unnecessary to explain again the principles of the cipher I have set forth. Mr. Fulcher, Mr. Sinnett, Mr. Mallock, Mr. John Holt Schooling, the critic of the Literary World, and others, have done this with sufficient elaboration. Then, too, in De Augmentis Scientiarum they are fully illustrated and clearly taught by the great inventor himself.

Few realize that Bacon’s own explanation was withheld until the very last of his career. Without the key, the cipher could not have been discovered, and in that lay his safety. In that, too, the importance of the cipher was shown, for in stating that he invented it in his youth, and explaining the same in his age, he set his seal upon it, so to speak, as something useful and worthy of preservation.

And again, there is that very marked reference to this cipher in the 1605 edition of the Advancement of Learning—that “quintuple proportion required in no other”—so that a summary gives us: Invented 1579, mentioned 1605, illustrated 1623, employed a lifetime before it was explained, as I have now proved true by actual decipherment from fifty-five different books.

The critic states: “With respect to the Shakespeare Folio of 1623, Mr. Sidney Lee, the final authority, declares that no cipher exists in it. On this point, having examined a large number of detached passages up and down the volume, we can bear subsidiary testimony. Not but what there are many individual non-normal letters,” etc.

These 'individual non-normal letters’ can be separated into two distinct classes. The practical application of Bacon’s invention was merely a selection of the different forms as far as they existed, and the production of others where there was a lack. In the cipher, this is clearly stated. There was no impropriety in such an adaptation—of forms already existing—so long as in their use there was uniformity throughout each work.

Our critic says, “Nothing is more frequent than such mixtures in books,” but there should also be added, what I have learned to be true, that in Bacon’s works the different founts were used with a system, have a rational dependence and connection, demonstrating the incorporation of the bi-literal cipher. He admits there was a careless use of the initial and interior forms, especially of the small v and w.

This very fact assured Bacon that their methodical employment would pass unnoticed. One form is consistently used as an 'a fount’ letter, and the other as b, unless there be a printer’s error, in which case it is easily corrected by the context.

Our critic further states: “The book contains nearly 400 pages ... which must equal more than three million cipher letters, distributed it is asserted, over numerous old books printed in different years, by different printers,” etc., and that “to deal reliably with the supposed 'normal’ and 'twin’ fonts requires a special training and experience.”

His estimate is approximately correct. Having examined with the care that was requisite—usually with a magnifying glass—every letter in that 'three million,’ may I not say I am “fitted by experience” to differentiate the forms, and that I know whereof I speak?

I make no claim to genius but the 'genius of hard work,’ nor to inspiration except that coming from success which gave me courage to persevere.

There has been a slight misunderstanding regarding the method of deciphering. Both ways suggested by the critic were tried in the beginning, as well as other methods, but the one finally adopted was found to be most expeditious. I have many times given this in detail, perhaps to some of your readers.

The Italic letters of a page or two of the text were first copied in consecutive order by an operator using a typewriting machine that, arranged to space after each fifth letter, automatically formed the requisite cipher groups. When sufficient study had made me familiar with the forms and classification of letters in the book—sometimes a matter of days and even weeks—I placed a mark under the copied letters indicating the fount to which each Italic letter belonged. Tentative divisions were required to ascertain the correct grouping, and to determine the starting point, but when these had been unmistakably found, the copying would be resumed and the sheets containing the transcribed Italics thus properly grouped—but always in their consecutive order as they stand in the books—would be brought to me.

Having in the meantime memorized the alphabets, I noted each 'b fount’ letter and placed a stroke (/) under the corresponding letter on the typewritten sheet. All the others, belonging to the 'a fount,’ were marked with a short dash underneath, by an assistant, and the resulting bi-literal letter was then set down. This was the MS. to which I referred, and it is of this that “critic” facetiously asks: “What need of MSS. if the cypher was already embodied in the printed texts?”

Had he been at all familiar with ciphers he would have known they are not to be read at a glance. They are purposely made obscure, and are designed to be impossible to decipher by those not possessing the key, and difficult in any case.

Before reviewers cite Mr. Lee as authority upon the cipher, they should know whether or not his premises are correct. Mr. Lee says: “Italic and Roman types are never intermingled in the manner that would be essential if the words embodied Bacon’s bi-literal cypher.”—this shows, as I have before pointed out, in print and otherwise, that Mr. Lee misapprehends the essentials. The Roman and Italic types are not intermingled to form bi-literal letters. From 1579 to 1623, a period of forty-four years, no Roman type was employed[Pg 160] for cipher purposes. On pages 66-67 of the Bi-literal Cypher reference is made to their use in a few short passages, only, of the later publications—the preliminary pages of the First Folio, and of Vitae et Mortis, etc. Mr. Lee is, therefore, not good authority, because he does not understand the principles of the cipher, and, drawing his conclusion from false premises, declares the cipher non-existent that I know does exist.

My critic says: “Just as in the Spenserian passage, the Gallupian b-type has been somehow introduced into the reproduced text [of the Novum Organum] so as to give the desired cipher-groups: but how, and by whom?”

If he refers to the 'b type’ of the photographic facsimiles, it is a frank acknowledgment that he can see the differences in the types. He could, therefore, become a cipher expert if he chose. The 'b-type’ was introduced when the originals were printed, the one in 1620, the other in 1591.

If the reference is to the passages that were set up in modern type by our printers, for the purpose of illustrating the method of deciphering, the answer is in the statement itself. The two founts were purposely selected with differences sufficiently marked to be apparent to the dullest vision.

The facsimiles were omitted from the third edition of the book, not because they proved too much but too little. In spite of the care taken to secure accuracy, some distinctive differences were lost, and, as a consequence, deciphering from the reproductions, was much more difficult than from the originals, therefore not suited to novices in the art.

Our critic makes a misstatement in saying that one section of the book “purports to be a translation of Homer’s Iliad made by Bacon and buried in cipher in Burton’s 'Anatomy of Melancholy.’”

This section is fully explained to be but an epitome—argument, Bacon calls it—of the chief events, with the names of the principal characters, to be used as a guide and framework of the fuller translation. The complete poem is embodied in the works and is to be extracted by means of the word-cipher, a very different method. Our critic also repeats the baseless aspersion made by Mr. Marston that the Argument is a prose paraphrase of Pope’s translation. I have, in replying[Pg 161] to Mr. Marston’s criticism of my work, fully refuted this charge, and I repeat that it is wholly without foundation.

That our critic understands little of the books he reviews, is apparent in his reference to the method of constructing the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, and this requires that I again explain the difference of method in the two ciphers. The bi-literal is in the Italic letters of the original volumes—in two founts or forms of type—and has been extracted letter by letter, separated into cipher groups of five, and the result set down. The word-cipher is much more elaborate, and consists in a reconstructing of the history, poem, or drama that had been disseminated through the works. Words, phrases, and passages, pertaining to the same subject, are brought together by the keys and joining-words, and in this new sequence relate an entirely different story. Yet this interior history is the original. If our critic had thoroughly read the introductory pages of the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, he would have understood that the lines were taken bodily from Henry VIII—and the 107 other works—in accordance with this clear and definite plan. The “argument” or synopsis, 'framework’ if he pleases, of this Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, is given in the Biliteral Cypher to aid in collecting the scattered passages, as the Argument of the Iliad is given to aid in gathering the scattered fragments of the fuller translation of the great Greek poem. Some of the fragments of this work are in the text of the Anatomy of Melancholy, but it is seldom that many consecutive lines are found there. The following will however be recognized:—“Pandarus, Lycaon’s son, when he shot at Menelaus the Grecian with a strong arm and deadly arrow, Pallas as a good mother keeps flies from her child’s face asleep, turned by the shaft, and made it hit on the buckle of his girdle.”—Part. ii, Sect, iii, Mem. iii. Many of the proper names are also found in the Anatomy of Melancholy. These fragments of the Iliad are scattered throughout all the works, but the largest portions are to be found in Greene’s prose. I am explicit regarding this because so few understand that Bacon refers to the poem in the word-cipher, when he mentions works that contain portions of Homer.

Some writers, too, who have become acquainted with Bacon’s bi-literal cipher, are not equally familiar with the[Pg 162] word-cipher, although it is mentioned in the Advancement of Learning (1605) in the first lines of the paragraph on ciphers: “For Cyphers they are commonly in Letters or Alphabets but may be in Wordes.” Bacon chose an epistle of Cicero for the illustration of the bi-literal, and it appears that it was in that philosopher’s writings that he found the suggestion of the word-cipher plan, for he says: “And Cicero himselfe being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainely; That whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speak of, (if he will take the paines) he may have it in effect premediate, and handled in these. So that when hee commeth to a particular, he shall have nothing to doe but to put too Names, and times, and places; and such other Circumstances of individuals.”

Bacon saw how the lines of history, or drama, or translation could be separated and used in more than one place, and his invention consisted in the use of certain key-words that marked the passages belonging together. By making use of these in the original works, and taking the work apart by the same keys that must be used in reassembling the portions, his idea was successfully carried out. To guard against mistakes, and to make the work less laborious to the decipherer, he gave short “arguments” of the hidden work, as well as the keys, in this auxiliary bi-literal cipher.

It is an error, then, to suppose that the sections are not brought together “in any rational order.”

It would of course be possible to give the entire interior play or poem in a single work, but this was not Bacon’s plan; and he adopted a very ingenious manner of directing the decipherer by guide-words to the different works, containing the scattered sections.

This disseminating of the original work that was to be brought together again by this cipher, caused the anachronisms in the plays—the dispersing of the Armada in King John, Cleopatra’s billiards, artillery before it was in use, etc.—but it enabled him to hide his principal and dangerous history, as well as other important writings, to be collected again at a safe distance of time and place, and the end justified the means.

Under the caption, “Shakespeare and Bacon. Writers about them are not exactly lunatics—their cypher essentially a mattoid product.”—Mr. Charles L. Dana gives what purports to be a review of a book recently published, “The Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon.”

This cipher I had the fortune to discover, as it exists in the original editions of the works of that great author, and I have deciphered and given to the public what is contained in the volume referred to, hence come under the classification which the gentleman seems to impose upon a very considerable number of students and fellow-writers.

I hope Mr. Dana does not intend to be rude, but it seems to me that he has unnecessarily gone out of his way in applying epithets to people who differ from him in certain literary conclusions, and as the class, which he condemns for such differing opinion, is a large and growing one, and embraces names and persons even in his own city—judges, lawyers, newspaper men, etc.—the peers of Mr. Dana in intelligence, whom he would not dare personally to face with such aspersions as he indulges in print, he shows himself inconsistent as well as reckless. As a specimen of inconsistency, I quote from his opening paragraph: “The question (Bacon vs. Shakespeare), however, continued to be agitated or, rather, advocated, because few scholars regarded it seriously. Some men of note, if not of learning, took it up, and Lord Palmerston is said to have been a convert.” Certainly this is eminently respectable company.

Near the close of the article, speaking of those who believe that Sir Francis Bacon produced a much larger part of the literature of the world than is accredited to him, and dare offer evidence of it, he says: “They are not exactly lunatics, for the characteristic of lunacy is weakness.” I suppose we should be thankful, therefore, that, by the gentleman’s saving grace, we are not “lunatics, characterized by weakness.”

Mr. Dana goes on to say: “Such people have received the scientific name of mattoids”—a word apparently borrowed from the Italian alienist, Lombroso, as it is not found in many dictionaries or encyclopedias. If euphemistic, a critic like Mr. Fisk, uses the expression “eccentric”; if addicted to slang, another would say, “cranks.” The use made, in the article, of this term “mattoids,” is to designate those who have “obsessions”—doing things “under the domination of an idea, which is, as a rule, foolish”—in Mr. Dana’s estimation.

There can hardly be an “obsession” greater than to declare things do not exist, because the individual is unable to comprehend their presentation.

“Your opinion, my opinion, any man’s opinion, is the measure of his knowledge.” If a man’s knowledge is ample and accurate, his opinions are entitled to consideration. Mr. Dana’s knowledge of the bi-literal cipher is evidently neither ample nor accurate. The fact is that the presentation in the book he criticises is by fac-simile pages from the original Latin edition of De Augmentis Scientarium, published by Bacon in 1624, and by a verbatim reproduction of the first English translation of the work, published in 1640. This cipher is explained for the first time in 1623 Latin edition, though invented by Bacon in 1579, and used during the remainder of his life. The explanation is Bacon’s own, and this cipher has been the basis of the most important cipher systems that are in use in the world today.

Another thing that strikes me as inconsistent in the writer, and that lays his article open to his own characterization of “weak logic, stupendous misrepresentation, and erratic conduct,” is this: The value of a critique is in telling something of the subject criticised that will be of value to readers. Mr. Dana fails to make a single quotation, controvert a single proposition which the book contains or give a special reason for disbelief in the historical facts that have come to light through the Cipher. It is simply his ipse dixit that the Cipher does not exist except in the imagination of the decipherer.

Is it profound criticism which exhausts itself in hurling anathemas and vituperation? The creed of space writers in the newspapers, when attacking things Baconian, seems to be that, as with the first man, Adam, sin came upon all mankind,[Pg 165] the insanity of Delia Bacon, who was the first Baconian, was transmitted to all her successors, and that is the end of the argument.

I think it only fair to the readers of the Times that something should be said on the subject, and of the book itself, which has led to the discovery of “mattoids” among the authors of things not to Mr. Dana’s taste, first saying that, personally, I have to confess to mature years, and no little experience in educational work, preliminary and preparatory to which was quite a thorough course of educational training in our own country, supplemented by a considerable period of study, in France and Germany.

Long before I had more than a passing and superficial knowledge of Bacon’s Bi-literal Cipher, I had observed what all careful students of Elizabethan literature have noted and remarked upon in the original editions, that the Italic letters in some of the books were in two or more forms. Later, when an original De Augmentis came into my hands, I saw there a clear explanation and elaborate illustration of a cipher that required simply a biformed alphabet. Bacon there speaks of the time of its invention as in his youthful days while in Paris. It is first mentioned in his Advancement of Learning, published in 1605, with a hint of its importance. This was twenty-five years after its invention. Eighteen years later still, in 1623, we find it fully elaborated, at no small cost and pains, this still further emphasizing its value after forty-three years of time. These facts, in themselves, would suggest that the originator had tested its practicability. The discovery of its application to the Italic letters in differing forms in the original editions of Bacon’s works, has proved that it was made the medium (in no “spiritualistic” way) for the transmission of those secrets concerning Bacon, without the revelation of which many things in his life seemed obscure and paradoxical.

Seven years of time have I given to the study of Bacon and his ciphers—not as a dilettante, desultorily, as a means of recreation or use of spare moments—but as a student in the hardest, most conscientious sense of the word. A study which has been a weariness to the brain and destructive to[Pg 166] eyesight. Has Mr. Dana given seven days, or even hours, to real research?

As Bacon said in his History of King Henry VII. “We shall make our judgment upon the things themselves, as they give light one to another, and (as we can) dig truth out of the mine.”

Spurred on by the fascination of an important discovery, and by its development, as the concealed story was unfolded, letter by letter, word by word, revealing the hidden life, the secret thoughts and emotions of that great mind and personality, concerning which but the half has been known, I have examined over seven thousand pages of rare and priceless old original editions, placed at my disposal by the courtesy of private collectors in this country and in England, or found in our public libraries, and in that greatest of all receptacles of literary treasures, the British Museum. Every Italic letter on those seven thousand pages has been set down in its proper group, classified according to the rules of the Cipher, and the peculiar characteristics of each letter studied until they became as familiar as the face of a friend. The results of the deciphering so far published fill three hundred and sixty-eight pages of the book under discussion. It would be a vivid imagination, indeed, that could create an historical narrative such as the Cipher reveals. I have earned the right to speak with confidence of what this research has brought to light. I here repeat a paragraph of the personal preface to the First Edition:

I appreciate what it means to ask strong minds to change long-standing literary convictions, and of such I venture to ask the withholding of judgment until study shall have made the new matter familiar, with the assurance meanwhile, upon my part, of the absolute veracity of the work which is here presented.... I would beg that the readers of this book shall bring to the consideration of the work, minds free from prejudice, judging of it with the same intelligence and impartiality they would themselves desire if the presentation were their own. Otherwise the work will, indeed, be a thankless task.

In conclusion, and I speak from knowledge gained at fearful cost, I say with the utmost positiveness, that there is no more doubt as to the existence of both the Word Cypher,[Pg 167] and the Bi-literal Cypher, in the works of Francis Bacon, nor as to his authorship of the Shakespeare Plays, and certain other works accredited to other names, than there is as to the existence of stars which only students of astronomy have known.

So long as the “Baconian theory” remained a matter of literary opinion merely, all had a right to their own, but no one has the right to place his prepossessions against facts which he has not properly investigated, and then charge that the result of the careful investigations of others leads to “stupendous misrepresentations” and to “mattoidal products.”

Sir:—Many of the writers who, in your own columns and elsewhere, have been lately expressing their views with regard to the bi-literal Cipher alleged to exist in the First Folio of Shakespeare have spoken of me as a convert to Mrs. Gallup’s theory. I am not so. I am a convert only to the view that her theory is sufficiently plausible to deserve to have its truth tested. Regarded as a subject of inquiry, its great merit lies in the fact that its truth or falsehood can be ascertained by purely mechanical means, such as photographic enlargements of the text, coupled with a systematic examination of them. I stated this opinion in my article in the Nineteenth Century. Pending such an examination, which I intend to undertake myself, other arguments appear to me a waste of time. They are like arguments as to whether a piece of plate has been hidden in a locked-up cupboard, when the sensible course to pursue is to pick the lock and see. Mr. Sidney Lee’s letters seem to me to contain little but statements—no doubt true—as to the extent of his own learning, and urbane intimations that all persons who differ from him are half-witted monomaniacs. With regard to the general question of the authorship of the Shakespeare Plays the monomaniacs are those who consider any doubt of Shakespeare’s authorship unreasonable. The main grounds on which, so far as I know, a doubt of his authorship rests are grounds which suggest themselves to the common sense of an ordinary man of the world, and arise from the few details ascertainable with regard to Shakespeare’s life, as put before us by writers like Mr. Lee himself. The mere genius displayed in the Plays offers no difficulty. The difficulty consists in the kind of knowledge displayed in them. This simple fact Mr. Lee seems wholly unable to appreciate, as the illustrations he adduces in your issue of December 27[Pg 170] show. He says that to doubt that Shakespeare wrote the Plays ascribed to him is like entertaining a similar doubt with regard to Keats or Dickens, because both these writers, like Shakespeare, the butcher’s son, were also born in comparatively humble circumstances. The whole point of the question escapes Mr. Lee altogether. The poetry of Keats displays no knowledge whatever the possession of which would be singular in a person situated as he was, and having similar tastes; whilst the knowledge displayed in the works of Dickens is not only not inconsistent with what we know of his life, but is, alike in its extent and its limitations, an accurate reflection of his opportunities for observation, and of his experiences. It is precisely because the case of Shakespeare, in this respect, instead of being parallel to that of Keats and Dickens, as Mr. Lee supposes, is in striking contrast to it that a doubt as to the possibility of his having written the works ascribed to him has arisen; and if Mr. Lee does not understand this initial fact—as it would seem he does not—he is, as yet, despite all his scholarship, hardly in a position to describe the doubts of those who differ from him as groundless. It is perfectly true that the question has another side. Mr. Lee’s error lies in his assumption that it has only one side.

With regard to his boast that he has collated 25 copies of the First Folio, this fact is altogether irrelevant unless he has collated them with a view to examining the forms of the Italic letters used, with a view to testing the truth of Mrs. Gallup’s theory. This, I gather, he has not done, for the simple reason that he does not seem to have taken the trouble to inform himself accurately what her theory is. He tells us that the Roman type employed in the First Folio is all from one fount, as if this fact touched the position of Mrs. Gallup; whereas what Mrs. Gallup alleges is that the Cipher is confined entirely to the Italic portions of the text, and that the other portions have nothing whatever to do with it. If he had said that he thought the question not worth inquiring into, his position would have been quite intelligible; but to express, as he has done, a vehement opinion with regard to it, without having given it more than a passing and prejudiced attention, is not a course which reflects much credit on his critical judgment.

For myself, I should be prepared to accept one solution of the problem or the other with the same equanimity. Either, in its own way, would be equally interesting. If Mrs. Gallup’s theory is altogether false, the manner in which it has been elaborated will form a curious incident in literary history. Should it prove true, it will be more curious still. But what strikes me principally in this controversy is the odd sentimental acerbity with which the upholders of Shakespeare’s authorship receive the arguments of those who presume to entertain a doubt of it. Shakespeare is a figure of interest to us only because we assume him to have written the works that bear his name. What we know of him otherwise tends to quench interest rather than arouse it. What reason is there, other than the most foolish form of school-girl sentiment, for resenting the idea of a transference of our admiration of the author of the Plays from a man who is personally a complete stranger to us—or at best a not very reputable acquaintance—to a man who is universally admitted to be one of the greatest geniuses who have ever appeared at any period of the world’s history?

Sir:—Since you have allowed a critic of Mrs. Gallup’s interpretation of the “Bi-literal Cipher” to cast discredit on the whole of her work on the strength of having discovered (what he thinks) one flaw in it, surely you will allow a believer in “the Bacon-Shakespeare craze” to put forward a few words in reference to the “Shakespeare-Stratford superstition.”

There are two schools of thinkers in reference to that superstition, those who have studied the matter and those who have not. The former are Baconians. Talking recently with a devotee of the superstition, I said: “Surely, if you say that, you cannot have seriously considered ... such and such points.” His answer was, “I would rather hang myself than seriously consider anything so atrocious.” That is a common attitude of mind, and the reason why, as yet, only a minority of Englishmen possessing an unusual degree of culture are fully aware of the fact that Francis Bacon wrote the Plays published under the name of Shakespeare. The argument derived from the contents of the Promus containing 1,700 private memoranda in Bacon’s handwriting, all of which are used up by him later on in the Plays, the argument derived from the manner in which the Plays, in the order of their appearance, reflect the incidents of Bacon’s life, the little circumstance that 11 of the best known Plays were never acted, published, or heard of till seven years after Shakespeare’s death are a few of the reasons which influence the belief of those attached to “the craze.” A few of the reasons why the superstition appears so comically absurd to them have reference to the fact that there is no shadow of reason for supposing that the Stratford boy—apprenticed to his father as a butcher at 14—ever acquired the art, then very unusual among people in his rank of life—the art of writing. Neither his parents nor his children ever learned to write. He learned[Pg 173] in later life to scrawl something resembling a signature, not the bad writing of a literary man, but the hesitating, vague scratching of one who hardly knew how to hold the pen. After a few years spent as tradesman’s assistant in a vortex of ignorance, the boy ran away to London and, according to the superstition, immediately wrote Loves Labour’s Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which were brought out the year he came to London. The ridiculous souffles of imagination presented to the world by the orthodox biographers of Shakespeare are all based upon the authors’ theories as to what “probably took place” or what “must have happened” because Shakespeare wrote the Plays.

It is impossible to deal intelligently with the cipher story till one has first of all escaped from the trammels of the superstition. Let people new to the subject be assured, to begin with, that, without touching a scrap of evidence having to do with ciphers, those who “seriously consider” the question approach the discussion of ciphers from the point of view of knowing that the Shakespeare idea is pure, idiotic nonsense, and that Bacon, of course, wrote the Plays. Then, as regards Mrs. Gallup’s Cipher, the question is simply this: Has she built up the whole of this long story out of her own head as a conscious literary fraud, or, “errors and omissions excepted,” is it to be accepted as genuine? There is no halting-place between those two views. Now Mrs. Gallup did not work alone. She was assisted by quite a group of people of unequivocal position and respectability, she was eager to invite the observation of witnesses while engagd for six months at the British Museum deciphering the present story, and the fraud hypothesis becomes, for those who will take the trouble to make themselves acquainted even in an elementary way with the facts, utterly untenable. The way to deal with it is to check Mrs. Gallup’s work. If the Cipher is verifiable to any appreciable degree—as Mr. Marston even seems to admit, as Mr. Mallock has definitely stated—its verification by a responsible committee will displace the whole subject from the region of controversy and put “the Bacon-Shakespeare craze” on a level with that which brought Galileo into so much bad odour with orthodoxy when he maintained that the earth went round the sun.

As for the curious flaw Mr. Marston has detected in the Iliad translation, we can afford to wait for Mrs. Gallup’s explanation. If the whole problem rested on Mrs. Gallup’s good faith, the flaw might seem supicious, but it rests on the shape of letters in books at the British Museum. In itself it is the biggest literary problem ever set before the world; the prima facie case is overwhelming, as every one who has studied the question knows full well. How is it possible that a dreary, senseless old prejudice should be allowed to stand in the way of the truth? Who among those in a position to do this effectively will undertake the duty of organizing a really competent committee (including some persons, at all events, who have studied the subject) to determine once for all to what authorship the greatest writings in the English language are to be assigned? As for little difficulties about dates, they will have to give way if the cipher story is verified.

Sir:—Prompted by Mr. Marston’s letter, one of your leader writers makes an insinuation against Mrs. Gallup “which gallantry forbids us to state.”

The lady, unlike R. L. Stevenson, is alive and able to deal with innuendos of this sort.

That Pope had access to the MS. of Lord Bacon’s version is not unlikely, or that he saw an earlier deciphering from the Anatomy. Both Rawley and Ben Jonson were alive in 1628 and wrote the Cipher.

Apart from this, the phrases in the passage in question which are common to both poets were not new at the date Pope wrote.

“Silver fountain” is in the Shakespeare Play of Richard II., Act 5, Sc. 3; “hoary-headed” in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Sc. 1; and “Titan rays” in Titus Andronicus, Act 1, Sc. 2.

The Cipher not only mentions a marriage ceremony in the Tower, but a ceremony in September after the death of Dudley’s wife, at a time when, according to Mother Dowe, of Brentwood (see “Calendar of State Papers for August, 1560”), marriage was very necessary.

The Cipher does not say it took Francis four decades of interval to get over his affection for Margaret of Navarre, but that: “Not until four decades or eight lustres o’ life were outlived did I take any other to my sore heart. Then I married”—that is to say, did not marry until after his 40th year.

If Mr. Marston had imitated the caution of Mr. W. H. Mallock, instead of rushing into print directly he believed himself in a position to impugn Mrs. Gallup’s bona fides, your leader writer would have been less fluttered.

Sir:—We may hope that, the truth in this matter may be established now that The Times is seriously facing the problem, even though at first your sympathies lean heavily against what Baconians conceive to be the truth.

May I ask your contributor who has been investigating the Cipher whether, apart from defects and irregularities in Mrs. Gallup’s interpretation, he has found any fairly considerable number of cipher words to correspond with her interpretation. No one could weave the cipher into a mass of print without making a multitude of mistakes. In ordinary handwriting we most of us slur over scores of the letters we intend to form legibly, but if our readers can read the majority and see what we mean they do not reject the whole because of the defective bits. Of course the double types confuse the perfection of the Cipher, but Bacon seems to have deliberately aimed at confusion, fearing premature discovery. Thus some cipher students tell me that after getting on fairly well for a time, they will suddenly find that, though the two kinds of type still appear, there is no sense to be made of them, until they discover that, from the appearance of a particular mark until its reappearance, the significance of the a and b founts is reversed. With this clue, that which was at first confusion becomes luminous with sense again. But, though no newcomer to the work can hope to read the Cipher successfully throughout, if a newcomer finds, for example, that he can identify four or five out of every dozen words that Mrs. Gallup can identify, surely that will dismiss the theory that such identities can be accidental to the region in which chances are expressed by millions to one against accident. For the rest, of course, Mrs. Gallup may have arbitrarily interpreted diphthongs and double types to suit the sense of the passage, as any one in dealing with writing would interpret a scrawl at the end of a word as sometimes meaning “ing,” sometimes “ly,” according to sense. Or when[Pg 177] she has found a long word like (say) “interpretation” to come out—i, n, then a group of five letters you can make nothing of, then r, p, and the rest of the word right, of course she puts down the whole word “interpretation.” Or perhaps the latter half of the word will come out right only by curtailing some previous group of some of its proper letters; then, of course, the sensible thing to do is to curtail them accordingly. That is the principle to be adopted if we want to get at truth; and if we find i, n, right and p, r, e, t, a, t, i, o, n right, it would surely be silly to cavil at the absence of the t, e, r, or at any sort of confusion in the beginning. . . .

“Apart from the Cipher,” there are floods of reasons for disbelieving that Shakespeare could have written the Plays. Genius, alowing that hypothesis, might have given him lofty and beautiful thoughts, but no genius would have given him detailed familiarity with Chancery law and foreign languages, nor with the contents of Bacon’s commonplace book, which must have been in the possession of the author of the Plays. But it is miserably unjust to the arguments on the Baconian side to hint at them in such few words as these. The “ignorance” in this connection is to be found rather amongst those who idly accept the old tradition than in the camp of those who are endeavouring to clear from foul slanders the memory of one whom they regard as the greatest Englishman who ever lived and the rightful sovereign of our literary allegiance. We make a formidable claim on such men as Mr. Sidney Lee when we ask them to abandon a tradition around which they have woven a great mass of ingenious imagination in the effort to account for that which Emerson found unaccountable—the contrast between the little that is actually known of Shakespeare and the works assigned to him. “Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought, but this man in wide contrast.” But the glory of leading the homage that has so long been misdirected to the right shrine will surely be worth the sacrifice.

Surprise has been expressed that I have not more fully replied to the many severe and unjust criticisms of my work—the discovery and publication of the Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon. On account of great distance causing lapse of time, the torrent of communications, which deluged the Times and other papers and magazines in London, had somewhat subsided before my replies to any could be returned to England, but the delay, although by no fault of ours and unavoidable, has not been due to distance alone.

The Times published two short letters with fair promptness. The Literary World gave space to two others, replying to articles appearing in its own columns; and the Daily News, of April 30, contained a part of my answer to Sir Henry Irving. An article in reply to some of the critics, prepared for the Pall Mall Magazine, could not, from prearrangement of space, appear until May—a rather late date. The delay was the more regretted because the article on the general subject, published in the March number of the same magazine, was prepared and sent forward before the criticisms of the latter part of December and January had reached me, and, though following shortly after, was in no way a reply.

In the January number of the Nineteenth Century and After, there appeared two articles of attack upon the Cypher, one by Mr. Candler, and one by Mr. R. B. Marston. Mr. Marston, I understand, is a member of the firm publishing the magazine. His article was a continuation of the unfounded and libelous charges appearing in the Publishers’ Circular and in the Times concerning myself and my work. I replied at length and forwarded the articles to Messrs. Gay & Bird, under date of February 5th, desiring that the denial of these charges should be given equal prominence. Electrotype plates were forwarded for illustration of the technical portions. Plates for[Pg 180] fac-simile pages from the two editions of De Augmentis, affording most interesting illustration of the method of the cipher and of the differences between the editions of 1623 and 1624, were also furnished. I am now advised by Messrs. Gay & Bird that the Nineteenth Century, the Contemporary Review, and the Times, have declined to publish any part of these articles.

This must be my apology for now issuing in pamphlet form what was prepared for the public periodicals and should have appeared months ago as part of the discussion of the subject that is of interest to a large number of readers. The reluctance of the press in general, to print anything Baconian is well illustrated in this refusal of my critics to give place to my replies. I do not think it should be considered a waste of space to discuss discoveries that correct history in important particulars. The cipher is a fact, and cannot be ignored. It is neither imagination nor creation of mine. It is a part of the history of England, and effort should be directed to further investigations along the lines it indicates—to search among old MSS., in the museums and libraries and in the archives of the government, for other facts which in the light of the cipher revelations will be better understood than they have been in the past.

Concerning my reply to Mr. Marston’s charges, I am in receipt of the Literary World of May 2nd, which over his name has the following:

“Dear Sir:—I will not waste your space replying at length to Mrs. Gallup, except to ask her where she has replied to my article in The Nineteenth Century for January, and to my letters in The Times?

“In your columns and in the May number of The Pall Mall Magazine Mrs. Gallup says she has elsewhere replied to my request for an explanation of the fact that many passages in what she says is Bacon’s translation of Homer are identical with Pope’s Homer published more than 200 years afterward!...

“In a letter in The Times Mrs. Gallup did suggest that Bacon and Pope had used some edition of Homer unknown to any one else.”...

In the above we note the strange inconsistency of Mr. Marston, for my letter published in the Times did not “suggest” or even refer to any edition of Homer whatever. His[Pg 181] reference is to a paragraph in my reply (printed herewith) to his baseless aspersions, and shows conclusively that he had read my refutation, and knew that in the article submitted to his magazine and rejected I had “elsewhere replied” to his request.

In the article next preceding Mr. Marston’s letter, “Reviewer” also states: “Now as to Homer, I have read Mrs. Gallup’s 'answer’ to Mr. Marston,” etc.

This indicates that both Mr. Marston and “Reviewer” had examined my article, and they comment upon specific portions of it before it has been published, while ordinary courtesy should have withheld criticism, at least until the article had appeared in print.

It may not be inopportune to report at this time the results of researches made for me at the British Museum and elsewhere, since Mr. Marston’s malicious charge of “paraphrasing Pope’s translation of the Iliad” was made. Fourteen translations in Latin, French, German, Italian and English, published before 1620, were carefully examined for the reading in the disputed passages. Bacon’s “impatient arrow” is “eager shaft” in Chapman’s translation, and “long distance shots” is rendered “his hitting so far off,” the Greek words conveying the same idea to these two minds. Mr. Marston matched Bacon’s “cold Dodona” against Pope’s “cold Dodona,” but Hobbes has “Dodona cold,” and a modern Greek scholar renders it “chilly Dodona.” He also pairs “rocky Aulis” with the same in Pope, but gives it as the literal translation also; and he places Bacon’s “he leapt to the ground” opposite Pope’s “leaps upon the ground,” while it is more like the line of Hobbes, “he leapt to land.” Another renders this “he leap’d to the land,” and still another, “he leaped upon the earth.”

The examination also developed the fact that Pope’s original MSS., preserved at the Museum, have closer resemblances to Bacon’s Argument of the Iliad than are found in Pope’s published work. This is very significant, and in itself refutes the charge, as I have never seen the MSS., and the first edition of my book containing the Argument of the Iliad was published the year before I went to England to pursue the work at the British Museum.

“Peneleus, Leïtus, Prothoënor, joyned with Arcesilaus and bold Clonius, equall in arms and in command, led Bœotia’s hosts.”

By these comparisons we see that, in the printed poem, Clonius has lost his boldness and Peneleus has changed the spelling of his name.

In this place Bacon omits all mention of the Jardan, but in the catalogue of the ships he says, “Phæstus, by the silver Jardan.” Chapman gives the name of the river, Jardanus, another translator speaks of the Jardan, but Mr. Marston, I notice, writes the word Iardus.

In his MS. Pope had “hilly Eteon”; Bacon wrote “hillie Eteon”; but Pope’s printed work has “Eteon’s hills.”

It is conceded that Pope followed Ogilby very closely. There may be some interesting developments in the history of the latter. We know that he was much employed about Gray’s Inn, and that he was afterward taught Greek and Latin by the Oxford students to enable him to translate Homer and Virgil.[Pg 183] One thing needs no demonstration, that there was nothing in Bacon’s Homer that made it necessary to keep it concealed before or after it was put in cipher. Upon that point he says that cipher writing became so much a habit, and pastime, that he embodied many things in it not necessarily secret. I quote:

“And yet I have also emploied my cyphers for other then secret matters in many of my later bookes, because it hath now become so much an act of habite, I am at a losse at this present having less dificile labour, now, then in former times in Her Ma.’s service.”—Bi-literal Cypher, p. 66.

In the matter of criticism and expression of individual opinion, we might quote from Bacon’s Essay of Custom and Education: “Men’s thoughts are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions, but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed.”

In presenting the results of my work in deciphering the bi-literal cypher, I expected criticism, but it has taken on some features that have been quite surprising to me.

To answer fittingly all the questions raised would be to write a book. Some are relevant, many not; some are prompted by desire for knowledge, others by a desire to check what they regard as a heresy; most show unfamiliarity with the subject, and not a few are mistaken in their statements of facts.

Mr. Candler, in the January number of the Nineteenth Century, republishes modified portions of an article that appeared in Baconiana to which I replied some time since, sending a copy of my article to him and to that magazine.

Mr. Candler makes his objections under the heads: History, Language, Arithmetical Puzzles, Geography, Proper Names, and Bacon’s Poetry.

As to History, I can only say, if the decipherings had been my own invention, I should have had them in substantial accord with such records as exist, defective as they now appear. Had I “followed” accepted history, and prevailing ideas, and found in the cipher confirmation of what people wish to have true, I should have received encomiums due to an important discovery, and commendation for great skill and industry in working it out.

It was my misfortune that the cipher would not read that way, and no preconceived notions of my own could affect it. As I have elsewhere said “the facts of history” is an elastic term, and means to the individual that portion which the individual has learned. The records are by no means in accord, and discrepancies may well be left to the investigators, whose[Pg 185] revisions from data they may hereafter be able to collect may greatly change existing ideas. The decipherer is in no way responsible for the disclosures of the cipher, nor allowed speculation as to the probabilities in the case. One question only is admissible—what does the cipher tell?

1. “It was the English custom to use his in connection with inanimate objects where we now use its. This custom died out about 1670.”

“Its (or earlier, it’s) began to creep into literature about the end of the sixteenth century, though doubtless it was used colloquially at an earlier date.”

As to his other deductions on this point, I cannot speak from knowledge, but whoever put out the First Folio was certainly not averse to the use of its. In my former paper in Baconiana I gave from the Shakespeare folio ten examples of the use of the word. As there is no punctuation in the cipher, I am unable to determine which form Bacon used, it’s or its, but that he used the word frequently in some parts of the cipher and not at all in others, any reader may easily see. Thereof, of which Mr. Candler speaks, though more rarely found was occasionally used.—(See Bi-literal Cypher, p. 30, l. 4; p. 61, l. 24.)

2. “From the date 1000 or earlier, we find many instances of his used instead of s in the possessive case, and similarly, for the sake of uniformity, of her and their.... But in Bacon, after a diligent collation of a great many pages, I find the general use of s without an apostrophe for the possessive case both for singular and plural, and no use of his, her, or their in this sense. When a noun ends with an s sound, Bacon joins the two words without a connecting s. Thus: 'Venus minion,’ 'St. Ambrose learning,’ and the curious form 'Achille’s fortune,’ which may be a printer’s error, as the apostrophe here is in the wrong place. All these come from 1640 edition of the Advancement of Learning, Books 1, 2.”

In a footnote Mr. Candler speaks of the seven instances sent him of the disputed form, but I wish to give them here. Henry[Pg 186] Seventh, (1622), “King Henry his quarrell,” p. 24; “the Conspiratours their intentions,” p. 124; “King Edward Sixt his time,” p. 145; “King Henrie the Eight his resolution of a Divorce,” p. 196; “King James his Death,” p. 208. Also in Advancement of Learning (1605), Book I, “Socrates his ironicall doubting,” p. 26; and one may see, “Didymus his Freedman.” in the Tacitus. How many instances does he wish?

Mr. Candler further says: “And now for the 'Bacon’ of Mrs. Gallup. Turning casually over the leaves of her story I find 'Solomon, his temple,’ p. 24; 'England, her inheritance,’ p. 27; 'man, his right,’ p. 23 and p. 24; 'my dear lord, his misdeeds,’ p. 43; 'the roial soveraigne, his eies,’ p. 59; Cornelia, her example;’ 'the sturdy yeomen, their support;’ 'a mother, her hopes;’ 'woman, her spirit;’ and, curiously enough, where we might have expected an Elizabethan to have employed his 'Achilles’ mind,’ p. 302.”

Aside from the apostrophe, which could not of course be placed in cipher in the one case—suggested as a printer’s error in the other—the forms “Achilles fortune” and “Achilles mind” are the same. We have the following examples and many others of the first form also in the Bi-literal Cypher, (omitting apostrophes,) “Elizabeths raigne,” p. 4; “Kings daughter,” ibid.; “loves first blossom,” “lifes girlod,” p. 5; “stones throw,” “Edwards sire,” p. 6; “lions whelp,” p. 7, etc., etc., etc., and we see that both forms are used in the published works and in cipher.

3. Mr. Candler says: “It was the custom to finish the verb with s after plural nouns, as if it were the third person singular,” but complains that I do not recognize this in the deciphered work.

In two plays fifteen instances were found, seven of which are with the verb is or the abbreviation 's. In the Bi-literal Cypher, p. 177, l. 9, Bacon speaks of “Illes which is laid by for the good opportunitíe.” There are undoubtedly other examples.

4. “Mrs. Gallup’s 'Bacon’ is repeatedly quoting from his own published works and from the plays of Shakespeare.”

A reason is given for this, in the Bi-literal Cypher, p. 25. There are many examples also in Bacon’s open works, e. g.,[Pg 187] “Females of Seditions” is found in Henry Seventh, p. 137, while in Essay, Seditions and Troubles, it appears in this form: “Seditious tumults and seditious fames differ no more but as brother and sister, masculine and feminine.”

This occurs again as follows: “And as there are certain hollow blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas before a tempest.”—Ess. Seditions and Troubles. Also this: “Times answerable, like waters after a tempest, full of working and swelling.”—Avdt. of L. (1605), Book 2, p. 13.

A like recurrence is found in these: “And as in the Tides of People once up there want not commonly stirring winds to make them rough.”—Henry Seventh, p. 164; “For as the aunciente in politiques in popular Estates were woont to Compare the people to the sea, and the Orators to the winds because as the sea would of itselfe be caulm and quiet, if the windes did not moove and trouble it; so the people would be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set them in working and agitation.”—Advt. of L. (1605), Book 2, 2nd p. 77.

Many of the culled expressions in Bacon’s Promus are employed in the cipher, as I have already found. When the same incidents are related in the word-cipher that are given in the biliteral, large passages must appear in both the Bi-literal Cypher and Bacon’s open works.

5. Mr. Candler makes a series of verbal distinctions, as follows: “There are, I think, words used in the cipher story in quite a wrong sense. I will give instances: 'Gems rare and costive.’ Murray gives no example of costive meaning costly.

“'I am innocuous of any ill to Elizabeth.’ Neither Murray nor Webster gives any example of 'innocuous of,’ i. e., innocent of,’ though innocuous may mean innocent. Shakespeare does not use the word.

“'Surcease’ is a good enough word, but 'surcease of sorrow’ is used by Poe, an American author; and the use of the phrase by Mrs. Gallup’s 'Bacon’ makes one wonder whether he had ever read The Raven.

“'Cognomen,’ p. 29. No instance given in Murray earlier than 1809. 'Desiderata,’ p. 161. No instance of 'desideratum’ earlier than 1652.

“'Cognizante’ adj. Earliest example in Murray, 1820. Murray says, 'Apparently of modern introduction; not in dictionaries of the eighteenth century;’ ... (cognisance is quite early, both as a law term and in literary use.)”

These are refinements beyond reason. Bacon added thousands of new words and new uses of words to the language. There is something applicable to the case in the Advancement of Learning (1605).

“I desire it may bee conceived that I use the word in a differing sense from that that is receyved,” and “I sometimes alter the uses and definitions.”—Book 2, pp. 24-25.

Had the word costive occurred but once I should have considered it intended for costlye as we find it in Bacon. He may have used a v where y was intended.

It is true innocuous, from the Latin innocuus, in the dictionaries is used only of things, but Bacon evidently employed it differently, and wrote “innocuous of ill” as he would have written “not guilty of crime.” In Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) we find “Northerne men, innocuous, free from riot” (p. 82), and “The patient innocuous man.”

Surcease is used in the Shakespeare plays—Cor., Act 3; Rom. & Jul., Act 4; Macb., Act 1. It is in Lucrece, and also occurs in Bacon’s acknoweldged works. He had, perhaps, as good reason as Poe to desire 'surcease of sorrow.’

Certainly, Bacon had a right to use words existing in any language. We know that he anglicized many from the Latin and the French. Cognomen is of course from the Latin; desiderata, Mr. Candler admits, was used in 1652; cognizante—or as it is elsewhere spelled in the cipher, cognisant—might be allowed him on the ground that cognisances was certainly in use.—Henry Seventh, p. 211; 1 Hen. VI., Act 2; Jul. Cæsar, Act 2; Cym., Act 2.

Mr. Candler is also inaccurate in his arithmetic. He has not carefully read pp. 66 and 67, where it is explained that Latin letters, called by us Roman, were used in a few dedications,[Pg 189] prologues, etc. I did not find these employed until the publications of 1623—in the folio and Vitæ et Mortis. I have also shown elsewhere that, at the end of short sections that did not join with other works, there were occasionally a few letters more in the exterior passage than were required for the enfolded portion. These are nulls and not used. Mr. Candler gives the number of letters in the catalogue of the plays as 850 and says the portion extracted required 860. Both numbers are wrong. The cipher enfolded required 855 letters, and that is the exact number of letters in the catalogue when the Roman type is included and the diphthongs and digraphs are regarded as separate letters.

Just what Mr. Candler would have us understand by referring to the incorrect geography in the plays is not quite clear. It has no relevance to the cipher nor does it determine whether Bacon or Shakespeare would suffer most from the criticism. The same may be said of the next paragraph under “Proper Names,” for it was, and is, at least poetic license to change the pronunciation in that manner; and as to the spelling of Iliad on page 176 of the Bi-literal, we have in Troilus and Cressida a parallel in, “as they passe toward Illium.” Neither spelling nor pronunciation were well defined arts in Bacon’s day or in Bacon’s books.

The quoted verse of this “concealed poet” speaks for itself, and on this point I may well be silent, except to say the particular poetry Mr. Candler condemns is said to have been written on a sick bed at the age of sixty-two.

It is amusing to see how many plans are made for Bacon by these critics, how many things are pointed out that he might, or should have done. Their long experience in surmising what Shakespeare may, can, must, might, could, would, or should have done in order to reconcile asserted facts has given them the habit of “guessing.”

Mr. Candler adds some footnotes, in one of which he quotes: “'Mrs. Gallup, when challenged, failed to point out the cipher, an easy matter if it really existed; and now avows that without extraordinary faculties and a kind of “inspiration,” none, save[Pg 190] herself, need expect to perceive it.’” And adds, “It should be understood that the President and Council of the Baconian Society enter a formal caveat that nothing in Mrs. Gallup’s interpretation can be said to have been satisfactorily proved.”

I remember very well the evening to which the extract from Baconiana refers, when, upon the invitation of a member of the legal profession, my sister and myself explained to two prominent Baconians the method and scope of our work. In theory, they accepted—or seemed to accept—what is unmistakably true, that for different sizes of type,—pica, small pica, English, etc. Bacon arranged different alphabets. It was shown that one size of ornamental capitals belonged to the 'a fount,’ in another size the ornamental letters belonged to the 'b fount.’ This was admitted as very possible, even probable; yet when this was applied to practical demonstration of what Bacon did, they exclaimed: “Impossible!!” “Bacon never would have done that! etc., etc.” This could not be thought a receptive frame of mind, and just how they knew what Bacon would not have done I cannot tell.

Afterward I showed them which letters belonged to the 'b fount,’ in a number of lines of the Dedicatory Epistle of Spenser’s Complaints, in no single instance varying from the marking of the manuscript from which my book was printed. This was candidly admitted, yet, when this interview was reported, it read as above quoted.

When I first put out the cipher, I thought any one who would take the time could decipher all that I have done, but when I found people who could not distinguish between this w and w to say nothing of obscure o's and e's, I despaired of their becoming decipherers. There are, of course, many who have a correct eye for form, who will be able in time to overcome the difficulties this study presents, but I wish to ask Mr. Candler if he does not think the small a's, c's, etc., of the Latin illustration in De Augmentis Scientiarum, which he says a child could manage, quite as bewildering as any of the Italic letters elsewhere?

At the close of Mr. Candler’s article he desires that I “get together a few men who know something about books, and add to them a printer or two, familiar with types, new and old;[Pg 191] between them if they extract a consecutive narrative ... there is nothing more to be said.” I have extended this invitation many times, only to have it politely declined. The Editor of the Times refused, more than a year ago, to consider this request. Now, having practically lost the use of my eyes for such close work as this entails, I shall be obliged to forego, for a time at least, until a greater degree of strength has returned, the satisfaction it would be to point out in detail to a committee the various differences, though it seems to me they should be readily observable without my aid. In the meantime I rest in confidence that it will be correctly done by some one, somewhere and sometime.

It seems rather infantile to call attention to the spelling, but as Mr. Marston deems it of sufficient importance to draw from it the following inference, he must think it serious. I quote from the Times of January 3: “The whole thing is so transparently a concoction that a school boy who was reading this deciphered Tragedy asks: 'Was Bacon a Yankee? He spells words like “labour” and “honour” without the “u”.’”

I would reply that he was the same person that wrote the Shakespeare plays. The folio shows both ways of spelling. But all the word-cipher productions were printed according to modern American usage, as in this Tragedy of Anne Boleyn.

Mr. Marston emphasizes the matter by a second allusion to this peculiarity as discrediting my work, in the following words: “And Mrs. Gallup asks the world to believe Bacon wrote this 'new drama’ in order to vindicate the 'honor’ of his grandmother.”

A few minutes’ examination shows, in the first four plays of Shakespeare, forty-four instances of the spelling of honor, without the u, against twenty-five occurrences of the word with the u. For the spelling of labor, I will take time and space to quote only a single line from the first folio:

This suggests one thing of value to present day readers of the plays who do not know, or do not stop to consider, that modern editions differ greatly, and in important particulars, from the original editions, both spelling and grammar having been modified, while in some parts, whole paragraphs of the text are omitted to meet the ideas of what the particular editor thought the author should have said.

Mr. Marston, in the Nineteenth Century, continues an argument first put forth in the Times, and further illustrated in the Publishers’ Circular, attempting to prove that, because certain fragments of the Iliad, in the Bi-literal Cypher, deciphered from[Pg 193] the Anatomy of Melancholy of 1628, are similar to Pope’s version of the same passages, the whole long story comprising 385 pages—about 300 of which relate to matters entirely foreign to the Iliad—must be a conscious fraud, and that “bold lie” is the key to the whole matter. It was hardly a courteous expression, and I have every confidence that Mr. Marston will, after more careful investigation, retract it.

Any statement that I copied from Pope, or from any source whatever, the matter put forth as deciphered from Bacon’s works, is false in every particular.

It will be noted that Mr. Marston makes no attempt to prove the cipher, but bases his convictions regarding the book upon this one point of similarity, in an insignificant portion of it, to Pope’s translation of the Iliad.

As it chanced, I had read Pope to some extent in the rhetorical studies of my school days, but had never re-read his Homer until Mr. Marston called attention to it. I now see a similarity in some expressions, and in the arrangement of names, in that portion devoted to the catalogue of the ships. Bacon’s directions for writing out the Iliad (by the word-cipher, p. 170), suggest that at that time he had not made as full preparation for writing out the catalogue as for the remainder of the work, and this seems significant.

I do not find any striking resemblances in the other parts, and, as I stated in a recent communication to the Times, in an examination of six English translations and one Latin, I found that each might with equal justice be considered a paraphrase of Pope, or that he had copied his predecessors. Why, among several translations of the same Greek text, two having both resemblances and differences should be classed together, and one should necessarily be a copy of the other, is not clear to me. Knowing that Pope’s was considered the least correct of several of the English translations, yet, perhaps, the best known for its poetic grace, it is hardly reasonable to suppose that I should have copied his, had I been dependent upon any translation for the deciphered matter.

Bacon says his earliest work upon the Iliad was done under instructors. There were Latin translations extant in his day, which were equally accessible to Pope a century later. A similarity[Pg 194] might have arisen from a study by both of the same Latin text. George Chapman, in 1598, complained vigorously that some one had charged him with translating his Iliad from the Latin, and abusively replied. Theodore Alois Buckley, in his introduction to Pope’s Iliad, says he was “not a Grecian” and that he doubtless formed his poem upon Ogilby’s translation, besides consulting friends who were better classical scholars than himself.

But all this is of small importance, for it is inconclusive. The question is, did I find this argument of the Iliad in differing founts of Italic type in the text of the Anatomy of Melancholy?

I have had set up by our printers from my MS. two sections of the Anatomy of Melancholy, from which were taken some passages Mr. Marston quotes. Modern Italic type has to be used, of course, and the two founts will be easily distinguishable. They are so marked as unmistakably to indicate how the differing forms are used. A reference to an original copy of the Anatomy of Melancholy (1628), which may be seen in the British Museum, or in the fine library of Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence, will quickly show whether or not I have used all the Italic letters in the text, whether they are of differing forms as marked in this, whether they have been properly grouped, and, when the bi-literal cipher is applied, whether they produce the results I have printed. If the types are of differing forms, are properly grouped, and produce, by the bi-literal method, the results printed, the question of identities or similitudes is eliminated from the discussion.

I am aware that in offering this evidence in this way, I am at a serious disadvantage. The true classification of the types was determined after days of examination and comparison of hundreds of the old letters, until every shade, and line, and curve of those I marked was familiar, and as thoroughly impressed upon my memory as the features of a friend, while to those making this comparison the letters themselves will be new, the number examined probably limited to those in a few sentences, and by eyes entirely unskilled in this kind of examination.

Mr. Marston refers to my use of an edition of the Anatomy of Melancholy, published after Bacon’s death, as evidence that[Pg 195] I may be wrong. The edition I used was that of 1628, published by Dr. William Rawley. Concerning this and Rawley’s work, I had found in deciphering Sylva Sylvarum, the following statement from Rawley himself:

“When, however, you find this change ... where I beganne th’ worke, you shall pause awhile, then use the alphabet as it is heerein employ’d and as explain’d in my preceding epistle. It will thus be like a new alphabet and doubtlesse will bee troublesome, yet can bee conn’d while some had to be discover’d; but in respect of a probable familiaritie with th’ worke, and the severall diverse methods employed oft by his lordship, this may by no meanes be requir’d, since th’ wit that could penetrate such mysteries surely needeth no setti’g forth and enlarging of mine.

“Ere the whole question be dropt, however, let me bid you go on to my larger and fully arranged table where th’ storie, or epistle, is finish’d as it should have beene had his lordship lived to compleat it, since my part was but that of th’ hand, and I did write only that portion which was not us’d at th’ time. All this was duely composed and written out by his hand, and may bee cherish’d.

“From his penne, too, works which now bear th’ name Burton ... make useful those portions which could by noe means bee adapted to dramaticall writings. If you do not use them as you decypher th’ interiour epistles, so conceal’d, your story shall not be compleat.

“Th’ workes are in three divisio’s, entitled Melancholy, its Anatomy. Additons to this booke have beene by direction of Lord Verulam, himselfe, often by his hand, whilst th’ interiour letter, carried in a number of ingenious cyphers mentioned above, is from his pen, and is the same in every case that he would have used in these workes, for his is, in verie truth, worke cut short by th’ sickel of Death.”

This edition of Burton was the only old book in hand at the time of its deciphering, and, having found the cipher in it, I continued work upon it, though its contents were a serious disappointment, and I have since greatly regretted the time and strength spent upon what was of so little value, and of no interest historically as relating to the personality of Bacon or the times in which he lived. Has it been noted by Mr. Marston, or by others who have been incredulous about this book, that Burton in the appendix to his will does not include the Anatomy of Melancholy in “such books as are written with mine own hands”? While this might not be conclusive, it is, in the light of the cipher revelations, a very significant omission. I add here that the first edition was published in the name of T. Bright, under the title of A Treatise of Melancholy, in 1586, when Burton was ten years old and Bacon twenty-five. As the Anatomy of Melancholy, it was issued in Rawley’s lifetime, in several editions under dates of 1621, 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638, 1651-2, 1660, 1676. The edition of 1676 was a reprint of an earlier edition and was issued after Rawley’s death. Burton died in 1640.

One of the passages which Mr. Marston quotes in proof of a paraphrase of Pope’s translation is the expression, “Hillie Eteon, or the waterie plains of Hyrie.” On referring to my MS. of the deciphering from Democritus to the Reader, p. 73, l. 24, Anat. of Mel., I find the phrase was extracted from the words, which are here set up in two founts of modern type.

No one should pass judgment upon the Bi-literal Cypher who cannot, at sight, assign these letters to their respective founts, for it is much less difficult in these diagrams than in the old books themselves.

vitijs Crimine Nemo caret Nemo sorte sua vivit contentus Nemo in amore sapit, Nemo bonus, Nemo sapiens, Nemo, est ex omni parte beatus &c. Nicholas Nemo, No body quid valeat Nemo, Nemo referre potest vir sapit qui pauca loquitur

The first group forms the biliteral letter e, but the next has two 'b fount’ letters at the commencement. There is no letter in the biliteral alphabet commencing bb, but there is a possibility of a printer’s error, and it is necessary to examine the following groups. Each forms a bi-literal letter, but they are a jumble and cannot be set off, or divided into words.

Another attempt is necessary to pick up the cipher thread. Omitting one letter at the beginning, the grouping is:

Here, again, bb comes at the beginning of a group, but going on with the remainder of the line the resulting letters are again impossible to separate into any intelligible words.

None of these groups begins with two b's, and the resulting letters spell out the line quoted,

The capitalization and punctuation are suggested by the rules of literary construction. There are four possible wrong groupings, but this illustration required only the trial of three to find the correct one. Should there be obscure, or doubtful, letters in the text that make the resulting letters of a group uncertain, pass the whole group by until those are marked which are certain. There are always a sufficient number of b's to indicate what the word really is in the groups preceding and following. In the resulting phrase above, a number of the letters might be passed over as abbreviations and yet the sense could hardly be mistaken even in this short and disconnected line, while with the context it would be made perfectly clear.

“Hee was th’ first of th’ Greekes who boldlie sprang to th’ shore when Troy was reach’d, and fell beneath a Phrygian lance.”

Referring to my MS., I find this comes from page 38, Anat. of Mel., commencing in line 11. I have had this printed, also, and grouped for the resulting bi-literal letters that form the deciphered passage, and I think it well to use this because it illustrates one of the points that should be clearly understood.

Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 38, l. 11 (Edition 1628).

Claudinus Hippocrates Paracelsus Non est reluct andum cum Deo Hercules Olympicks Iupiter Iupit er Hercules Nil iuvat immensos Cratero promitt ere montes we must submit ourselues vnder themi ghty hand of God vna eademq manus vulnus opemq fe ret Achilles A Digression of the nature of Spiri ts bad Angels or Divels and how they cause Melanc holy Postellus full of controversie and ambigu ity fateor excedere vires intentionis meae Aus tin finitum de infinito non potest statuere Act s Sadducees Galen Peripateticks Aristotle Pom ponatius Scaliger Dandinus com in lib de

audin	usHip	pocra	tesPa	racel	susNo	nestr	eluct
aabbb	aabaa	aabaa	babaa	aaaaa	baaab	baaba	aabbb
andum	cumDe	oHerc	ulesO	lympi	cksIu	piter	Iupit
aabab	abaaa	baaaa	baaab	baaba	abbab	aabab	baaba
erHer	cules	Niliu	vatim	menso	sCrat	eropr	omitt
aabbb	aabba	baaaa	aabaa	aabaa	abaab	aabaa	baaab
eremo	ntesw	emust	submi	tours	elues	vnder	themi
babaa	aabbb	abbab	aaaab	abbab	ababa	aaabb	abaaa
ghtyh	andof	Godvn	aeade	mqman	usvul	nusop	emqfe
abaaa	aabaa	baaab	abbba	baaaa	aaaaa	abbaa	aabba
retAc	hille	sADig	ressi	onoft	henat	ureof	Spiri
baaba	abbab	baaba	aabbb	baaab	aabbb	abbab	baaaa
tsbad	Angel	sorDi	velsa	ndhow	theyc	auseM	elanc
aabaa	babaa	aabbb	aabaa	abbaa	baaba	baaaa	abbab
holyP	ostel	lusfu	llofc	ontro	versi	eanda	mbigu
babba	babaa	aaaaa	baaab	baaaa	aabaa	aaaaa	aaaba
ityfa	teore	xcede	revir	esint	entio	nisme	aeAus
aabbb	aaabb	aaaaa	abbaa	aaabb	aabab	aabaa	ababa
tinfi	nitum	deinf	inito	nonpo	tests	tatue	reAct
ababa	aaaab	aabaa	abbaa	aabaa	aaaaa	baaba	aabbb
sSadd	ucees	Galen	Perip	ateti	cksAr	istot	lePom
aaaaa	abbba	aabbb	baaaa	babba	abbaa	abaaa	aaaaa
ponat	iusSc	alige	rDand	inusc	ominl
abbaa	ababa	aaaaa	abbaa	aaaba	aabaa

DECIPHERED PASSAGE

Hee was th’ first of th’ Greekes who boldlie sprang to th’ shore when Troy was reach’d, and fell beneath a Phrygian lance.

In the word Phrygian, the fifth group which should make the letter g, aabba, really is n, abbaa, probably Rawley’s mistake, for the printer should not answer to every charge. The two b's stand together, as they should, but are one point removed to the left.

Every page of the book was worked out in the manner illustrated, every Italic letter classified and the result set down, nor could any “imagination or predetermination” change the result.

In this connection as few of your readers have opportunity to examine the old books I will reproduce the Cicero Epistle containing the Spartan dispatch from each of the 1623 and 1624 editions of De Augmentis, showing the differences and the errors in the second which like those occurring in the text of the old books have to be corrected if the work goes on.

In the 1624 edition the second i in officio is changed by the law of tied letters; the second u in nunquam has position or angle of inclination, to make it an 'a fount’ letter; q in conquiesti is from the wrong fount, and the u has features of both founts but is clear in one distinctive difference—the width at the top; the q in quia is reversed by a mark; the a's in the first causa are formed like 'b fount’ letters but are taller; the q of quos is from the wrong fount; the second a in aderas is reversed being a tied letter; l in velint is from the wrong fount, also the p of parati, the l of calumniam and the l of religione.

In line twelve 'pauci sunt’ in 1623 ed. is 'parati sunt’ in the 1624 ed. The correct grouping is ntqui velin tquip ratis untom nesad, the first a in 'parati’ must be omitted to read diutius according to the Spartan dispatch. Otherwise the groups would be arati sunto mnesa. The m and n are both 'b fount,’ thus bringing two b's at the beginning of this last group, indicating at once a mistake for no letter in the bi-literal alphabet begins with two b's and wherever encountered may be known to indicate either a wrong fount letter or a wrong grouping. It is one of the guards against error. To continue the groups after the one last given several would be found to commence with bb, and the resulting letters would not “read.”

Here, too, is an example of diphthongs, digraphs, and double letters, which are troublesome to “A Correspondent.” The diphthong æ of “cæteris,” the digraph ct in perfectare, and the double ff's and pp's are shown as separate letters and must be treated as such in deciphering Italics.

A very important feature, that most seem to forget, is that ciphers are made to hide things, not to make them plain or easy to decipher. They are constructed to be misleading, mysterious, and purposely made difficult except to those possessing the key. Seekers after knowledge through them must not abandon the hunt, upon encountering the first difficulty, improbability, inaccuracy, or stumbling block set for their confusion.

Were the confirmation of this cipher of importance to the government—a matter of life or death to an official, or likely to concern the strategic movement of an army—the energies of many minds would be centered upon deciphering it. But it[Pg 209] would appear from the writings we have recently seen, the greatest effort is to prevent its development or acceptance—that the ideas of a lifetime be not overturned, and the satisfaction remain that the individual has already compassed the limits of information. It is so much pleasanter to be satisfied with what we have than to delve for things we do not want to know.

Personally, it is a matter of no vital importance to me whether the cipher is accepted or not. I have put my best efforts into its discovery and elucidation. I know that I have accomplished what others have failed to do, and I can look on with equanimity as the world wrestles with the evidences, and finally comes, as it will, to the conclusion I have reached.

The impetus given the movement by this discussion will result in important research, and other discoveries concerning Bacon that I am unable to make, will, with the light that has now been thrown upon the subject, confirm what has been set forth and much more besides. As I write, an article in Baconiana makes a suggestion which should be acted upon at once:

“Our attention has also been called to a sealed bag of papers at the Record office. It was, it is said, sealed at the death of Queen Elizabeth, and to be opened only by joint consent of the reigning Sovereign, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord Chancellor. Is not the time come when we may fitly memorialize His Majesty, King Edward, to command or sanction the opening and revelation?”

In an address at Princeton on the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, Sir Henry Irving did me the honor of mention, although in rather a disparaging way, as “constructing a wonderful cipher out of the higgledy-piggledy lettering” of the First Folio and other Elizabethan books in which irregular lettering is found.

As comparatively few will recognize from the terms Sir Henry used, the actual meaning of this characterization of the peculiar printing, I beg leave to say that he refers to the two or more forms of Italic letters the printers of that day employed in the same text of many books, and that I have discovered that their use in a large number was for the purpose of embodying the biliteral cipher invented by Bacon. Much of this work has been deciphered and published as the Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon, and no doubt the recent discussion of this book in England,—and the echoes, on this side, of the controversy,—was the suggestion, at least, of the theme of the Princeton address.

Sir Henry points out that by “this wondrous cipher Bacon is alleged to have written in addition to Shakespeare and Greene, the works of Ben Jonson and Marlowe, Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy,” but says “its chief business is to stagger us with the revelation that Bacon was the 'legitimate son of Queen Elizabeth.’”

It is not my purpose at this time to discourse upon the discoveries I have made, which, among a great deal else equally important, most certainly reveal all that Sir Henry mentions—except that Bacon lays no claim to the greater part of Ben Jonson’s works—but I wish to throw additional light upon certain passages in the address that are presented as facts irreconcilable with the cipher disclosures. These “facts” are supposed to show that it is not in the realm of possibility that Bacon could have written the plays.

In the opening sentences, Sir Henry refers to some words of his own used as a fitting conclusion to a treatise on the Bacon-Shakespeare Question by Judge Allen of Boston. I quote: “When the Baconians can show that Ben Jonson was either a fool or a knave, or that the whole world of players and playwrights at that time was in a conspiracy to palm off on the ages the most astounding cheat in history, they will be worthy of serious attention.”

If Sir Henry Irving to-day appeared in a new play, and at the same time claimed that it was the work of his hand, it would not, probably, require “a conspiracy of the whole world of players and playwrights to palm it off” on the present age to say nothing of the future.

The writers who refer so confidently to Ben Jonson’s praise of Shakespeare, do not observe that he says:

The 'buskin’ signified tragedy, 'socks’ comedy, and it was as an actor, not as an author, that Jonson would compare Shakespeare with both ancient and modern Greece and Rome. His name was in the list of actors of some of Jonson’s plays, as well as of “Shakespeare’s.” Beeston says, “he did act exceedingly well,” and we are indebted to Mr. Sidney Lee’s Shakespeare in Oral Tradition for a revival of “the exciting discovery some actors made” of Shakespeare’s brother Gilbert whose memory “only enabled him to recall his brother’s performance of Adam in his(?) comedy of As you like it.”

It is true that Shakespeare was lauded for the literary work supposed to be his, yet in the article just cited we observe also that “Shakespeare’s extraordinary rapidity of composition was an especially frequent topic of contemporary debate.” There were men even then who realized that these things were not possible to their Shakespeare.

In the Advancement of Learning we read; “He is the greater and deeper pollitique, that can make other men the Instruments of his will and endes, and yet never acquaint them with his purpose: So that they shall doe it, and yet not know what they doe, then hee that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth.” B. 2., 1st p. 33.

This would suggest that Bacon did not impart his purposes to his “masques.” Ignorant of the fact that Shakespeare’s name was being employed as was his own, Greene exclaimed, “An upstart crow beautified with our feathers!” The similarity of expression was apparent to him, as to students of the present day, and the charge of plagiarism was very natural.

Sir Henry points out that although Bacon “was the legitimate son of Queen Elizabeth, his unnatural mother showed not the smallest desire to advance his interests.” But what shall be said of Sir Nicholas Bacon’s failure to make provision for Francis? The cipher history makes that point quite clear. He made provision for his own sons, and in a certain sense Elizabeth provided for hers, although she did not give them public recognition nor show the elder any marked favor.

Sir Henry asks: “What did Bacon know about the stage?” What did he not know about the stage? A few random quotations will best answer these questions:

“In the plays of this philosophical theatre you may observe the same thing which is found in the theatre of the poets, that stories invented for the stage, are more compact and elegant, and more as one would wish them to be, than true stories out of history.” Nov. Or., p. 90.

“Representative [poetry] is as a visible history, and is an image of actions as if they were present, as history is of actions in nature as they are (that is) past.” Adv. of L., p. 204.

“In whose time also began that great alteration in the state ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage.” Adv. of L., p. 193.

“As if he were conscient to himself that he had played his part well upon the stage.” Adv. of L., p. 362.

“But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre.” Adv. of L., p. 206.

“But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and the angels to be lookers on.” De Aug., p. 198.

“As it is used in some Comedies of Errors, wherein the mistress and the maid change habits. Adv. of L., p. 315, De Aug., p. 199.

“What more unseemly than to be always playing a part?” Adv. of L., p. 349.

“And then what is more uncomely than to bring the manners of the stage into the business of life?” De Aug., p. 235.

“Besides it is unseemly for judicial proceedings to borrow anything from the stage.” De Aug., p. 340.

“But the best provision and material for this treatise is to be gained from the wiser sort of historians, not only from the commemorations which they commonly add on recording the deaths of illustrious persons, but much more from the entire body of history as often as such a person enters upon the stage; for a character so worked into the narrative gives a better idea of the man, than any formal criticism and review can.” De Aug., p. 217.

“This was one of the longest plays of that kind that hath been in memory.” History of Henry the Seventh, p. 304.

“Therefore now like the end of a play, a great number came upon the stage at once.” History of Henry the Seventh, p. 287.

“He had contrived with himself a vast and tragical plot.” H. VII., p. 302.

“As to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies and now and then of tragedies.” Essays, p. 95.

The stage and stage plays were constantly in Bacon’s mind. The point is not well taken that Bacon could not have written the plays from lack of familiarity with the stage, from lack of the old plays that were the basis of some, from the impossibility of altering the plays extant, or of collaborating with other writers in the historical dramas. Bacon had access to all sorts and conditions of men, to all varieties of literature, but the proofs of collaboration are entirely wanting.

Again, Sir Henry states: “His [Shakespeare’s] knowledge of law was supposed to be wonderful by Lord Campbell but does not commend itself to Judge Allen.”

This is the opinion of one man opposed to that of another. Warner, in speaking of the chorus in Act i., Sc. ii., H. V., says: “It reads like the result of a lawyer’s struggle to embalm his brief in blank verse.”

A little further on in Sir Henry’s speech we find an allusion to 'Shakespeare’s careless notions about law, geography, and historical accuracy.’

When the great German Schlegel wrote, “I undertake to prove that Shakespeare’s anachronisms are for the most part committed purposely and after great consideration,” the truism was more far-reaching than he knew. The double purpose that many lines and often whole passages serve, was the real cause of the anachronisms, and want of historical accuracy. In Richard the Second the pathetic scene of the queen’s interview with the dethroned Richard as he is being led to the Tower, is “both historically inaccurate and psychologically impossible. The king and queen did not meet again at all after their parting when Richard set out for Ireland, and Queen Isabel was a child.”—Warner’s Hist. Nearly the entire scene is a part of the hidden cipher drama, The White Rose of Britain, and is the parting of the pretended Richard, Duke of York,—Warbeck, named by the Duchess of Burgundy the White Rose,—from his faithful wife, Katharine, to whom the title was afterward given.

Again in Henry the Sixth, see all the conversation regarding the marriage of Edward the Fourth: A note on the play says “nothing is historically certain concerning the episode except that Edward married the Lady Elizabeth Grey.” It is a part of another cipher drama, the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, where some were bold enough to challenge the right of the marriage of Henry the Eighth with the beautiful Anne Boleyn:

Critics trace the marked anti-papal spirit of King John to 'Henry the Eighth’s revolt from the Roman obedience,’ and these passages are indeed a part of Henry’s speech, in the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn:

A part of Cranmer’s prophetic speech at Elizabeth’s christening has reference to Francis himself:

The mention of quoting Marlowe sometimes with acknowledgment—sometimes omitting the acknowledgment—shows that Sir Henry does not concede that the plays of Marlowe were from the same pen as the plays of Shakespeare, but he admits that 'Marlowe was Shakespeare’s model in several ways,’ and in making this admission he reveals a recognition of similarity that he can in no way account for until he accepts the very natural 'cause of this effect’ made known in the cipher.

Next we find: “Shakespeare had an immeasurable receptivity of all that concerned human character.”

This is, of course, an inference drawn from the plays. It is well known to all close students of that marvelous literature that its author discerned every type of human character, understood the influence of environment upon men and women, and had a wide and deep knowledge of the spirit of the times, in different ages and in many countries. We do not differ in opinion there, but Sir Henry speaks of the author by his pseudonym, I by the name his foster father gave him.

Tennyson is quoted to show Bacon’s opinion of love: “The philosopher who in his essay on 'Love’ described it as a 'weak passion’ fit only for stage comedies, and deplored and despised its influence over the world’s noted men, could never have written 'Romeo and Juliet’.”

In the Advancement of Learning, Bacon says: “Love teacheth a man to carry himself ... to prize and govern himself ... onely Love doth exalt the mind and neverthelesse at the same instant doth settle and compose it.” The play of Romeo and Juliet was the story of the love of Bacon’s youth and early manhood, and the score of years between the time of writing the play and publishing the essay had filled his life with other things, yet those who have read the cipher story know that an inner chamber of his heart enshrined a memory of Marguerite.

I quote again from the address: “Still more noteworthy is the absence of any plausible excuse for Bacon’s fond preservation of his worthless rhymes and his neglect of the masterpieces that went by Shakespeare’s name. He gave the most minute directions for the publication of his literary remains.[Pg 217] His secretary, Dr. Rawley, was entrusted with this responsibility and faithfully discharged it.”

Bacon’s MSS. were given to two literary executors, not to Rawley alone, and a part was taken to Holland. Rawley continued the publication of Bacon’s works after 1626, publishing all those that were left in his care. Without these, a large number of the interior works would have been incomplete and the work in the word-cipher interrupted.

Sir Henry’s assertion, “nothing could be easier than to make an equally impressive cipher which would show that Darwin wrote Tennyson,” etc., needs no refutation. Bacon does not say that it was exceedingly difficult to “make” the biliteral cipher.

Again we find: “It would be more to the purpose if the Baconians would tell us why on earth Bacon could not let the world know in his lifetime that he had written Shakespeare.”

The principal reason was because the history of his life was largely given in those plays, not alone in the biliteral, but in the word-cipher, and the revelation of that in the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth would have cost his own life. He hoped against hope to the very day of the queen’s death, that she would relent and proclaim him heir to the throne. But he states that the witnesses were then dead, and the papers that would authenticate his claims destroyed. What could he do? Simply what he did.

In the peroration we find: “I fear that the desire to drag down Shakespeare from his pedestal, and to treat the testimony of his personal friends as that of lying rogues is due to that antipathy to the actor’s calling which has its eccentric manifestations even to this day.”

This cannot in any way refer to my book, for the very nature of this work eliminates personal thoughts and wishes or preconceived ideas. It is as mechanical as the reading of hieroglyphics, as naming perfectly well-known objects, as discriminating the clicks of the telegraph. And as far as Bacon was concerned he desired only his right.

It is by its great men in every age of the world that the actor’s calling is dignified, but the genius of the man of the stage is not necessarily the genius of the man who wrote the greatest plays that time through all the centuries has produced.

It has been suggested to me that I should give some of the results of my examination of Mrs. Wells Gallup’s work on Bacon’s Henry VII. I was not in England when Mrs. Gallup’s MSS. arrived from America, in the early part of 1904. On my return to London in June of that year, I heard that two or three members of our Society had been trying to work the cipher, but on comparing notes found that the various copies of the 1622 edition did not agree in some of the forms of the Italic letters. Only one member seemed inclined to devote the time and patience to investigate the matter at all thoroughly. That member, I understand, with much patience devoted one whole week to the study of the italic letters. His very able report against the cipher made me wish to look into the matter still more thoroughly myself. This may appear presumptuous as I was not one of the committee appointed to enquire into the subject. But I had had the advantage of many conversations with Mrs. Gallup, when she first presented her work to the public five years ago, and saw her and her sister, Miss Wells, at work on a book they found in my house not before deciphered by them. I was busy with other literary work during the summer of 1904, but in the autumn made up my mind to send my own copy of the 1622 edition of Henry VII. to the Howard Publishing Company, in America, for examination. I was anxious to know if it was a safe copy on which I might commence my work. It was returned to me by Mr. Moore in January, 1905, with one or two pencilled corrections written by Mrs. Gallup in the margin. Mrs. Gallup, in her letter to me, said, “Your copy and ours are the same, except in a very few places.” In that letter, and in others since, she answered several of my questions, and they have materially helped me. I worked diligently for three months, often eight and ten hours a day.

My studies have been confined to the first fifty pages only of the medium Italic type. I find in these fifty pages 10,058[Pg 219] Italic letters. Of these, 1,319 are capitals. For the present I shall confine my remarks to the capitals only. In these fifty pages only twenty-two letters of the alphabet are used. I have completed my studies on thirteen of these letters. They represent 704 letters used for the two founts; and with very few exceptions I find them correctly so used in Mrs. Gallup’s MSS. sent to us for examination. I have not yet completed my studies on the remaining nine letters of the alphabet, representing 615 letters. I am, however, finding the majority of these correctly used also. I am a slow worker, but each day’s work is bringing out better results on these nine more difficult letters. I give below a table of all the letters in the order in which I found them easiest to read, with the columns of figures divided into “a’s” and “b’s.”

It was suggested to me, by a member who disliked the facts revealed in the cipher story, that even if I found the 1,319 capitals correctly used, that would not be sufficient to prove the existence of the cipher, unless I could also find that the small letters were correctly used by Mrs. Gallup. This made me leave the capitals for a time. I have since studied all the small letters of the medium italic type in those first fifty pages. But as they represent 8,739 letters, for the present I can only say I have finished my studies on three of the letters, namely, “k,” “p,” “w,” and with only one or two exceptions I find them correctly used.

If my figures are correct, and I am prepared for the severest examination on these facts, can it be chance that those letters are correctly used in Mrs. Gallup’s MSS.?

I would like to say here, that were it actually the case that only two forms of letters are used, the deciphering of over 10,000 letters would have been a comparatively easy work. But in some of the letters there are many variations, and these again must be paired. And yet in all these pairings there is system and order, and a method in all the seeming madness.

My work would have progressed much more rapidly had two or three others worked with me. For those who have the leisure and much patience I can recommend this interesting study. I am willing and in a position to give them many short cuts, and they, in their turn, could, I have no doubt, help to finish the work I have commenced, that is, simply to verify the working of Mrs. Gallup’s MSS. on this Henry VII. Those Baconians who have never very seriously tried to work at the cipher, and are more concerned in refusing to accept the rather unpleasant historical facts revealed, I would ask to suspend their judgment, and to allow others, who may be honestly and seriously trying to arrive at the truth, still to be allowed to examine the work submitted by Mrs. Gallup at the request of some of the members of our Society. The more I, as an amateur, study this technical part of our work, the more convinced I feel that Bacon did use his famous bi-literal cipher in his own prose history of Henry VII. A new discovery has been placed before us, and by experts; why should we discredit their labours, and refuse to give an equal amount of time and patience in examining their work?

I would like here to bring forward some curious facts connected with the printing of the 1622 edition of Henry VII. I have before me six copies—one belonging to Mrs. Pott, another to Mrs. Payne, and four of my own. Mrs. Payne’s copy is similar to the copy collated for me by Mrs. Gallup. Mrs. Pott’s copy has many differences in it—not in the words and matter, but in the use of the two founts of the Italic type. Two of my own copies are similar to Mrs. Pott’s copy. My fourth copy, again, is quite different to all the others. Why should there be these differences in the various copies of the same edition? Why should type once set up have been altered? And, when altered, why should these changes be carried through with system and order in other copies? Before closing this paper, I would like to remind Baconians that Bacon, in writing to Tobie Mathew in 1609, uses these words: “I have sent you some copies of my book of the Advancement which you desired; and a little work of my recreation which you desired not. My Instauration I reserve for our conference; it sleeps not. Those works of the alphabet are in my opinion of less use to you now than at Paris.... But in regard that some friends of yours have still insisted here, I send them to you, and for my part I value your own reading more than your publishing them to others” (Spedding, vol. iv., p. 134). Spedding, in criticising this letter, says, “What these 'Works of the Alphabet’ may have been I cannot guess, unless they related to Bacon’s cipher.” Spedding then proceeds again to explain this cipher.

Archbishop Tenison in 1679 was evidently aware that Bacon had used his Bi-literal Cipher in the 1623 folio of the “De Augmentis” for he especially recommends that “accurate” edition to those who wish to understand the Lord Bacon’s Cipher (Baconiana, 1679, p. 28). I myself have very little doubt but that Tenison used the same cipher all through his Baconiana. I only wish I were an expert, and could decipher what he says.

I am grateful for the opportunity to reply to the article of the late Mr. Bompas in the July number of Baconiana.

I am also grateful to Mr. Cunningham for his prefatory remarks and footnotes, and I wish to say that his regret is my own as well, that Mr. Bompas did not discuss the paper with members of the Society better advised than was he, and that the MS. of the article had not been submitted to me while Mr. Bompas was still with us, or at least before publication, for some, if not all, the erroneous conclusions drawn could have been dissipated before they took form. The explanations would have given that gentleman and his readers a more comprehensive view, a different view point, and greater light upon the subject.

It is rare that an article appearing in public print carries upon analysis its own evidences of error, and in the next preceding pages finds so complete a refutation as does this in the article of Mrs. Kindersley.

In his opening statement Mr. Bompas says: “The copies of Henry VII. which have been examined do not exactly correspond.... The form of many of the capitals also differs in the different copies.... Mr. Cuningham’s copy differs widely from the others.... Either each copy contains a different cipher story, which is absurd, or the decipherer happened by chance to light on the only correct copy, which is equally absurd.” Then Mr. Bompas proceeds to build an argument upon the fact that the copy of my MS., furnished to the Society, did not correspond with some copy of Henry VII. with which he compared it, concluding, therefore, that the cipher system must be a myth, and Mrs. Gallup a visionary or a fraud.

Any comparison to establish the correctness of my work must be made either with the copy I used or one identical with it. That Mr. Bompas used some copy not identical, but one printed differently, is substantiated by Mrs. Kindersley, whose three months’ work on an identical copy—as against one week Mr. Bompas spent on a different printing—resulted in her verification of nearly all the letters studied. It is still more forcibly proved by the table of headings Mr. Bompas prints, the Italics in which do not at all correspond in the different forms with the book I used. It therefore follows that the entire argument, from pages 169 to and including part of 176, so far as relates to Henry VII., is founded upon a false premise and falls to the ground.

Mr. Bompas says, “Either each copy contains a different cipher, which is absurd,” &c.

On the contrary, that is just what occurs in unlike copies. Those widely differing belong to different editions, although published in the same year, as I have found to be true, and stated in my article in Baconiana published in 1901. Two issues of the Treatise of Melancholy appeared in 1586 with differing Italic printing. I have deciphered both. One ends with an incomplete cipher word, which is completed in the other where the narrative is continued, and the book ends with the signature of Bacon on the last page. I have also found that in two editions of Bacon’s acknowledged works one had the cipher and one had not. The peculiar Italicizing and the same forms of letters were in both. In one the arrangement of the letters followed the cipher system, in the other no amount of study could make them “read.” Bacon refers in the cipher to some false and surreptitious copies issued without his authority.

The differences in print of Henry VII. first came to light, apparently, through the comparisons made with my MS. in London, and the report of it was a great surprise to me. Mrs. Kindersley was kind enough to send me one of her copies, and, as before stated, this was found to be identical with the one I used except that three or four typographical errors in her copy were corrected in mine, and one in mine did not occur in hers, but in no case was a verbal change made and only one orthographical.

About the same time it chanced that a copy of the work—a recent importation from London—was sent me from Chicago for examination. This I found quite different in the use of Italics. I did not decipher the work, but became convinced that it either contained another cipher story, or was one of the “false and surreptitious copies” before referred to.

In addition to the criticism of Henry VII., Mr. Bompas refers to some typographical errors making slight differences in our own editions of the Bi-literal Cipher, and to the examples in the editions of De Augmentis of 1623 and 1624.

I have to admit there are some printers’ errors in my book that escaped the closest proof reading, much to my regret. The proof reading was extremely difficult because of the care required to keep the unusual spelling and occasional abbreviations. Some errors were corrected in the third edition. Mr. Bompas found two or three—probably not all. I have had no opportunity to note the errata in a later publication. I can, however, make the broad assertion that in no single instance has any of these slight technical errors changed the meaning of a phrase, or made it obscure, or been of sufficient importance to affect in the least the overwhelming evidences of the existence of the system of the cipher and the correctness of its deciphering.

Manifest errors occurred in the text of the old books, which were corrected in the deciphering, but they were so few and so evident as to prove rather than to disprove the system. They occur mostly in long groups, as in the example of the cipher in De Augmentis, occasionally a short group of four letters, once in a while a wrong font letter, but the meaning of the context was always sufficiently clear in itself to correct the error. I cannot better illustrate this than by quoting from my “Replies to Criticisms,” issued in pamphlet form, but which has not appeared in public print. The explanation covers explicitly a number of points raised by Mr. Bompas, and being an analysis of Bacon’s own illustration of the cipher in the 1624 De Augmentis, has the weight of the author’s own methods of correction, and the suggestion, at least, that the errors were purposely made to educate the decipherer as to[Pg 225] what would be encountered in the books; also the manner of overcoming the difficulties as they should arise.

“In the 1624 edition the second i in officio is changed by the law of tied letters; the second u in nunquam has position or angle of inclination, to make it an 'a fount’ letter; q in conquiesti is from the wrong fount, and the u has features of both founts but is clear in one distinctive difference—the width at the top; the q in quia is reversed by a mark; the a's in the first causa are formed like 'b fount’ letters but are taller; the q of quos is from the wrong fount; the second a in aderas is reversed, being a tied letter; l in velint is from the wrong fount, also the p of parati, the l of calumniam and the l of religione.

“In line twelve 'pauci sunt’ in 1623 ed. is 'parati sunt’ in the 1624 ed. The correct grouping is ntqui velin tquip ratis untom nesad, the first a in 'parati’ must be omitted to read diutius according to the Spartan dispatch. Otherwise the groups would be arati sunto mnesa. The m and n are both 'b fount,’ thus bringing two b's at the beginning of this last group, indicating at once a mistake, for no letter in the bi-literal alphabet begins with two b's and wherever encountered may be known to indicate either a wrong fount letter or a wrong grouping. It is one of the guards against error. To continue the groups after the one last given several would be found to commence with bb, and the resulting letters would not 'read.’

“Here, too, is an example of diphthongs, digraphs, and double letters, which are troublesome to 'A Correspondent.’ The diphthong æ of 'cæteris,’ the digraph ct in perfectare, and the double ff's and pp's are shown as separate letters and must be treated as such in deciphering Italics.

“A very important feature, that most seem to forget, is that ciphers are made to hide things, not to make them plain or easy to decipher. They are constructed to be misleading, mysterious, and purposely made difficult except to those possessing the key. Seekers after knowledge through them must not abandon the hunt upon encountering the first difficulty, improbability, inaccuracy, or stumbling block set for their confusion.”

The article says: “The plain inference is that the Cipher and Cipher story are imaginary.”

Well, this is at least complimentary, but I doubt whether Mr. Bompas stopped to think what that statement would mean with all that it implies. I do not think he would, on reflection, give me credit for a genius so broad, for it would be equal to the production of the plays themselves.

Were I the possessor of an imagination so boundless, I would certainly not have spent it upon a production foredoomed to be unpopular, or have subjected myself to the strain upon nerves and eyesight of six years’ hard study of old books and their typographical peculiarities for a Baconian cloak to hide the brilliancy of that imagination. Yet if the material for the three hundred and ninety pages of my book were not found in Cipher in the old originals, then it must be the conception of my own brain. First, the plot of each story worked out; the account of Bacon’s discovery of his parentage; the variations from historic records; the death of Amy Robsart; the tragedy of Essex, and that of Mary, Queen of Scots, and other scraps of added history; the love of Bacon for Margaret, and all the rest. All this thought out, in diction, much of it, of the highest order, in the old English spelling and phraseology of the 16th century and fitted with such nice exactness to the Italic letters of the old books, “separated into groups of five”—letters that even the sceptics admit the capitals at least agree with the alleged system—the study of months in the British Museum; the explanations and demonstrations to numberless people—all to hide a genius so magnificent! In the language of Mr. Bompas, “Absurd!” And yet, I repeat, if not Cipher it must be my own production.

It is useless to discuss the probability of Bacon’s committing State secrets to such a Cipher. It is not a time to ask the question, “Is it likely?” The Cipher is there, and it only remains to master its intricacies and search out what it has to reveal.

There are several suggestive points of connection to be noted between the old conventual buildings of Canonbury and our Francis St. Alban. There are also obscure particulars well worthy of inquiry.

Originally the property of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, Canonbury House is generally supposed to have been built in 1362, ten years after Edward III. had exempted the Priory of St. Bartholomew from the payment of subsidies, in consequence of their great outlay in charity. Stow says that William Bolton (Prior from 1509 to 1532) rebuilt the house, and probably erected the fine square tower of brick. Nichol, in his “History of Canonbury,” mentions that Bolton’s rebus of a bolt in a tun was still to be seen, cut in stone, in two places on the outside facing Wells’ Row. The original house covered the whole space now called Canonbury Place, and had a small park, with garden and offices. Prior Bolton either built or repaired the Priory and beautiful Church of St. Bartholomew, but at his death the connection between Canonbury and monasticism ceased.[10]

The Tower House was now given by Henry VIII. to John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, afterwards Viscount Lisle, father of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose history has lately risen into fresh and startling importance in consequence of certain deciphered history to be submitted to the world’s judgment. John Dudley was executed as a traitor when Mary was proclaimed Queen in 1553. The Tower then again became Crown property, and Queen Mary gave it to “Rich Spencer,” the magnificent alderman of whom history speaks so fully, giving us even that which it denied us with regard to Francis St. Alban—details of his funeral obsequies. It is from this Sir John Spencer (father-in-law of Lord Compton) that Sir Francis “Bacon,” when Attorney-General (1616), leased Canonbury Manor.[11]

The internal arrangements and decorations of Canonbury House are commented on in detail by Lewis, who describes the elaborate ornamental carving, emblematic figures and devices, ships, flowers, foliage, and other objects which Baconians have learnt to associate with the symbolic method of teaching of the Renaissance, and pre-eminently of the “Great Master” himself, but which in the regulation literature of our day are described as “specimens of taste for ornamental carving and stucco work that prevailed about the time of Elizabeth.” There are also medallions of three great men who seem to have been in a way models to our Francis—types of the nobler Pioneer, the mighty Conqueror, the Master Builder, Alexander the Great, namely Julius Cæsar, Titus Vespasian. Then with the arms of the Dudleys may be seen the arms of Queen Elizabeth in several places, and her initials, “E. R.” with the date—1599, at which time the premises were fitted up by Sir John Spencer.

“On the white wall of the staircase, near the top of the Tower, are some Latin hexameter verses comprising the abbreviated names of the Kings of England from William the Conquerer to Charles I., painted in Roman character an inch in length, but almost obliterated. The lines were most probably the effusion of some poetical inhabitant of an upper apartment in the building during the time of the monarch last named, such persons having frequently been residents of the place.”

“The Earl and Countess, by description Lord and Lady Compton, by indenture 15th February, Jac. 1616, let to the Right Hon. Francis Lord Verulam, Visct. St. Albans, by the name of Sir Francis Bacon Knight,[12] His Majs. Attorney General, all that mansion and garden belonging to what is called Canonbury House, in the Parish of Islington * * * for 40 years from Lady-day, 1617.”

“The great Sir Francis Bacon resided here from February, 1616; as also at the time of his receiving the Great Seal, on 7th Jan., 1618, and for some time afterwards.[13]

“After the decease of Henry Prince of Wales (in 1612) the Manor of Newington Barrowe was, with other portion of land, on 10th January, 14 Jac., granted upon lease for 99 years to[Pg 229] Sir Francis Bacon, Knt., at that time the King’s Attorney General, and also Chancellor to Charles Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I., and others, his law officers and ministers in trust for him, which lease, upon his accession, became merged in the Crown.”—Dated at Canonbury, 15th Sept., 1629.

In connection with recent statements concerning the parentage of Francis St. Alban, it will be observed that in Nelson’s “History of Islington” the writer states that Queen Elizabeth was at Canonbury Tower in the year 1561, and that she had a “lodge” or summer-house looking into Canonbury Fields. It bore her arms and initials, with the date 1595. “The Tower was encompassed by pleasant fields and gardens, and a salubrious air.”

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BACONIANA—LONDON:
Elizabeth Wells Gallup—Descriptive	43
—Explanatory	122
—Henry VII.	222
Editorial—Book Review	74
Cannonbury Tower	227
D. J. Kindersley—Henry VII.	218
COURT JOURNAL—LONDON:
Fleming Fulcher Review	81
COSMOPOLITAN—NEW YORK:
Garrett P. Serviss Review	112
FREE PRESS—DETROIT:
Editorial, Book Review	69
LITERARY WORLD—LONDON:
Elizabeth Wells Gallup. Replies I-II.	150
NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER-LONDON:
W. H. Mallock, Review	94
NEW YORK TIMES—LITERARY REVIEW:
Elizabeth Wells Gallup—Reply to C. L. Dana	163
PALL MALL MAGAZINE—LONDON:
Elizabeth Wells Gallup—Descriptive	51
Explanatory	126
TIMES—LONDON:
Elizabeth W. Gallup	144
W. H. Mallock	169
A. P. Sinnett	172
A. P. Sinnett	176
Parker Woodward	175
REPLIES TO CRITICISMS:
Elizabeth Wells Gallup	179
Illustration of Method	198
Fac-Simile Plates De Augmentis Scientiarum, London Ed., 1623	201
Fac-Simile Plates Paris Ed., 1624	205
Henry Irving, Princeton Address	211

EDMUND SPENSER:	PAGE
Complaints, 1591	1
Colin Clout, 1595	3
Faerie Queene, 1596	4
Faerie Queene, second part	7
SHAKESPEARE QUARTO:
Richard Second, 1598	10
GEORGE PEELE:
David and Bethsabe, 1599	11
SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS:
Midsommer Night’s Dream, 1600	12
Midsommer Night’s Dream, Fisher Ed.	13
Much Ado About Nothing, 1600	14
Sir John Oldcastle and Merchant of Venice, Roberts Ed.,
1600	15
Richard, Duke of York, 1600	18
FRANCIS BACON:
Treasons of Essex, 1601	20
SHAKESPEARE QUARTO:
London Prodigal, 1605	23
FRANCIS BACON:
Advancement of Learning, 1605	25
SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS:
King Lear, 1608	33
King Henry The Fifth, 1608	34
Pericles, 1609	35
Hamlet, 1611	36
Titus Andronicus, 1611	38[Pg 14]
EDMUND SPENSER:
Shepheards Calender, 1611	40
Faerie Queene, 1613	43
BEN JONSON:
Plays in Folio, 1616	49
SHAKESPEARE QUARTOS:
Richard The Second, 1615	72
Merry Wives of Windsor, 1619	73
Contention of York and Lancaster, 1619	74
Pericles, 1619	77
Yorkshire Tragedy, 1619	78
Romeo and Juliet, no date	79
ROBERT GREENE:
A Quip For an Upstart Courtier, 1620	80
FRANCIS BACON:
Novum Organum, 1620	81
The Parasceve	133
Henry The Seventh, 1622	136
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE:
Edward The Second, 1622	151
FRANCIS BACON:
Historia Vitæ & Mortis, 1623	153
SHAKESPEARE PLAYS:
First Folio, 1623	165
ROBERT BURTON:
Anatomy of Melancholy, 1628	218
“Argument of the Iliad”	220
FRANCIS BACON:
De Augmentis Scientiarum, 1624	310
“Argument of the Odysses”	313
New Atlantis, 1635	334
Sylva Sylvarum, 1635, Rawley’s Preface	339
Natural History	341
William Rawley’s Note	368

A	B	C	D	E	F
Aaaaa	aaaab	aaaba.	aaabb.	aabaa.	aabab.
G	H	I	K	L	M
aabba	aabbb	abaaa.	abaab.	ababa.	ababb.
N	O	P	Q	R	S
abbaa.	abbab.	abbba.	abbbb.	baaaa.	baaab.
T	V	W	X	Y	Z
baaba.	baabb.	babaa.	babab.	babba.	babbb.

F	V	G	E
aabab.	baabb.	aabba.	aabaa.

In all	duty o	r rath	er pie	ty tow	ards
aa aaa	abab a	a baba	ab aaa	ba aab	abab
A	L	L	I	S	L
y	ou, I sa	tisfy	every	body e	xcept	mysel	f.
a	ab b ab	baaab	baaba	abab b	abaaa	abbaa	a
	O	S	T	M	I	N
Myse	lf I ne	ver sa	tisfy.	For so	great	are
aabb	aa a aa	baa aa	baabb	baa ab	abaaa	baa
D	A	R	U	S	I	S
th	e serv	ices w	hich y	ou hav	e rend	ered m	e,
ab	a baab	abaa a	abab a	ab aba	a abaa	aaab b	b
	K	I	L	L	E	D
that,	seein	g you d	id not	rest i	n your	en-
aaba	aabbb	a aba a	ba aab	abba b	a baba	aa
T	H	E	S	O	L
dea	vours	on my b	ehalf	till t	he thi	ng was
abb	abaaa	aa ba a	baaaa	baaab	ba baa	aa aaa
D	I	E	R	S	W	A
done, I	feel a	s if li	fe had	lost a	ll its	sweet-
abba a	baab a	a ab ab	ab bab	abba b	aa abb	babaa
N	T	F	O	O	D	W
ness, b	ecaus	e I can	not do	as muc	h in th	is
aaba a	aaaba	a a aaa	abb aa	ab baa	a ab aa	ab
E	C	A	N	N	E
cau	se of y	ours. T	he occ	asion	s are t	hese:
aaa	ba ab a	aabb b	aa baa	baaaa	a abb a	aaba
I	T	H	E	R	G	E
A	mmoni	us, the	king’s	ambas	sador,	open-
a	baaba	aa bbb	aaba a	abbaa	aaaba	aaba
	T	H	E	N	C	E
l	y besi	eges u	s with	money.	The bu	sines	s
a	a bbaa	abba b	b aaaa	baaab	baa ba	aaaaa	b
	N	O	R	S	T	A
is ca	rried	on thr	ough t	he sam	e cred	itors
ab ba	ababa	ab bab	abba a	aa bba	a abaa	baaaa
Y	L	O	N	G	E	R
who we	re emp	loyed	in it w	hen yo	u were
aab bb	aa baa	baaaa	aa ba a	aaa aa	a aaaa
H	E	R	E
here &c.

Frontispiece	Portrait Elizabeth Wells Gallup
Announcements	6
Title Page “The Bi-literal Cypher”	11
(Plates from the book)
Contents of “Bi-literal Cypher”
Personal	15
Publishers Note. Third Edition	19
De Augmentis, Original Title page 1624	21
Cyphars in Advancement of Learning, 1605	22
Cyphars in De Augmentis, Wats Translation, 1640	23
Bi-literarie Alphabet	24
Bi-formed Alphabet	25
Cicero’s First Epistle—Method of deciphering	26
Cicero’s First Epistle—Cipher infold	27
Tragedy of Anne Boleyn	29
(Plates from the book)
Preface	30
Argument of the Play	35
Keys for Deciphering	38

	PAGE
Personal—Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup	1
Explanatory Introduction First Edition	5
Preface, Second Edition	15
Argument	18
Notes on the Shakespeare Plays	28
Stenography in the time of Queen Elizabeth	35
Francis Bacon, Biographical	39
Ciphers	47
Cyphars in Advancement of Learning, 1605	51
Cyphars in De Augmentis	52
Bi-literal Cipher Plan and Illustration	53
Fac-simile pages from De Augmentis, 1624	57
Fac-simile pages from Novum Organum, 1620	63
Fac-simile title page Vitae et Mortis	67
Shakespeare Plays—Fac-simile Quarto Title Pages	69
Publisher’s Note	76

Shepheard’s Calender	1579	Anonymous	79
The Araygnement of Paris	1584	George Peele	80
The Mirrour of Modestie	1584	Robert Greene	82
Planetomachia	1585	Robert Greene	87
A Treatise of Melancholy	1586	T. Bright	89
Euphues-Morando	1587	Robert Greene	91
Perimedes-Pandosto	1588	Robert Greene	93
Spanish Masquerado	1589	Robert Greene	94[Pg 13]

The Advancement of Learning	1605
The Shepheards’ Calender	1611
The Faerie Queene	1613
Novum Organum	1620
Parasceve	1620
The History of Henry VII.	1622
Edward Second	1622
The Anatomy of Melancholy	*1628
The New Atlantis	*1635
Sylva Sylvarum	*1635

Richard Second	1598
David and Bethsabe	1599
Midsummer Night’s Dream	1600
Much Ado About Nothing	1600
Sir John Oldcastle	1600
Merchant of Venice	1600
Richard, Duke of York	1600
Treasons of Essex	1601
King Lear	1608
Henry Fifth	1608
Pericles	1609
Hamlet	1611
Titus Andronicus	1611
Richard Second	1615
Merry Wives of Windsor	1619
Whole Contention of York, etc.	1619
Pericles	1619
Yorkshire Tragedy	1619
Romeo and Juliet	(without date)

Ben Jonson’s Plays, Folio	1616
A Quip for an Upstart Courtier	1620

The Shepheards’ Calender	1579
Araygnement of Paris	1584
Mirrour of Modestie	1584
Planetomachia	1585
A Treatise of Melancholy	1586
A Treatise of Mel. (2nd. Ed.)	1586
Euphues	1587
Morando	1587
Perimedes	1588
Spanish Masquerado	1589
Pandosto	1588
Spanish Masq. (2nd Ed.)	1589

THECU	RfEwT	OLlST	HEKNE	LlOfP	ArTiN	GDAYt
HELOW	InGhE	RdWiN	DSSLo	WLyOE	RtHeL	EaThE
PLOUG	HMANh	OMeWA	RdPlO	&c.

· · · · ·	\|	· - · - ·	\|	· · - · ·	\|	· · · · ·	\|	· - · - ·	\|	· - · - ·
a	\|	l	\|	e	\|	a	\|
			(	· · · · -	&c.	)
			(	(b)	&c.	)

“Shall see me rising in my throne,”	R. II.	3-2;
“When I do rouse me in my throne,”	H. V.	1-2;
“But one imperious in another’s throne,”	1 H. VI.	3-1;
“In that throne “Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,”	3 H. VI.	1-1;
“And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?”	3 H. VI.	1-1;
“And see him seated in the regal throne,”	3 H. VI.	4-3;
“Once more we sit in England’s royal throne,”	3 H. VI.	5-7;
“And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne,”	R. III.	2-2;
“We will plant some other in the throne,”	R. III.	3-7;
“You are but newly planted in your throne,”	T. A.	1-1;
“My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne,”	R. & J.	5-1

{	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab
{	AAaa	BBbb	CCcc	DDdd	EEee	FFff
{	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab
{	GGgg	HHhh	JIii	KKkk	LLll	MMmm
{	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab	abab
{	NNnn	OOoo	PPpp	QQqq	RRrr	SSss
{	abab	ababab	abab	abab	abab	abab
{	TTtt	VVvvuu	WWww	XXxx	YYyy	ZZzz

THECU	RfEwT	OLlST	HEKNE	LlOfP	ArTiN	GDAY
OFMAN	SfIrS	TDiSO	BEDIE	NcEaN	DtHeF	RUIT
SINGA	SoNgO	FSiXP	ENCEA	BABfU	LlOfR	YEFO	(ur) &c.

vitij	sCrim	ineNe	mocar	etNem	osort	esuav	ivitc
aabaa	bbbab	aaaab	abaab	abaab	aaaaa	baaaa	baaba
E		B	K	K	A	R	T
onten	tusNe
abaaa	baaab
I	S

itijs	Crimi	neNem	ocare	tNemo	sorte	suavi	vitco
abaab	bbaba	aaaba	baaba	baaba	aaaab	aaaab	aabaa
K		C	T	T	B	B	E
ntent	usNem
baaab	aaabb
S	D

tijsC	rimin	eNemo	caret	Nemos	ortes	uaviv	itcon
baabb	babaa	aabab	aabab	aabaa	aaaba	aaaba	abaab
U	W	F	F	E	C	C	K
tentu	sNemo	inamo	resap	itNem
aaaba	aabba	babba	aabba	bbaaa
C	G	Y	G

ijsCr	imine	Nemoc	aretN	emoso	rtesu	avivi	tcont
aabbb	abaaa	ababa	ababa	abaaa	aabaa	aabaa	baaba
H	I	L	L	I	E	E	T
entus	Nemoi	namor	esapi	tNemo	bonus	Nemos	apien
aabaa	abbab	abbaa	abbab	baaaa	baaba	aabbb	aabaa
E	O	N	O	R	T	H	E
sNemo	estex	omnip	arteb	eatus	&cNic	holas	NemoN
babaa	aaaaa	baaba	aabaa	baaaa	abaaa	aabaa	abbba
W	A	T	E	R	I	E	P
obody	quidv	aleat	NemoN	emore	ferre	potes	tvirs
ababa	aaaaa	abaaa	abbaa	baaab	abbab	aabab	aabbb
L	A	I	N	S	O	F	H
apitq	uipau	caloq	uitur
babba	baaaa	abaaa	aabaa
Y	R	I	E

	Totals.	“a”	“b”
A.	61	25	36
E.	78	58	20
I. J.	51	49	2
M.	49	41	8
N	42	32	10
U. V.	11	9	2
Q.	13	2	11
P.	163	119	44
R.	41	8	33
S.	93	62	31
W.	19	11	8
T.	70	39	31
Y.	13	7	6
K.	71	37	34
L.	68	46	22
F.	78	47	31
B.	99	65	34
D.	74	47	27
H.	24	12	12
O.	24	17	7
G.	25	18	7
C.	152	100	52
	——	——	——
	1,319	851	468

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Concerning the bi-literal cypher of Francis Bacon discovered in his works

Transcriber’s Notes

CONCERNING THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON

ANNOUNCEMENT. THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON,

CONTENTS (OF THIS VOLUME)

CONTENTS.

PERSONAL.

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.

Of the Advancement of Learning.

De Augmentis Scientiarum

PREFACE.

ARGUMENT .OF THE PLAY.

THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON.

BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON.

THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF SIR FRANCIS BACON.

BOOK REVIEWS

BACON-SHAKESPEARE.

FRANCIS BACON’S BI-LITERAL CIPHER.

THE BACONIAN CIPHER[6]—I.

THE BACONIAN CIPHER.—II.

THE BACONIAN CIPHER.—III.

A NEW LIGHT.

THE NEW SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY.

PROS AND CONS OF THE CONTROVERSY

THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF SIR FRANCIS BACON.

BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON.

BACON-SHAKESPEARE.

LITERARY WORLD.

MR. DANA AND “MATTOIDS.”

CORRESPONDENCE IN THE “TIMES”

COMMUNICATIONS TO THE “TIMES.”

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CYPHER.

BACONIAN CYPHER.

FRANCIS BACON AND THE CIPHER.

FRANCIS BACON’S BI-LITERAL CYPHER.

REPLIES TO CRITICISMS.

REPLY TO SIR HENRY IRVING.

THE BI-LITERAL CIPHER IN HENRY VII.

HENRY VII.

A WORD OR TWO ON CANONBURY TOWER.

FOOTNOTES:

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

CONCERNING THE
BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF
FRANCIS BACON

ANNOUNCEMENT.
THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON,

CONTENTS
(OF THIS VOLUME)