REPLIES TO CRITICISMS.
Elizabeth Wells Gallup.
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.
REPLY TO MR. CANDLER.
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.
HISTORY.
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 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?
LANGUAGE.
Under Language, Mr. Candler makes five subdivisions.
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.”
This first objection is answered by himself, but in this connection he states:
“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 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., “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.”
From the Shakespeare plays we have,
——“we see
The waters swell before a boyst’rous storme.”—Rich. III.
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.
“'Hand and glove,’ p. 359. Earliest instance in Murray, 1680.
“'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.
ARITHMETICAL PUZZLES.
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, 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.
GEOGRAPHY.
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.
BACON’S POETRY.
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 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; 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.
REPLY TO MR. MARSTON.
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:
“There be some Sports are painfull and their labor—” Tem. 3-1-1.
These words occur in the cipher story, as in the plays, spelled both ways.[9]
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 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 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 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.
FOUNTS USED
| { | 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 |
Passage to be deciphered.
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
Grouping in fives as the words stand, we have:
| 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 | ||||||
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:
| 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 | ||||||
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.
Omitting another letter we have:
| 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 | ||||
Another trial commences with the fourth letter, and the groups are:
| 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 | ||||
DECIPHERED PASSAGE
None of these groups begins with two b's, and the resulting letters spell out the line quoted,
h i l l i e e t e o n o r t h e w a t e r i e p l a i n s o f h y r i e
Hillie Eteon or the waterie plains of Hyrie.
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.
Mr. Marston quotes another passage as evidence that I have “copied Pope”:
“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.
De Augmentis Scientiarum. London Edition, 1623.
Plate i.
Plate ii.
Plate iii.
Plate iv.
De Augmentis Scientiarum. Paris Edition, 1624.
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 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?”