THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF SIR FRANCIS BACON.
A NEW LIGHT ON A FEW OLD BOOKS.
By Elizabeth Wells Gallup.
[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.].
Pall Mall Magazine, March, 1902.
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 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 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 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,
Jewels five words long
That on the stretched forefinger of all Time
Sparkle for ever,
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.
The deciphering has been from the following original editions in my possession:
| 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 |
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.
*These three bear dates after Bacon’s death, and were undoubtedly completed by Dr. Rawley, his secretary, whose explanation regarding them is found on pages 339-340 of the Bi-literal Cypher.
In the Boston Library I obtained:
| 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) |
From the choice library of John Dane, M.D., Boston:
| The Treasons of Essex | 1601 |
| Vitae et Mortis | 1623 |
From the library of Marshall C. Lefferts, of New York, I had:
| Ben Jonson’s Plays, Folio | 1616 |
| A Quip for an Upstart Courtier | 1620 |
From the Lenox Library, New York:
| Midsummer Night’s Dream | 1600 |
| Sir John Oldcastle | 1600 |
| London Prodigal | 1605 |
| Pericles | 1619 |
| Yorkshire Tragedy | 1619 |
| The Whole Contention, etc. | 1619 |
| Shakespeare, first folio | 1623 |
and from Mrs. Pott, of London, England:
| Ben Jonson’s Plays | 1616 |
| De Augmentis Scientiarum | 1624 |
During the five months spent at the British Museum:
| 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 |
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 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:
“Wearie of aged Tithones saffron bed,
Had spreade, through dewy ayre her purple robe.
“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:
“There lay thereby an huge greate stone, which stood
Upon one end, and had not many a day
Removed beene—a signe of sundrie wayes—
This Hector snatch’d and with exceeding sway.” (p. 169.)
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:
“The wretched man, at his imperious speech,
Was all abashed, and there he sudden stay’d,
While in his eyes stood tears of bitterness.
The resounding of the sea upon the shore
Beats with an echo to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortur’d soul.
Apart upon his knees that aged sire
Pray’d much unto Latona’s lordly son:
“Hear, hear, O hear, god of the silver bow!
Who’rt wont Chrysa and Cilla to protect,
And reignest in this island Tenedos,
If ever I did honour thee aright,
Thy graceful temple aiding to adorn,
Or if, moreover, I at any time
Have burn’d to thee fat thighs of bulls and goats,
Do one thing for me that I shall entreat—
O Phœbus, with thy shafts avenge these tears.”
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:
To whom Atrides did this answer frame:
“Full true thou speak’st and like thyself, yet, though
Thou speakest truth, methinks thou speak’st not well.
It is because no one should sway but he
He’s angry with the gods that any man
Goeth before him; he would be above the clouds,
His fortune’s master and the king of men,
And here is none, methinks, disposed to yield:
For though the gods do chance him to appoint
To be a warriour and command a camp,
Inserting courage in his noble heart,
Do they give right to utter insults here?”
There interrupting him, noble Achilles
Answer’d the king in few words: “Ay forsooth!
I should be thought a coward, Agamemnon,
A man of no estimation in the world,
If what you will I humbly yield unto,
And when you say, 'Do this,’ it is perform’d.
I, for my part—let others as they list,—
I will not thus be fac’d and overpeer’d.
Do not think so, you shall not find it so:
Some other seek that may with patience strive
With thee, Atrides; thou shalt rule no more
O’er me.”
The transalation by George Chapman, Book I., page 20, line 11, reads:
“All this, good father,” said the king, “is comely and good right;
But this man breaks all such bounds; he affects, past all men, height;
All would in his power hold, all make his subjects, give to all
His hot will for their temperate law: all which he never shall
Persuade at my hands. If the gods have given him the great style
Of ablest soldier, made they that his license to revile
Men with vile language?” Thetis’ son prevented him, and said:
“Fearful and vile I might be thought, if the exactions laid
By all means on me I should bear. Others command to this,
Thou shalt not me; or if thou dost, far my free spirit is
From serving thy command.”
The translation by William Cullen Bryant, book 1, page 13, line 22, reads:
To him the sovereign Agamemnon said:
“The things which thou hast uttered, aged chief,
Are fitly spoken; but this man would stand
Above all others; he aspires to be
The master, over all to domineer,
And to direct in all things; yet, I think
There may be one who will not suffer this,
For if by favor of the immortal gods,
He was made brave, have they for such a cause
Given him the liberty of insolent speech?”
Hereat the great Achilles, breaking in,
Answered: “Yea, well might I deserve the name
Of coward and of wretch, should I submit
In all things to do thy bidding. Such commands
Lay thou on others, not on me; nor think
I shall obey thee longer.”
The translation by William Sotheby, M. R. S. L., book 1, page 16, line 21, runs as follows:
“Wise is thy counsel”—Atreus’ son reply’d—
“Well thy persuasive voice might Grecia guide,
But this—this man must stretch o’er all his sway,
All must observe his will, his beck obey,
All hang on him—such, such o’erweening pride,
Rage as he may, by me shall be defy’d.
The gods, who to his arm its prowess gave,
Loose they his scornful tongue at will to rave?”
Him interrupting, fierce Pelides said:
“Be on my willing brow dishonor laid,
If I—whate’er thy wish—whate’er thy will,
Imperious tyrant!—thy command fulfil.
O’er others rule; by others be obeyed;
No more Achilles deigns the Atridae aid.”
The Earl of Derby’s translation, book 1, page 16, line 12, reads:
To whom the monarch, Agamemnon, thus:
“Oh, father, full of wisdom are thy words;
But this proud chief o’er all would domineer;
O’er all he seeks to rule, o’er all to reign,
To all dictate, which I will not bear,
Grant that the gods have giv’n him warlike might;
Gave they unbridled license to his tongue?”
To whom Achilles, interrupting thus:
“Coward and slave I might indeed be deemed,
Could I submit to make thy word my law;
To others thy commands; seek not to me
To dicate, for I follow thee no more.”
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, 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.”