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.