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 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:
“As in the ocean wide,
A driving wind from the northwest comes forth
With force resistless, and the swelling waves
Succeed so fast that scarce an eye may see