Concerning the bi-literal cypher of Francis Bacon discovered in his works

by Elizabeth Wells Gallup

THE COURT JOURNAL.

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 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.”

THE BACONIAN CIPHER.—III.

By Fleming Fulcher.

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 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 remaining conclusion: That Francis Bacon did put a cipher into his printed works; that Mrs. Gallup has discovered it and has translated it.