We had intended to produce much corroborative evidence which, though we now find it superfluous, we believe would have been interesting. The exigencies of space again prevent us. One piece, however, is so curious that we feel sure our readers will pardon us if we produce it. We can vouch for the fact that it was unknown to our authoress when the statement it corroborates was deciphered. In the north of London there is still standing a square building of red brick, dating from the reign of Henry VIII., which is known as Canonbury Tower. That in no history of the tower, nor in any life of Bacon is mention made of its being connected with him, is only one of the numerous instances of the mystery which always meets us when we try to search deeper into the life of Francis Bacon. Yet research at one of the public libraries has recently elicited the fact that he took a lease of it for ninety-nine years, that he lived there for some time, apparently in charge of the Princes Henry and Charles, sons of James I., and that he was actually living there at the time he received the seals.
Close under the ceiling, on the wall, in a dark corner of a passage in the Tower, is painted an inscription consisting of the Sovereigns of England from the Conquest. The names are mostly abbreviated, and with one exception follow each other in the recognized order. But between Elizabeth and James stands, in the same way as the other abbreviations, Fr. No explanation of this interpolation appeared until the deciphered story brought to light the facts that Queen Elizabeth was secretly married to the Earl of Leicester, and that the great man whom we have known as Francis Bacon was in reality her first-born son, and therefore the true, though unacknowledged, heir to the throne.
We must not conclude without a slight tribute, not the less sincere that it must of necessity be brief, to the merits of Mrs. Gallup’s brilliant discovery, and the patient diligence with which she has gradually unrolled the cerements and brought to light one by one truths so long buried. We feel almost tempted to envy the feelings which must have swept over her as the first sentence came to light from its cipher tomb. They must have been such as stirred the soul of Columbus when, after the long night of impatient expectation, the light of morning broke and revealed to his triumphant gaze the shores of the new continent. Let us frankly confess our gratitude to our authoress, who has enabled us to feel once more the “touch of a vanished hand,” to hear once more “the sound of a voice that is still”—a hand that was ever stretched down from lofty height to help and raise humanity, a voice that will ring trumpet-tongued through all ages—the hand and voice of one who “had an aspect as if he pitied men.”
The reference to Canonbury Tower, by Mr. Fulcher, renders the following quotations from a late number of “Baconiana” of especial interest, as tracing the history of this ancient and historic pile. The building is in a good state of preservation. The lines are in an obscure part of the building but are plainly observable, as was verified by a personal examination on the part of Mrs. Gallup, in November last. It is one of the interesting corroborations which are accumulating, and now being understood in the light of the cipher disclosures, going to show that Francis was entitled to a place in the line of England’s kings.
A NEW LIGHT.
ON THE BACON—SHAKESPEARE CYPHER.
The Nineteenth Century and After.—London.