Bacon appears also as frequently lamenting the tragic death of his (alleged) brother Robert, Earl of Essex, and in King Lear Mrs. Gallup reads from the Bi-literal Cipher a statement that Essex’s life might have been saved if a signet-ring that he desired to have presented to his mother had reached her: “As hee had beene led to bel’eve he had but to send the ring to her and th’ same would at a mome’t’s warni’g bring rescue or reliefe, he relyed vainly, alas! on this promis’d ayde.... It shal bee well depicted in a play, and you wil be instructted to discypher it fully.”
In Ben Jonson’s Masques, Mrs. Gallup says, she finds among other things this statement in Bacon’s Bi-literal Cipher:
“The next volume will be under W. Shakespeare’s name. As some which have now been produced have borne upon the title-page his name though all are my owne work, I have allow’d it to stand on manie others which I myselfe regard as equal in merite. When I have assum’d men’s names, th’ next step is to create for each a stile naturall to th’ man that yet should [let] my owne bee seene, as a thrid o’ warpe in my entire fabricke soe that it may be all mine.”
In the same work Bacon is represented as saying that Spenser, Greene, Peele and Marlowe have sold him their names. This, it would appear, was not the case with Ben Jonson, of whom he speaks as his friend, and the implication is that Jonson knew what Bacon was doing with regard to the others.
Several times Bacon is made to refer to the murder of Amy Robsart, the Earl of Leicester’s wife, of whom he intimates, as rumor has long done, that the Earl wished to rid himself in order to marry Elizabeth.
The stories of his royal birth, of his love for Marguerite of Navarre, and all the rest of the tale are repeated again and again from the various books in which the Cipher is said to lie. Frequently Bacon appeals to the unknown decipherer whom he trusts some future time to produce, urging him to spare no pains to unearth the hidden things and promising him undying fame for his labor.
Among other things alleged to be contained in Bacon’s Ciphers are translations of Homer and of Virgil, part of which, in resounding blank verse, Mrs. Gallup publishes in her book. And some of her critics aver that it bears evidence of having been based upon Pope’s translation of the Iliad, because it contains names and descriptions that Pope introduced without any warrant from Homer.
It is strongly urged by some of Mrs. Gallup’s critics that if Bacon wished to tell such a story as is here put in his mouth he would never have done it in so cumbrous a fashion, but would simply have written it down and placed it under seal, in trustworthy hands, to be opened and read by posterity. But if, in spite of such objections, the existence of the Cipher should be proved, the question would then arise: “Who did put it there, if Bacon didn’t, and for what end?”