I replied to this in a former communication to the Times, stating that in some old books of the period similar founts of type in two or more forms are used; that I have endeavoured to find the cipher in some of these, but found the forms were used promiscuously, without method, and the differences could not be classified to produce, when separated into “groups of five,” words and sentences in the bi-literal cipher. But this has no direct bearing on the subject. As Bacon’s invention consisted in making use (by slight alteration) of varieties and forms of type then, as now, in common use, he would have nothing to do with the introduction of the forms, their general use, or continuance. He employed a method by which two forms were arranged in a definite way, to serve his purpose in his own publications, while the method would be absolutely beyond discovery without the key. This key he withheld until 1623. We now know that Bacon used this method from 1579 to the end of his career, and that Rawley employed it until 1635 for cipher purposes. How much later it was used I have been unable to learn, that being the latest date of my deciphering.
“Confined to Few Types.”
3. “These differences, in so far as they are well marked, uniform, and coherent, appear to be confined to very few types—in the case of Shakespeare’s plays (first, second, and third folios, 1623, 1632, 1661) to some ten or twelve at most of the capital letters.”
This is incorrect, as I have observed in replying to Objection 1. But starting with twelve capitals, there is half that alphabet. The others can be found by closer observation. Many of the small letters are as well marked in some of the types, not only in the First Folio, but especially in the Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh (1622), and in the first edition of De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623).
Differences Due to Various Causes.
4. He states: “Apart from such well-defined differences, there are to be observed in the Italic types of the period innumerable and unclassifiable differences of form, due, it would seem, to many contributory causes, such as defective manufacture, broken face, careless locking of formes (involving bad alignment or improper inclination of individual letters), bad ink, bad paper, and the great age of the impression.”
It is true there are differences that are not the distinctive differences governing their use, but it is very rarely indeed that a letter is found that is not paired with another, which, though like in some respects, is unlike in certain definite features. It involves no more difficulty to find how a number of letters similar, yet with certain distinctive differences, are to be separated into two classes, than to distinguish in the same way a number of letters in entirely different forms. Bacon himself speaks of the multi- or bi-formed type. We have difficulties arising from very natural causes, but there are none that cannot be overcome with time and patient study.
Mr. Mallock’s Examples.
5. “Mrs. Gallup’s manipulation of these minor differences follows no clear and consistent rule or rules; so that types of many differing characteristics are classed by her as belonging to one fount, while others closely resembling each other are classed by her as belonging to two different founts on different occasions.”
This is erroneous. There is no “manipulation,” and the rules are consistent. In a few instances the same kinds of letters are wrongly marked as a and b because of printers’ errors, which are detected by methods elsewhere more specifically set out, or they may be changed in value by a peculiar mark, as explained on the first page of the deciphered work from Henry Seventh. Printers’ errors are not infrequent in the works. They are found in Bacon’s own illustration in De Augmentis Scientiarum (1624), e.g. In conquiesti, line 5, and in quos, line 10, the letter q is from the “b fount.” It should be an “a-fount” letter, and was so printed in the first or “London edition” (1623). An l in line 12, and another in line 14, is from the wrong fount. There is also an error in grouping in the 1624 edition, which does not occur in the 1623.