As it happened, similar printers’ errors occurred in one of Mr. Mallock’s examples in the Nineteenth Century—the passage from De Augmentis in which he concealed his own couplet: “The star of Shakespeare, etc.”—and that work was done by twentieth-century printers, of Mr. Mallock’s own selection; The passage he quotes, printed in the two forms of types, cannot be deciphered as printed on account of an error in the tenth group, and a few letters used from wrong founts. I have sent Mr. Mallock the correction; but I have been wondering since whether it were not incorporated intentionally, to test my powers of observation, for after the tenth group the rest of the passage is simply impossible to read in bi-literal cipher, until the short group is detected and a new division made. I cannot think Mr. Mallock made these mistakes in marking his MS. Some errors exist in our own work, which have been discovered since publication, and may quite possibly be found by those who study the book.
Printers and “Digraphs.”
6. “In the period when the writings under discussion were published, printers made a liberal use of digraphs, such as 'ft,’ 'fh,’ 'ct,’ 'fl,’ etc. (In one page of 24 lines, from which Mrs. Gallup derives her cipher narrative, there are 26 digraphs.) With regard to the deciphering of these, Mrs. Gallup suggests no rules and obeys no laws.”
Again this is erroneous in the last clause. I quote from a preceding paragraph of this correspondent’s own article, regarding Bacon’s treatment of the digraph, as follows: “In the example which he gave of the enfolding of such a cipher in a portion of one of Cicero’s letters, he printed an æ (diphthong), occuring in the Latin word 'cæteris,’ not as a diphthong at all, but as two separate letters—ae. Similarly, he caused the ordinary digraph 'ct,’ invariably printed in one type in those days, to be printed as two separate letters—ct, showing, I think conclusively, that in his cipher, as applied to printing, digraphs must be—treated separately.” Our “Correspondent” says “digraphs must be kept out of the print,” but it is a wrong inference. These diphthongs and digraphs must be compared with one another, not with single letters, but the parts are to be considered separately. They will each be found to have distinctive features, and a decipherer who has become at all expert will at once determine their proper classification.
Roman Types.
7. “In certain specific instances, Mrs. Gallup’s deciphering is arithmetically incorrect, or must be helped out with the help of an arbitrary employment of Roman types—on occasion even this device will not avail to produce the requisite number of letters for her alleged cipher message.”
For the specific instances where Roman type is used, Bacon’s instructions are found on pp. 66-67 of the Bi-literal Cypher, which “Correspondent” has evidently overlooked. I have used this passage on another occasion, but will quote again, as others have stumbled over the same difficulty:
“In order to conceale my Cypher more perfectly, I am preparing for th’ purpose a sette of alphabets in th’ Latine tipe, not for use in th’ greatest or lengthy story or epistle, but as another disguise, for, in ensample, a prologue, præfatio, the epilogues, and headlines attracted too much notice. Noe othe’ waie of diverting th’ curious could be used where th’ exterior epistle is but briefe, however it will not thus turne aside my decipherer, for his eye is too well practis’d in artes that easily misleade others who enquire th’ waye.”
I found Roman type used in such places, and the differences in the letters are quite distinct, but no use was made of this new device, so far as I have found, until 1623, when it appeared in the First Folio, and in Vitae et Mortis.
An incident, for the moment mortifying, occurred in Boston, by which I discovered an error of our printers in the first edition issued. Those having copies of the first edition will notice the word “Baron” is left out of the signature, which reads in the later edition Francis, Baron of Verulam (p. 166), deciphered from the short poem signed “I. M.” in the Shakespeare Folio. When I visited Boston to continue my researches, friends previously interested in my work mentioned the difficulty they had in trying to decipher, as I did, this portion. I remarked the Roman letters must be used; to which they replied the number of Italic letters corresponded with the number of groups required, but the groups would not “read.” Upon deciphering it again, in the presence of these people, I found the word Baron had been dropped out in the printing, and the error was corrected in the second edition.