Sir:—It is unnecessary to explain again the principles of the cipher I have set forth. Mr. Fulcher, Mr. Sinnett, Mr. Mallock, Mr. John Holt Schooling, the critic of the Literary World, and others, have done this with sufficient elaboration. Then, too, in De Augmentis Scientiarum they are fully illustrated and clearly taught by the great inventor himself.
Few realize that Bacon’s own explanation was withheld until the very last of his career. Without the key, the cipher could not have been discovered, and in that lay his safety. In that, too, the importance of the cipher was shown, for in stating that he invented it in his youth, and explaining the same in his age, he set his seal upon it, so to speak, as something useful and worthy of preservation.
And again, there is that very marked reference to this cipher in the 1605 edition of the Advancement of Learning—that “quintuple proportion required in no other”—so that a summary gives us: Invented 1579, mentioned 1605, illustrated 1623, employed a lifetime before it was explained, as I have now proved true by actual decipherment from fifty-five different books.
The critic states: “With respect to the Shakespeare Folio of 1623, Mr. Sidney Lee, the final authority, declares that no cipher exists in it. On this point, having examined a large number of detached passages up and down the volume, we can bear subsidiary testimony. Not but what there are many individual non-normal letters,” etc.
These 'individual non-normal letters’ can be separated into two distinct classes. The practical application of Bacon’s invention was merely a selection of the different forms as far as they existed, and the production of others where there was a lack. In the cipher, this is clearly stated. There was no impropriety in such an adaptation—of forms already existing—so long as in their use there was uniformity throughout each work.
Our critic says, “Nothing is more frequent than such mixtures in books,” but there should also be added, what I have learned to be true, that in Bacon’s works the different founts were used with a system, have a rational dependence and connection, demonstrating the incorporation of the bi-literal cipher. He admits there was a careless use of the initial and interior forms, especially of the small v and w.
This very fact assured Bacon that their methodical employment would pass unnoticed. One form is consistently used as an 'a fount’ letter, and the other as b, unless there be a printer’s error, in which case it is easily corrected by the context.
Our critic further states: “The book contains nearly 400 pages ... which must equal more than three million cipher letters, distributed it is asserted, over numerous old books printed in different years, by different printers,” etc., and that “to deal reliably with the supposed 'normal’ and 'twin’ fonts requires a special training and experience.”
His estimate is approximately correct. Having examined with the care that was requisite—usually with a magnifying glass—every letter in that 'three million,’ may I not say I am “fitted by experience” to differentiate the forms, and that I know whereof I speak?
I make no claim to genius but the 'genius of hard work,’ nor to inspiration except that coming from success which gave me courage to persevere.