Concerning the bi-literal cypher of Francis Bacon discovered in his works

by Elizabeth Wells Gallup

This section is fully explained to be but an epitome—argument, Bacon calls it—of the chief events, with the names of the principal characters, to be used as a guide and framework of the fuller translation. The complete poem is embodied in the works and is to be extracted by means of the word-cipher, a very different method. Our critic also repeats the baseless aspersion made by Mr. Marston that the Argument is a prose paraphrase of Pope’s translation. I have, in replying to Mr. Marston’s criticism of my work, fully refuted this charge, and I repeat that it is wholly without foundation.

That our critic understands little of the books he reviews, is apparent in his reference to the method of constructing the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, and this requires that I again explain the difference of method in the two ciphers. The bi-literal is in the Italic letters of the original volumes—in two founts or forms of type—and has been extracted letter by letter, separated into cipher groups of five, and the result set down. The word-cipher is much more elaborate, and consists in a reconstructing of the history, poem, or drama that had been disseminated through the works. Words, phrases, and passages, pertaining to the same subject, are brought together by the keys and joining-words, and in this new sequence relate an entirely different story. Yet this interior history is the original. If our critic had thoroughly read the introductory pages of the Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, he would have understood that the lines were taken bodily from Henry VIII—and the 107 other works—in accordance with this clear and definite plan. The “argument” or synopsis, 'framework’ if he pleases, of this Tragedy of Anne Boleyn, is given in the Biliteral Cypher to aid in collecting the scattered passages, as the Argument of the Iliad is given to aid in gathering the scattered fragments of the fuller translation of the great Greek poem. Some of the fragments of this work are in the text of the Anatomy of Melancholy, but it is seldom that many consecutive lines are found there. The following will however be recognized:—“Pandarus, Lycaon’s son, when he shot at Menelaus the Grecian with a strong arm and deadly arrow, Pallas as a good mother keeps flies from her child’s face asleep, turned by the shaft, and made it hit on the buckle of his girdle.”—Part. ii, Sect, iii, Mem. iii. Many of the proper names are also found in the Anatomy of Melancholy. These fragments of the Iliad are scattered throughout all the works, but the largest portions are to be found in Greene’s prose. I am explicit regarding this because so few understand that Bacon refers to the poem in the word-cipher, when he mentions works that contain portions of Homer.

Some writers, too, who have become acquainted with Bacon’s bi-literal cipher, are not equally familiar with the word-cipher, although it is mentioned in the Advancement of Learning (1605) in the first lines of the paragraph on ciphers: “For Cyphers they are commonly in Letters or Alphabets but may be in Wordes.” Bacon chose an epistle of Cicero for the illustration of the bi-literal, and it appears that it was in that philosopher’s writings that he found the suggestion of the word-cipher plan, for he says: “And Cicero himselfe being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainely; That whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speak of, (if he will take the paines) he may have it in effect premediate, and handled in these. So that when hee commeth to a particular, he shall have nothing to doe but to put too Names, and times, and places; and such other Circumstances of individuals.”

Bacon saw how the lines of history, or drama, or translation could be separated and used in more than one place, and his invention consisted in the use of certain key-words that marked the passages belonging together. By making use of these in the original works, and taking the work apart by the same keys that must be used in reassembling the portions, his idea was successfully carried out. To guard against mistakes, and to make the work less laborious to the decipherer, he gave short “arguments” of the hidden work, as well as the keys, in this auxiliary bi-literal cipher.

It is an error, then, to suppose that the sections are not brought together “in any rational order.”

It would of course be possible to give the entire interior play or poem in a single work, but this was not Bacon’s plan; and he adopted a very ingenious manner of directing the decipherer by guide-words to the different works, containing the scattered sections.

This disseminating of the original work that was to be brought together again by this cipher, caused the anachronisms in the plays—the dispersing of the Armada in King John, Cleopatra’s billiards, artillery before it was in use, etc.—but it enabled him to hide his principal and dangerous history, as well as other important writings, to be collected again at a safe distance of time and place, and the end justified the means.

Elizabeth Wells Gallup.

MR. DANA AND “MATTOIDS.”

Ed. N. Y. Times, Saturday Review: