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

by Elizabeth Wells Gallup

Sir:—We may hope that, the truth in this matter may be established now that The Times is seriously facing the problem, even though at first your sympathies lean heavily against what Baconians conceive to be the truth.

May I ask your contributor who has been investigating the Cipher whether, apart from defects and irregularities in Mrs. Gallup’s interpretation, he has found any fairly considerable number of cipher words to correspond with her interpretation. No one could weave the cipher into a mass of print without making a multitude of mistakes. In ordinary handwriting we most of us slur over scores of the letters we intend to form legibly, but if our readers can read the majority and see what we mean they do not reject the whole because of the defective bits. Of course the double types confuse the perfection of the Cipher, but Bacon seems to have deliberately aimed at confusion, fearing premature discovery. Thus some cipher students tell me that after getting on fairly well for a time, they will suddenly find that, though the two kinds of type still appear, there is no sense to be made of them, until they discover that, from the appearance of a particular mark until its reappearance, the significance of the a and b founts is reversed. With this clue, that which was at first confusion becomes luminous with sense again. But, though no newcomer to the work can hope to read the Cipher successfully throughout, if a newcomer finds, for example, that he can identify four or five out of every dozen words that Mrs. Gallup can identify, surely that will dismiss the theory that such identities can be accidental to the region in which chances are expressed by millions to one against accident. For the rest, of course, Mrs. Gallup may have arbitrarily interpreted diphthongs and double types to suit the sense of the passage, as any one in dealing with writing would interpret a scrawl at the end of a word as sometimes meaning “ing,” sometimes “ly,” according to sense. Or when she has found a long word like (say) “interpretation” to come out—i, n, then a group of five letters you can make nothing of, then r, p, and the rest of the word right, of course she puts down the whole word “interpretation.” Or perhaps the latter half of the word will come out right only by curtailing some previous group of some of its proper letters; then, of course, the sensible thing to do is to curtail them accordingly. That is the principle to be adopted if we want to get at truth; and if we find i, n, right and p, r, e, t, a, t, i, o, n right, it would surely be silly to cavil at the absence of the t, e, r, or at any sort of confusion in the beginning. . . .

“Apart from the Cipher,” there are floods of reasons for disbelieving that Shakespeare could have written the Plays. Genius, alowing that hypothesis, might have given him lofty and beautiful thoughts, but no genius would have given him detailed familiarity with Chancery law and foreign languages, nor with the contents of Bacon’s commonplace book, which must have been in the possession of the author of the Plays. But it is miserably unjust to the arguments on the Baconian side to hint at them in such few words as these. The “ignorance” in this connection is to be found rather amongst those who idly accept the old tradition than in the camp of those who are endeavouring to clear from foul slanders the memory of one whom they regard as the greatest Englishman who ever lived and the rightful sovereign of our literary allegiance. We make a formidable claim on such men as Mr. Sidney Lee when we ask them to abandon a tradition around which they have woven a great mass of ingenious imagination in the effort to account for that which Emerson found unaccountable—the contrast between the little that is actually known of Shakespeare and the works assigned to him. “Other admirable men have led lives in some sort of keeping with their thought, but this man in wide contrast.” But the glory of leading the homage that has so long been misdirected to the right shrine will surely be worth the sacrifice.

A. P. Sinnett.

27, Leinster-gardens, W., Dec. 26, 1901.

FRANCIS BACON’S BI-LITERAL CYPHER.

Surprise has been expressed that I have not more fully replied to the many severe and unjust criticisms of my work—the discovery and publication of the Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon. On account of great distance causing lapse of time, the torrent of communications, which deluged the Times and other papers and magazines in London, had somewhat subsided before my replies to any could be returned to England, but the delay, although by no fault of ours and unavoidable, has not been due to distance alone.

The Times published two short letters with fair promptness. The Literary World gave space to two others, replying to articles appearing in its own columns; and the Daily News, of April 30, contained a part of my answer to Sir Henry Irving. An article in reply to some of the critics, prepared for the Pall Mall Magazine, could not, from prearrangement of space, appear until May—a rather late date. The delay was the more regretted because the article on the general subject, published in the March number of the same magazine, was prepared and sent forward before the criticisms of the latter part of December and January had reached me, and, though following shortly after, was in no way a reply.

In the January number of the Nineteenth Century and After, there appeared two articles of attack upon the Cypher, one by Mr. Candler, and one by Mr. R. B. Marston. Mr. Marston, I understand, is a member of the firm publishing the magazine. His article was a continuation of the unfounded and libelous charges appearing in the Publishers’ Circular and in the Times concerning myself and my work. I replied at length and forwarded the articles to Messrs. Gay & Bird, under date of February 5th, desiring that the denial of these charges should be given equal prominence. Electrotype plates were forwarded for illustration of the technical portions. Plates for fac-simile pages from the two editions of De Augmentis, affording most interesting illustration of the method of the cipher and of the differences between the editions of 1623 and 1624, were also furnished. I am now advised by Messrs. Gay & Bird that the Nineteenth Century, the Contemporary Review, and the Times, have declined to publish any part of these articles.

This must be my apology for now issuing in pamphlet form what was prepared for the public periodicals and should have appeared months ago as part of the discussion of the subject that is of interest to a large number of readers. The reluctance of the press in general, to print anything Baconian is well illustrated in this refusal of my critics to give place to my replies. I do not think it should be considered a waste of space to discuss discoveries that correct history in important particulars. The cipher is a fact, and cannot be ignored. It is neither imagination nor creation of mine. It is a part of the history of England, and effort should be directed to further investigations along the lines it indicates—to search among old MSS., in the museums and libraries and in the archives of the government, for other facts which in the light of the cipher revelations will be better understood than they have been in the past.