The Little Cryptogram / A Literal Application to the Play of Hamlet of the Cipher System of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly. - Joseph Gilpin Pyle

A worthy foole: Motley’s the onely weare.”

AS YOU LIKE IT: II., 7.

Saint Paul.
The Pioneer Press Co.
1888.

Author’s Note.

A considerable portion of the contents of these pages appeared first as an editorial article in the Pioneer Press. By request of many friends, this practical application of Mr. Donnelly’s cipher system to six pages of Hamlet is presented, revised and enlarged, to the general public.

J. G. P.

The Little Cryptogram.

“The Great Cryptogram,” the monumental work in which Mr. Ignatius Donnelly essays to prove that the so-called Shakespeare plays contain a cipher story, discoverable by a system which he has worked out with infinite labor, is at last in the hands of an expectant public. No book so thoroughly advertised has appeared for many a year. For months and months the eye has been assailed by paragraphs and pages in the literature of two worlds, contending for or against the existence in the Shakespeare plays of a cipher that would assign the honor of their authorship to Lord Bacon. It has been admitted on all sides, and declared by Mr. Donnelly himself, that the appearance of this volume would rid the world of a delusion forever, and stamp the successful explorer of the mystery with undying fame, or write him down as the most daring and stupendous literary fraud that all the ages have produced. The author has challenged the test. It is his due that the results of his labor should have a candid and impartial investigation.

Those who are interested in knowing whether “The Great Cryptogram” is a record of discovery or a record of ingenious and plausible invention may pass quickly over the first book of the volume, which deals with “The Argument,” because in this Mr. Donnelly does not lay claim to originality. It is devoted to a careful and systematic marshaling of the circumstantial evidence used in the past to prove that the historical Shakespeare did not write the plays commonly ascribed to him. There is, as every literary man knows, a great deal of evidence that will pass muster under this head. There is an inconsistency between such fragments of a life of Shakespeare as have come down to us, and the experiences and the acquirements which we should declare indispensable to the writing of that matchless drama. It is dwelt upon but lightly here; not because any part of Mr. Donnelly’s work should be slighted, but because it is the cipher discovery by which he must stand or fall. For the same reason it will be unnecessary to deal with the historical objections, equally numerous and unanswerable, to the theory of Baconian authorship. That Mr. Donnelly has made out a plausible and not unreasonable case, no one will deny. As a collector and editor of the works of others; as a curator of the museum in which patches and shreds of fact and theory, gathered from diverse sources, are to be arranged and classified in orderly succession, Mr. Donnelly is a master. His “Atlantis” and “Ragnarok” gave proof of a marvelous memory and a rare ability to dovetail disconnected and discordant facts into a homogeneous whole, such as few can equal. Able to forget what does not accord with his preconceived theory, blessed with a memory as serviceable in dismissing as in retaining, and thoroughly possessed, for the time being, with a conviction that he is pursuing truth, he is the most dexterous of workmen. It is only natural, therefore, that his cumulative evidence from history and fable and gossip should be well presented. He has browsed in the pastures of Delia Bacon and Judge Holmes and Appleton Morgan and Mrs. Potts. He has republished the best of their work, joining the crevices skillfully, and the reader will find himself entertained if not converted by this argument, which occupies more than half of the bulky volume devoted to the cryptogram. This, however, is a well-trodden field. These arguments are but a rehearsal of the clever counsel’s brief. Not to these, but to the Cæsar of the cipher, has Mr. Donnelly appealed for judgment. To the cipher and its mathematical demonstrations he shall go.