These instructions as to the method of enumeration being premised, particular attention is called to the extreme simplicity of the Hamlet cipher as compared with the key to Henry IV; which is as profusely numbered as the hairs of the righteous. This table shows at a glance, as will be seen by comparison with the following cipher narrative, all the numbers used in combination to produce the secret story which the author has discovered.

Of Donnelly’s root numbers 516, 523
Of Donnelly’s modifiers 30, 50, 198
Page numbers from Hamlet 273, 274, 276
Roman words, p. 273, col. 2 306
″ ″ ″ 274, ″ 1 397
″ ″ ″ 276, ″ 1 423

By combining these in different ways, adding or subtracting at pleasure as Mr. Donnelly does, the number of italicized, bracketed and hyphenated words separately, and reserving the right which he claims liberally to increase or decrease the result by 1 arbitrarily, there is obtained in every case the number indicating the given word on each page, reading from top or bottom as the case may be, in its appropriate column. If there is anything wrong with the result, the fault must lie with Lord Bacon and the Great Cryptogram. Here is what the cipher, so amazingly simple in its convolutions, cries out across the centuries since Bacon died to the unbeliever of to-day:

WORD Page and Col.
523-273= 250 273:2 Don
276÷6= 46 276:2 nill he,} Donnelly
523-306=217 273-217=56+30=86-50=36-2i= 34 273:2 the
523-273=250 516-250=266+2i= 268 273:2 author,
523-306=217 274-217=57-2h= 55 274:2 politician
523-50=473-273= 200 273:2 and
523-397=126+276=402-50= 352 276:1 mountebanke,
523-274=249+50=299-4b=295-2b= 293 274:1 will
No. words p. 274, col. 1= 395 275:2 worke
516+50=566-273=293-30= 263 273:2 out
523+50=573-397=176-30=146-5h= 141 274:2 the
516-306=210-198=12+10i= 22 274:1 secret
523-397=126-1= 125 274:2 of
523-274=249 306-249=57+11i+1= 69 274:1 this
516-423=93+50=143-2i=141-1h=140-1= 139 276:1 play.
523-274=249-30=219-2h-1= 216 274:2 The
523+30=553-423= 130 278:2 Sage
523-397=126+30=156-2h= 154 274:2 is
523-274=249+5h=254-1= 253 274:2 a
516-274=242+50=292+5h+1= 298 274:2 daysie.

The nineteenth century world may well close its ears to tales of Cecil’s envy and Shakespeare’s gout, and the wrath of the red-haired queen, to listen to the voice of Bacon, saying “Donnelly, the author, politician and mountebanke, will worke out the secret of this play. The Sage is a daysie.”

Columns might be filled in an attempt to notice all the ingenuities of this work. For instance, the bringing in of Ophelia with her flowers, her “rosemary” and “rue,” and her “pansies for thoughts,” solely to introduce the quaint word “daysie;” in order that Lord Bacon might tell his opinion of his great discoverer and defender, in language that would fit the ears of this modern and slangy age. Nor is it possible to do more than barely mention that there can be no difficulty in finding the whole life history of Mr. Donnelly in “Hamlet” and other plays. No doubt the cipher, applied more fully to the pages already considered, would recount his diversions in Minnesota politics. And he is mentioned elsewhere. In “Titus Andronicus,” for example, we have “d’on,” and repeatedly afterward, “kneel.” Still more marked is the reference in Henry V. A French boy is lugged into that play for no purpose but to jabber a language unfamiliar to and hated by an English audience of that day. His “donne,” “donner,” “donnerai,” are repeated, parrot-like, to weariness, obviously to fix attention on that prominent syllable, “don.” And then, but a few pages away, we have, “He is married to Nell Quickly;” “And shall my Nell keep lodgers?” This is no accident, for accident is unknown to the so-called Shakespearian drama. “Don Nell,” “Nell Quickly,” over and over again, are very mileposts leading to the name of Donnelly, and to a cipher story that will reveal to the curious the inwardness of his career. It is no trifle to work out the cipher. To unearth a sentence, especially if you are at all particular as to what that sentence should say, requires hours of the hardest labor. But labor most arduous will not be in vain if applied to this significant and inviting portion of Henry V, by those who bestow on Mr. Donnelly the same reverential admiration that he cherishes for Lord Bacon.

There is, then, a cipher. And this is the recipe. So extraordinary was the command of language on the part of the writer of these plays, that a few pages of any one of them, if separated into single words, will give a vocabulary out of which any given story can be pieced. Pick out the words you need to say what you desire. Count the number of each word from the top or from the bottom of its column. Then, having five root numbers, ten or a dozen modifiers, the number of the page and the number of words on it, also the number of words in italics or connected by hyphens, you have studied addition and subtraction to little purpose if you can not so combine these various numbers that they shall furnish you, at last, with the number that you need to identify the particular word you have chosen. It is hard work. No wonder Mr. Donnelly covered, with figuring, a bundle of paper that a man can scarcely lift. The present writer consumed quires in a simple application of the cipher key to Hamlet. But it pays; whether you want to make money out of a gullible public, or to expose an ambitious fraud. Mr. Donnelly will gather a fortune from his audacious and singularly successful advertisement; and neither friend nor generous enemy will grudge him that. But, out of his profits, he should erect upon the banks of the Mississippi, near his Nininger home, a statue of himself; a noble statue, with the other features in scholarly repose, while the mouth stretches into a capacious grin, and the eyes are fixed upon a volume in the right hand; not a copy of the “Great Cryptogram,” but an edition of the “Shakespeare” plays, opened at that famous passage in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which has been to him a steadfast rule in all his dealings with the world: “What fools these mortals be.”

Transcriber’s Notes