This is the very first play that bore the name W. Shakespere, but so soon as he had attached the name W. Shakespere to that play, the great author Francis Bacon caused to be issued almost immediately a book attributed to Francis Meres which is called "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" and is stated to be Printed by P. Short for Cuthbert Burbie, 1598. This is the same publisher as the publisher of the Quarto of "Loues Labor's lost" although both the Christian name and the surname are differently spelled.
This little book "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury" tells us on page 281, "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among ye English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors lost, his Love Labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet."
Here we are distinctly told that eleven other plays are also Shakespeare's work although only Loues Labors lost at that time bore his name.
We refer on page 138 to the reason why it had become absolutely necessary for the Author to affix a false name to all these twelve plays. For our present purpose it is sufficient to point out that on the very first occasion when the name W. Shakespere was attached to any play, viz., to the play called "Loues Labor's lost," the Author took pains to insert a revelation that would enable him to claim his own when the proper time should arrive. Accordingly he prepared the page which is found F 4 (the little book is not paged) in the Quarto of "Loues Labor's lost" which was published in 1598. A photo-facsimile of the page is shewn, Page 105, Plate 22.
So far as is known there never was any other edition printed until the play appeared in the Folio of 1623 under the name of "Loues Labour's lost," and we put before the reader a reduced facsimile of the whole page 136 of the 1623 Folio, on which the long word occurs, Page 86, Plate 20, and we give also an exact full size photo reproduction of a portion of the first column of that page. Page 87, Plate 21.
On comparing the page of the Quarto with that of the Folio, it will be seen that the Folio page commences with the same word as does the Quarto and that each and every word, and each and every italic in the Folio is exactly reproduced from the Quarto excepting that Alms-basket in the Folio is printed with a hyphen to make it into two words. A hyphen is also inserted in the long word as it extends over one line to the next. The only other change is that the lines are a little differently arranged. These slight differences are by no means accidental, because Alms-basket is hyphened to count as two words and thereby cause the long word to be the 151st word. This is exceedingly important and it was only by a misprint in the Quarto that it incorrectly appears there as the 150th word. By the rearrangement of the lines, the long word appears on the 27th line, and the line, "What is A.B. speld backward with the horn on his head" appears as it should do on the 33rd line. At the time the Quarto was issued, when the trouble was to get Shakespere's name attached to the plays, these slight printer's errors in the Quarto—for they are printer's errors—were of small consequence, but when the play was reprinted in the Folio of 1623 all these little blemishes were most carefully corrected.
The long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus is found in "Loues Labour's lost" not far from the commencement of the Fifth Act, which is called Actus Quartus in the 1623 folio, and on Page 87, Plate 21, is given a full size photo facsimile from the folio, of that portion of page 136, in which the word occurs in the 27th line.
On lines 14, 15 occurs the phrase, "Bome boon for boon prescian, a little scratcht, 'twil serve." I do not know that hitherto any rational explanation has been given of the reason why this reference to the pedantic grammarian "Priscian" is there inserted.
The mention of Priscian's name can have no possible reference to anything apparent in the text, but it refers solely and entirely to the phrase which is to be formed by the transposition of the twenty-seven letters contained in the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus; and it was absolutely impossible that the citation of Priscian could ever have been understood before the sentence containing the information which is of the most important description had been "revealed." We say "revealed" because the riddle could never have been "guessed."
The "revealed" and "all revealing" sentence forms a correct Latin hexameter, and we will proceed to prove that it is without possibility of doubt or question the real solution which the "Author" intended to be known at some future time, when he placed the long word Honorificabilitudinitatibus, which is composed of twenty-seven letters, on the twenty-seventh line of page 136, where it appears as the 151st word printed in ordinary type.