DEAR SIR,--Mr. DONNELLY'S cryptogram, showing BACON to be the author of
all SHAKSPEARE'S plays, is a wonderful discovery. The principle only
needs to be applied with sufficient ingenuity and perseverance, to
revolutionise the whole field of literary history. I myself have only
had time to apply it in a few instances, but have already got the really
valuable result that NEGRETTI and ZAMBRA wrote most of the works of
MILTON. DAY and MARTIN LUTHER wrote _Sandford and Merton_, and Sir
WALTER SCOTT wrote the ballad with the refrain "_Two Lovely Black
Eyes_." CHARLES THACKERAY'S works were entirely written by WILLIAM
MAKEPEACE DICKENS. Hence the cryptogrammatic name. I am working as hard
at the theory as the somewhat unelastic rules of this establishment will
permit, and this morning I caught a cryptogram crawling up the
window-pane. Aha! excuse my glove, I must dissemble,
_Colney-Hatchwell_. Yours, THE "B" IN BOTH.
SIR,--You are performing a truly noble and philanthropic work in
throwing open your columns to a subject which must inevitably seem
"_caviare_ to the general" (BACON). To myself, personally, the raising
of the controversy at the present time is annoying, because I happen to
have hit independently on exactly the same idea as Mr. DONNELLY'S; viz.,
that there is an underground narrative running through SHAKSPEARE.
DARWIN and WALLACE, you may remember, discovered the origin of species
simultaneously, so why not I and DONNELLY the origin of SHAKSPEARE? But
my cryptogram leads to an entirely different result from Mr. DONNELLY'S,
who has, I am certain, being led off on a false scent. Instead of
multiplying every 270th word, as he does, by the number of full-stops in
the page, and then dividing the result by the number of years during
which ANNE HATHAWAY is supposed to have resided at Stratford-on-Avon, he
should first have discovered the total quantity of words in all
SHAKSPEARE'S plays and sonnets, and after that the quantity in the
_Novum Organon_; then reducing the probable salary which BACON received
as Lord Chancellor, _each year_, down to farthings, he should have
divided (_not_ multiplied) them all into each other, and brought them to
decimals, and then applied _that_ result to the plays. The process is a
little complicated, but I can't make it clearer at present. Anyhow, the
entrancing interest of the story so obtained can be judged from the
headings of the chapters.
"Lord BACON arrives at Stratford disguised as a bargee. His midnight
visit to SHAKSPEARE'S house. The poaching plot hatched. In the
churchyard. The Ghost among the tombs. The Ghost discovered to be Queen
ELIZABETH, who had followed BACON to Stratford disguised as a Tilbury
fish-wife. The Queen buried alive in Stratford churchyard by BACON and
SHAKSPEARE. The good Vicar bribed. Their scheme to dress up ANNE
HATHAWAY as Queen. Its success. ANNE HATHAWAY reigns twenty years,
everybody taking her for ELIZABETH. SHAKSPEARE (stricken with remorse)
appears suddenly at the bedside of BACON. Threatens to disclose all.
BACON murders SHAKSPEARE. Takes all SHAKSPEARE'S Plays (hitherto
unacted, having been rejected by the Managers of the period as 'wholly
devoid of dramatic power') out of his pocket, and produces them next day
as his own. Success of this plot also. How BACON repents at last.
Invents the Cryptogram. Inserts it in the Plays on his deathbed."
You will see from this abstract that there are elements of far greater
interest in my theory than in Mr. DONNELLY'S, and my publishers
sincerely trust that you will insert this letter, as a gratuitous
advertisement may help the sale of my forthcoming work, entitled, _Who
Killed Shakspeare and Queen Elizabeth?_
Your obedient servant, ARTFUL PLODDER.
SIR,--Surely it is impossible to doubt any longer that BACON wrote
_Hamlet_. Why, in that play you find him actually confessing his
cowardice in not claiming the authorship of his own plays! What else
_can_ these words mean?
"What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?
We are _arrant knaves all_."