5. “Mrs. Gallup’s manipulation of these minor differences follows no

clear and consistent rule or rules; so that types of many differing

characteristics are classed by her as belonging to one fount, while

others closely resembling each other are classed by her as belonging to

two different founts on different occasions.”

This is erroneous. There is no “manipulation,” and the rules are

consistent. In a few instances the same kinds of letters are wrongly

marked as _a_ and _b_ because of printers’ errors, which are detected

by methods elsewhere more specifically set out, or they may be

changed in value by a peculiar mark, as explained on the first page

of the deciphered work from _Henry Seventh_. Printers’ errors are not

infrequent in the works. They are found in Bacon’s own illustration in

_De Augmentis Scientiarum_ (1624), _e.g._ In _conquiesti_, line 5, and

in _quos_, line 10, the letter _q_ is from the “_b_ fount.” It should

be an “_a_-fount” letter, and was so printed in the first or “London

edition” (1623). An _l_ in line 12, and another in line 14, is from the

wrong fount. There is also an error in grouping in the 1624 edition,

which does not occur in the 1623.

As it happened, similar printers’ errors occurred in one of Mr.

Mallock’s examples in the _Nineteenth Century_--the passage from

_De Augmentis_ in which he concealed his own couplet: “The star of

Shakespeare, etc.”--and that work was done by twentieth-century

printers, of Mr. Mallock’s own selection; The passage he quotes,

printed in the two forms of types, cannot be deciphered as printed on

account of an error in the tenth group, and a few letters used from

wrong founts. I have sent Mr. Mallock the correction; but I have been

wondering since whether it were not incorporated intentionally, to test

my powers of observation, for after the tenth group the rest of the

passage is simply impossible to read in bi-literal cipher, until the

short group is detected and a new division made. I cannot think Mr.

Mallock made these mistakes in marking his MS. Some errors exist in our

own work, which have been discovered since publication, and may quite

possibly be found by those who study the book.

PRINTERS AND “DIGRAPHS.”

6. “In the period when the writings under discussion were published,

printers made a liberal use of digraphs, such as 'ft,’ 'fh,’ 'ct,’

'fl,’ etc. (In one page of 24 lines, from which Mrs. Gallup derives

her cipher narrative, there are 26 digraphs.) With regard to the

deciphering of these, Mrs. Gallup suggests no rules and obeys no laws.”

Again this is erroneous in the last clause. I quote from a preceding

paragraph of this correspondent’s own article, regarding Bacon’s

treatment of the digraph, as follows: “In the example which he gave of

the enfolding of such a cipher in a portion of one of Cicero’s letters,

he printed an æ (diphthong), occuring in the Latin word 'cæteris,’ not

as a diphthong at all, but as two separate letters--ae. Similarly, he

caused the ordinary digraph 'ct,’ invariably printed in one type in

those days, to be printed as two separate letters--ct, showing, I think

conclusively, that in his cipher, as applied to printing, digraphs must

be--treated separately.” Our “Correspondent” says “digraphs must be

kept out of the print,” but it is a wrong inference. These diphthongs

and digraphs must be compared with one another, not with single

letters, but the parts are to be considered separately. They will each

be found to have distinctive features, and a decipherer who has become

at all expert will at once determine their proper classification.

ROMAN TYPES.

7. “In certain specific instances, Mrs. Gallup’s deciphering is

arithmetically incorrect, or must be helped out with the help of an

arbitrary employment of Roman types--on occasion even this device will

not avail to produce the requisite number of letters for her alleged

cipher message.”

For the specific instances where Roman type is used, Bacon’s

instructions are found on pp. 66-67 of the _Bi-literal Cypher_, which

“Correspondent” has evidently overlooked. I have used this passage on

another occasion, but will quote again, as others have stumbled over

the same difficulty:

“In order to conceale my Cypher more perfectly, I am preparing for th’

purpose a sette of alphabets in th’ Latine tipe, not for use in th’

greatest or lengthy story or epistle, but as another disguise, for, in

ensample, a prologue, præfatio, the epilogues, and headlines attracted

too much notice. Noe othe’ waie of diverting th’ curious could be used

where th’ exterior epistle is but briefe, however it will not thus

turne aside my decipherer, for his eye is too well practis’d in artes

that easily misleade others who enquire th’ waye.”

I found Roman type used in such places, and the differences in the

letters are quite distinct, but no use was made of this new device, so

far as I have found, until 1623, when it appeared in the First Folio,

and in _Vitae et Mortis_.

An incident, for the moment mortifying, occurred in Boston, by which I

discovered an error of our printers in the first edition issued. Those

having copies of the first edition will notice the word “Baron” is left

out of the signature, which reads in the later edition Francis, Baron

of Verulam (p. 166), deciphered from the short poem signed “I. M.” in

the Shakespeare Folio. When I visited Boston to continue my researches,

friends previously interested in my work mentioned the difficulty they

had in trying to decipher, as I did, this portion. I remarked the

Roman letters must be used; to which they replied the number of Italic

letters corresponded with the number of groups required, but the groups

would not “read.” Upon deciphering it again, in the presence of these

people, I found the word Baron had been dropped out in the printing,

and the error was corrected in the second edition.

The answers already given meet the summarised objection of the

correspondent’s eighth and ninth paragraphs.

THE DECIPHERING WORKROOM.

10. “The nature of the Cipher is such, being in fact entirely

dependent upon the presence and position of a certain number of

_b_'s, that, given a framework of such determining, factors (which

might easily be supplied by the acknowledged differences in a few

letters), a misdirected ingenuity could with patience supply all that a

preconceived notion could possibly demand.”

The cipher alphabet Bacon illustrates in _De Augmentis Scientiarum_

contains 68 _a_'s and 52 _b_'s. The proportion in general use was

found to be about 5 to 3. Perhaps I cannot do better to clear myself

from the aspersions here intimated than to explain the methods of the

workroom by which the larger part of the deciphering was actually

done. A type-writing machine was changed in its mechanism to space

automatically after each group of five letters. The operator alone

copied every Italic letter, and the sheets came to me with the letters

already grouped. The different forms of letters in the book to be

deciphered were then made a study, the peculiarities of each fount

classified and sketched in an enlarged and accentuated form upon a

small chart, and the '_b_ fount’ (being the fewer) was thoroughly

learned. The chart was always before me for use upon doubtful letters.

I marked upon the sheet on which the letters had been grouped only

those that I found to be of the '_b_ fount.’ An assistant marked the

_a_'s and transcribed the result, when I knew for the first time the

reading of the deciphered product. It was thus impossible for me

to “preconceive” it, and no amount of “ingenuity, misdirected” or

otherwise, could have developed the hundreds of pages of MS. of these

consecutive letters into anything except what the cipher letters would

spell out.

THE OPERATOR AND THE ERRORS.

Excepting, of course, occasional corrections of the errors of the

operator in copying, or myself in determining the proper fount, the

work stands exactly as it left the assistant’s hands. The original

sheets are unchanged and in my possession. Errors occurred in the work

as it progressed, but they were so guarded against by the system itself

that the deciphering was quickly brought to a stop until they were

corrected. Coming from the assistant, the words were without capitals,

or punctuation, as would be the case by any method of deciphering a

cipher. The work of capitalization and punctuation, in the book, is my

own, and in this alone was choice permitted me.

The difficulty with “A Correspondent,” as with many observers, is that

he jumps at once to conclusions from very superficial and limited

examination, as well as unfamiliarity with the principles which

underlie the work; and while his keenness of observation is greater

than some evince, he has not, by any means, given the matter sufficient

study to become an expert, or to warrant him in expressing a critical

judgment. He would not expect to learn Greek in a day, nor to decipher

hieroglyphics on an obelisk upon a first attempt. There are in the

Plays five pairs of alphabets of twenty-four letters each (capital

and small) in the different styles and sizes of Italic type. In other

words, four hundred and eighty different letters have to be compared

with their fellows to determine the classification. It is not, then,

the work of a day or a week to enable one to pass an opinion upon the

Folio as a whole, and yet that is what he attempts to do.

THE “TIMES” FACSIMILES.

The _Times_ reproduces a page of facsimiles and an illustration taken

from Spenser’s _Complaints_, and has also arranged in enlarged form

some small letters. In fairness the captials should have appeared as

well. In the processes necessary for reproduction, upon newspaper of

coarse fibre and uneven surface with the speed of a modern press, many

distinctive features of the letters have been lost or distorted to the

skilled eye, and the unskilled should not be asked to form a judgment

of the integrity of a difficult cipher from such utterly untrustworthy

reproductions.

As explained in the Introduction to the second edition of my book, the

facsimiles were not satisfactory. The difficulties arising from age,

unequal absorption of ink, poor paper, and poor printing in the old

books, cause some features to be exaggerated, while others disappear;

and on account of unavoidable inaccuracies, they were omitted from the

third edition.

INSPIRATION.

It is strange how an inadvertent word or phrase, in the hands of those

who choose to pervert, will return to plague one. In an article in

_Baconiana_, I enumerated the requirements for the work of deciphering

as “eyesight of the keenest and perfect accuracy of vision in

distinguishing minute differences in form, lines, angles, and curves of

the printed letters ... unlimited time and patience, persistency and

aptitude, love for overcoming puzzling difficulties, and I sometimes

think inspiration.” Any one who has worked long in an absorbing and

difficult field, will know that the word in this connection meant

only the light that breaks upon one’s mind, in the solution of some

difficulty as the result of earnest effort; and for a critic to

make from this a charge that I allege the cipher work to be one of

inspiration on my part is such a misuse of terms as to be wholly

unjustifiable. I think I have the right to complain when the word so

used is made the basis of sneering attack through the public press.

The word was used by me in no other connection, and as my critics must

know, in no other than this very harmless and allowable sense. This

is particularly in reply to a lengthy editorial in the _Times_, which

assumed that I made claims to “inspiration.”

Those who have read my book carefully will recall some of the

difficulties recounted on page 11 of the Introduction, relating to a

subject that has puzzled many students--_i.e._, the wrong paging of the

Folio and some of the other old books. It is told in few words in the

book, but they are totally inadequate to describe the strain upon eyes

and nerves in those days of alternating struggle and elation as one

by one the difficulties were overcome. I think my readers will pardon

a careless, perhaps irrevelant use of the term, “I sometimes think

inspiration”--may have prompted me to make one more trial.

MR. LANG AND MRS. GALLUP.

I am also desired to refer to the writings of Mr. Lang, who, on several

occasions, has made the _Bi-literal Cypher_ the theme of much ironical

pleasantry, more especially in the _Monthly Review_. Mr. Lang is one of

those happy individuals possessed of a large vocabulary and of a vivid

imagination that like Tennyson’s babbling brook “goes on for ever,”

but he prefers the interrogation to the period--questions more than he

asserts.

In the _Monthly Review_ he cites again, from his _Morning Post_ article

(August 1901), some of the reasons for considering Bacon a lunatic. He

has, however, omitted one query then made regarding “the new Atlantis

men sought beyond the western sea:” “Was Bacon ignorant of the fact

that America was discovered?” The question was not repeated after I

called attention to the fact that in _New Atlantis_ Bacon said, “Wee

sailed from Peru.”

The Alpha and Omega of his article--since it appears on the first page

and the last--is Mr. Sidney Lee’s declaration that the cipher cannot

exist in the books in which I _know it does exist_. I pointed out

in a recent communication to the _Times_ that Mr. Lee had not even

understood the elementary principles of the cipher. This is betrayed in

his statement: “Italic and Roman types were never intermingled in the

manner which would be essential if the words embodied Bacon’s biliteral

cipher”--for that is not the manner of its incorporation. Mr. Lang goes

no farther than this very arbitrary decision in his examination of the

cipher itself.

He says: “The consistency of Mrs. Gallup next amazes us. Greene,

Peele, Marlowe, and Shakespeare, resemble each other in style (or so

she says), because 'one hand wrote them all’ (i., p. 3). But Bacon

(deciphered) avers, 'I varied my style to suit different men, since

no two show the same taste and like imagination.’ (i., p. 34)....

Bacon 'let his own [style] be seen.’” Mr. Lang should have quoted an

additional line--“yet should [let] my owne bee seene, as a third o’

warpe in my entire fabricke,” and it would explain why there are both

resemblances and differences in the style of those dramatic works,

which have been commented upon by numberless writers as giving evidence

of collaboration or of plagiarism.

THE WIFEHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD OF ELIZABETH.

Mr. Lang thinks the idea of the wifehood and motherhood of Elizabeth

originated in Mr. Lee’s articles in the _Dictionary of National

Biography_ cited as corroborating the cipher. The facts set forth in

Mr. Lee’s work are very good circumstantial evidence. Assuredly the

statments in the word-cipher and in the bi-literal should accord, for

in Bacon’s design the principal use of the one was to teach, and assist

in deciphering, the others Mr. Lang quotes: “He learned _from the

interview and subsequent occurrences_,” and exclaims, “how Elizabethan

is the style!”

In _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (Act II., Sc. i.) he may read:

at which interview

All liberall reason would I yeeld unto.

In _Troilus and Cressida_ (Act I., Sc. iii.) we find:

To their subsequent volumes.

And in _Henry the Fifth_ (V. Prol.) is the line:

Omit all the occurrences.

This is where Mr. Lang should exclaim again, “How Elizabethan the

style!”

My critics would find it interesting and profitable to learn how many

expressions, thought to be modern, are to be seen in the original

works. They would be surprised--agreeably or otherwise--at the long

list.

“TIDDER” OR BACON.

The next point is this: “His name, 'Fr. Bacon,’ is his only 'by

adoption,’” and in a footnote Mr. Lang quotes: “'My name is Tidder, yet

men speak of me as Bacon.’” In Bacon’s _Historie of the Raigne of King

Henry the Seventh_ (p. 151), we find the name of the first reigning

Tudor spelled Tidder. The assertion “We be Tudor” merely shows that he

belonged to the Royal house. It was certainly not from Robert Dudley

that he claimed a title to the throne. I myself asked, “Why Francis

I.?” when this passage was deciphered; and the answer is perhaps in

this--as Elizabeth was “Queene of England, Fraunce, and Ireland, and of

Virginia,” her son as king would be Francis III. of France and Francis

I. of England, as James VI. of Scotland became James I. of England.

The right to the French title is questionable, of course; but when the

play of _Edward the Third_ has been deciphered we shall know how Bacon

regarded it.

In the expression, “our law giveth to the first-borne of the royall

house the title of the Prince of Wales,” Bacon did not intend to

say “the _statute_ giveth.” Had he used _custom_ no one would have

cavilled, but _custom_ is defined in law as “long-established practice,

or usage, considered as unwritten _law_, and resting for authority on

long consent,” and, even at that time, it had long been customary to

invest the eldest son of the sovreign with this title. In the _Historie

of Henry the Seventh_ (p. 207), speaking of the time when “Henry, Duke

of Yorke, was created Prince of Wales, and Earle of Chester and Flint,”

he added, “For the Dukedom of Cornewall devolved to him by statute.” We

see _per contra_ that in this place he did not mean by _custom_.

BACON AND THE SMALL POEMS.

As evidence of the superficiality of Mr. Lang’s knowledge of the

book he attempts to criticise, I quote: “In 1596, in his 'Faerie

Queene,’ Bacon grew wilder, in saying 'We were in good hope that

when our divers small poemes might bee seene in printed forme, th’

approval o’ Lord Leicester might be gain’d!’ The earliest of the small

Bacon-Spenser works used here, by Mrs. Gallup, is of 1591. Leicester

died in 1588. Only a raving maniac like Mrs. Gallup’s Bacon could hope

to please Leicester, who died in 1588, by 'small poemes’ printed in

1591, if he means that.”

Has Mr. Lang read so carelessly that he thinks “he means that”? Does

he really not preceive that Bacon was speaking of the small poems

appearing between 1579 and 1588--_Shepheards’ Calender_ in several

editions, _Virgil’s Gnat_ nearly ready for the printer and suggestively

dedicated to the Earl of Leicester? If a careless reading, it

discredits his criticism; if a wilful perversion, it is unworthy and

without justification.

This is much like his remarkable statement in _Longman’s Magazine_

regarding the _Argument of the Iliad_: “The right course with Mrs.

Gallup is to ask her to explain why or how Bacon stole from Pope’s

Homer ... and how he could be (as he certainly was) ignorant of facts

of his own time.... These circumstances make it certain that, though

the cipher may be a very nice cipher, Mrs. Gallup must have interpreted

it all wrong. She will see that, she would have seen it long ago, if

she had _read Pope’s Homer_ and had known anything about Elizabethan

history.”

We all know what this impossible charge--that “Bacon stole from

Pope’s Homer,” and also the insinuation regarding Melville--covertly

asserts. I have fully set out in another article the answer to this

baseless accusation of Mr. Marston; but I will here repeat that any

statement that I copied from Pope, or from any other source whatever,

in obtaining the matter put forth as deciphered from Bacon’s works, _is

false in every particular_.

BACON AND ELIZABETH’S MARRIAGE.

Mr. Lang, and others, have asserted that Bacon refers to the first

Lord Burghley as Robert. This is incorrect. Bacon says _Robert Cecil_

when he means _Robert_ Cecil, and at no other time. Robert is not only

named, but described unmistakably. Mr. Lang says, “Robert Cecil was

born in 1563, or thereabout, was younger than Bacon,” consequently

could not have incited the Queen against him, etc., and devotes a page

to mis-statements and sarcasms. Here again is he ignorant, or indulges

in wilful perversion. The encyclopædias say, “Robert Cecil was born in

1550.” He was therefore eleven years older than Bacon, and twenty-seven

years of age when the incident referred to occurred. We learn also from

the same source: “Of his cousin, Francis Bacon, he appears to have been

jealous.” The “blunder” is Mr. Lang’s, not Bacon’s, and it is not an

evidence that “either an ignorant American wrote all this, or Bacon was

an idiot.”

In speaking of Elizabeth’s marriage, Mr. Lang says, “The second was

'after her ascent to royal power’ (1558). Any one but Bacon would have

said, 'after the death of Dudley’s first wife,’ because only after that

death could the marriage be legal.”

What Bacon really said is this: “Afte’ her ascent to royale power,

before my birth, a second nuptiall rite duly witness’d was observed,

soe that I was borne in holy wedlocke” (p. 154). Mr. Lang’s opinion of

what any other man might have said is quite immaterial.

A question of Bacon’s legitimacy would, without a doubt, have been

raised; and as Leicester favoured his second son, Essex, this may

account for the express wish to have the story openly told. Such

questions were debated concerning more than one royal title in those

days, but Bacon believed his birth in holy wedlock was sufficient

legitimation. The mere fact that both Mary and Elizabeth succeeded to

the throne, although one or the other was not strictly legitimate,

would confirm this opinion, and the history of the founding of the line

of Tudor involved the same question.

I regret that lack of space prevents a reference to some of Mr. Lang’s

other remarks, which are equally subject to criticism and correction.

Brander Matthews, in _Pen and Ink_, formulates “Twelve Rules for

Reviewers,” that will, I am very sure, commend themselves to those who

desire to make criticism of value. Had Mr. Lang followed any of these

rules he would have written in a different manner and more to his own

credit.

MR. SCHOOLING AND THE CIPHER.

I can only say that with regard to Mr. Schooling as with thousands of

others, defective vision or superficial examination is responsible

for his criticism, for it culminates in the assertion, merely, that

different founts of Italic type are not used in the books referred to,

and that the work “can be regarded only as a phantasy of my imagining,

wholly unworthy of credence.” I again assert, with that degree of

positiveness which comes from a study of years, that the Italic types

_are_ from different founts and are used in the manner I have set

forth. There is no room whatever for imagination in the work.

Mr. Schooling enters into particulars, and reports upon _o_'s, _n_'s,

_and_ _p_'s in a few lines of small letters, and says “they are from

the same fount, and the cipher, therefore, non-existent.” In this he is

absolutely wrong. He makes no mention of the marked differences in the

capitals, and, too, he should have studied the originals on many pages,

as I have done, for in the photographic facsimiles of the book some of

the distinctive features are lost. It is difficult to describe in words

the particular lines in a drawing, and equally so those in several

forms of type, but I will attempt to make the differences clear.

THE ITALICS IN SPENSER.

Extending these examples of Mr. Schooling, take for illustration the

Italics in the first lines of the selection from Spenser. The type is

large and clear, and there are several letters so close together that

comparisons can easily be made.

_full Ladie the La Marie._

There are two captial _L_'s. The serif of the first is curved, of the

second straight. At the bottom, the horizontal of the first gradually

thickens, and the small line at the end is nearly vertical, while

the horizontal of the second is of even thickness and the small line

slanting.

There are three small _a_'s. The oval of the first is narrow and

pointed at the top, those of the other two are broad at the top. The

small line at the bottom of the first is long and strong, of the other

two short and weak.

There are three small _e_'s. The ovals of the first two are broad, the

letters themselves narrow; the oval of the last is longer and more

pointed, but the letter itself is wide.

The two small _i_'s do not stand at the same degree of inclination, and

the dot of the first is slightly to the left.

The capital _M_ is a striking form, and the plain _M_ of that size of

type must be familiar to Mr. Schooling and others.

Taking the next Italic line, the small _n_'s are from different founts.

The inclination of the second is greater than that of the first. The

stem of the first _n_ (in _Honourable_) is straight, that of the second

(in _and_) is slightly curved. The small line at the bottom of the

first stands well under the downward stroke, that of the second freely

leaves the downward stroke.

In the next line, the difference in the small _l_'s is very marked, and

one is much longer than the other.

In the line below, an _e_ from the “_b_ fount” and one from the

“_a_ fount” stand together in the word _bee_. These can easily be

discriminated, but the characteristics of the _e_ in this size of type

are the reverse of the same in the large size above.

The _o_ in _long_ is a wider oval than the _o_ from the “_a_ fount” in

_bountifull_. It has already been pointed out why the _n_'s in both

words are “_a_-fount” letters, although the one in _long_ is not a

perfect letter--the lower part of the last stroke being blotted--but,

as I have said on other occasions, where broken or blotted letters

or errors of the printer occur in the original, the context will

unmistakably indicate what they are.

THE “NOVUM ORGANUM.”

In the _Praefatio_ of _Novum Organum_, the first letter considered is

the small _o_, and of this two examples given by Mr. Schooling are in

the second line--in _explorata_ and _pronuntiare_, The longest diameter

produced until it intersects the line of writing does not make so large

an angle in the first as in the second. The oval is much narrower in

the first. The description of these two will suffice for all others not

changed by a mark, unless a printer’s error occurs.

The two _p_'s in _propria_ are most easily compared, as the first is

from the “_a_ fount” and the second is from the “_b_ fount.” The stem

of the first is not quite so long as that of the second; and, in the

first, the oval is somewhat angular on the right side at the top, in

the second this angularity is seen at the bottom. The same rule applies

to other cases. Of the half-dozen cited by Mr. Schooling, I have merely

chosen two that stand close together. He would find as great difficulty

in the differentiation of the _o_'s and _c_'s of any two founts of

modern Italic type, as in these he points out, for the differences are

often as minute.

BACON AND THE COMPOSITOR.

Mr. Schooling says, “Mrs. Gallup does not tell us how Lord Bacon

managed to get his work set up by the compositor.”

Any printer will tell him, if he will inquire, that it is not more

difficult to take certain letters that have been marked on the MS. from

one case of Italic type, and certain other letters, not marked, from

another case of Italic, than to take Roman from one case and Italic

from another in ordinary composition. The system has the advantage that

the printer, in following copy, could not know the cipher without the

key, which in Bacon’s case was withheld until 1623--forty-four years

after the cipher was invented and first used.

THE POWERS OF IMAGINATION.

Perhaps I should thank Mr. Schooling for the implied compliment to my

abilities in the realm of creation; for if not a deciphering, what is

the alternative? I must first have conceived the plot of the entire

fabric of 380 pages, its historical points, statements of facts not

recorded in history--which in some particulars conflict with, in

others supplement, the records. I must have imagined the moanings of

remorse over the tragedy of Essex; the discovery of the motherhood

of Elizabeth; guessed at the broadened field of Bacon’s literary

powers to take in all the works which are disclosed as coming from his

hand; the directions for writing out the word-cipher; the argument of

the _Tragedy of Anne Boleyn_; the epitome of the _Iliad_ and of the

_Odyssey_; the explanatory letters of Dr. Rawley and Ben Jonson that

are found in the cipher; the flights of fancy which occasionally appear

in the deciphered work, and all the rest. This must all have been

written out in the old English spelling and in the language of Bacon’s

time; this previously written plot and story in the main narration must

have been fitted to the exact number of Italic letters, and so arranged

that the forms of the capital letters and those whose differences are

easily perceived, must in every case fit into place as an _a_ or a _b_,

so that those letters, at least, should consistently follow Bacon’s

biliteral cipher. The simple enumeration, with all that these things

imply, carries the refutation of the possibility of such a manner of

production, to say nothing of the absurdity of attempting it. Had it

been undertaken, it would have been along lines that were better known,

and statments of facts would have been in accord with the records.

Historical romance would never so far have transcended the beliefs

of the world, nor subverted all previous ideas concerning authorship

of literature which will be immortal. The only reason for the book’s

existence is that it is the transcription of a cipher placed in the

works for the purposes disclosed by its decipherment.

BACON-SHAKESPEARE.

THE TIMES, LONDON, ENG., JAN. 27, 1902.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES:

Sir,--Your issues of December 19, 20, and 21 have been forwarded to

me by Messrs. Gay and Bird, and, while regretting that distance will

cause much time to elapse between the issues and the time this can

reach London, I yet desire space to reply to the communications of Mr.

Marston and Mr. Lee concerning myself, and the book recently given to

the public, “_The Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon_.” I trust I may

not be refused because of lapse of time, or for any other reason.

I hope the gentlemen do not mean to be rude or do me an injustice, and

I do not think they can persist in the characterization which their

words imply.

The assertion that Mr. Mallock has become “addlepated,” because of

thinking there may be something in the cipher, must be something of a

shock to his friends.

Mr. Marston did me the honour of two favourable notices, in succeeding

issues of the _Publishers’ Circular_. I was about to thank him for

numbers sent to me when I learned that he had prepared and published

an elaborate article attempting to discredit the entire work, because

of doubts arising in his mind upon a single point. He does not base

his disbelief upon any investigation he has made of the cipher itself,

but because a fragment which forms a part of Bacon’s “Argument”

or epitome (but not the full translation) of the Iliad, in that

portion which catalogues the ships and the troops they transported,

is similar--“nearly like”--Pope’s translation of the same passages,

_ergo_, it must be that I paraphrased Pope, and hence that the whole

cipher fabric is tumbled into dust. Because of this similarity he takes

Mr. Mallock to task for considering my work seriously, and declares

that, as I have, as he thinks, copied Pope in this, the results of

my four years’ research in America and in England, set down on 385

printed pages, must be pure invention, and Mr. Mallock a poor deluded

mortal to have gone into the cipher at all. The statement of the case

exhibits the value of the conclusion.

It does not appear just how much variation Mr. Marston would have

between the translations of the identical Greek text, describing

definite things, to prove which was the correct one, and which the

copy. It will also be noted that this is not one of the portions of

Homer’s wondrous story where imagination may run riot, and imagery and

poetic license add lustre to the original.

The claim of identities set me to wondering whom else I might have

paraphrased, or if it was not possible that Pope had copied from

some one other than Bacon. An examination of six different English

translations and one Latin shows me such substantial accord, that

either of them could be called with equal justice a paraphrase of Pope,

or that Pope had copied from the others.

In phrasing no two translations of the Iliad entirely agree, but are

we to conclude that, because the translations of the same text are in

substantial agreement (though not exact), that one of the two most

nearly alike must be a paraphrase? The trifling additions showing some

exterior knowledge of persons and places may be found in Bacon’s other

works.

It will be observed by readers of the “_Bi-literal Cypher_” that the

fragment of the Fourth Book of the Iliad which is injected by Bacon

into the “Argument” is for illustration merely, and is clearly stated

to be only “a supreme effort of memory” of the fuller translation which

he had previously embedded as a part of the mosaic in his works, to be

extracted and reconstructed through the methods of another cipher.

Surely there can be no more distressing condition than when critics

refuse to know all the facts, and are guilty of drawing conclusions

without them. Bacon, who knew human nature, has described this class

of minds most precisely in his aphorisms, and it would almost seem he

had this controversy in view, or at least a permonition of it, when he

says, in Number XXXIII:--

“This must be plainly avowed; no judgment can be rightly formed

either of my method or of the discoveries to which it leads

by means of anticipations ... since I cannot be called upon

to abide by the sentence of a tribunal which is itself on its

trial.”

“One method of delivery alone remains to us: ... we must lead

men to the particulars themselves and their series and order;

while men on their side must force themselves for awhile to

lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with

facts.” (XXXVI.)

Mr. Lee, too, bases his disbelief on most inconclusive grounds. The

witty author of “Democritus to the Reader” said that any one who sought

what he did not want, or that would do him harm when found, wanted

wisdom. To be exact, it was expressed less euphemistically, “He is a

fool that seeks what he does not want.”

Mr. Lee insists that, because he has collated 25 copies of the plays,

during which time he was not looking for a cipher, none exists. As well

say that the stars of late discovery which are as yet unknown to any

but the most skilled eye of the astronomer do not exist because Mr.

Lee, with his unskilled eye, has not discovered them while looking for

something else.

Mr. Sinnett, in the same issue of _The Times_, states the case

fairly in the remark that there are two schools of thinkers on the

subject--those who have studied the matter, and those who have

not--and he illustrates the feelings of a surprisingly large class by

the repetition of the remark of a friend, who, when asked if he had

seriously considered certain points (of the Baconians), replied: “I

would rather hang myself than consider anything so atrocious.” I have

no doubt Mr. Lee would sympathize with, if not echo, this sentiment.

I wish politely, and with all due deference, to assert, with a

positiveness as emphatic as that of Mr. Lee, that the cipher

_does_ exist in the typography of the Plays, and in the “Anatomy

of Melancholy” and in the other works which I have deciphered. The

difference between us is that I found what I was looking for (and much

besides), while Mr. Lee did not find what he was not looking for.

Another aphorism, Number XXXVIII, would apply here:--

“The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the

human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, so beset

men’s minds that truth can hardly find entrance.”

And again, in Number XLVI:--

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion

(either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to

itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And

though there be a greater weight of instances to be found on

the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or

else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that

by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of

its former conclusions may remain inviolate.”

If Mr. Lee has a vision sufficiently accurate to discriminate in form,

and will spend as much time as I have spent upon the typography of the

old books, he will find the letters can be classified, and starting

from the proper points and placing in “groups of five” the Bi-literal

Cipher will read as I have written, and will not read anything else.

Sincerely yours,

ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.

Detroit, January 9.

* * * * *

P. S. Jan. 11.--Copies of your issue of December 26 and 27 have just

reached me.

The articles on the “Bacon Bi-literal Cypher” show that _The Times_ is

not averse to whatever aids in elucidation of this new phase of the

Bacon-Shakespeare question.

I am glad to note that “A Correspondent” has taken some of the

preliminary steps to an actual examination of the cipher and apparently

has the perception required to reach conclusions that Mr. Mallock and

Mr. Sinnett have also reached as to distinctive variations in the forms

of letters used in the old books. This denotes real progress in the

investigation, and I think the gentleman, with patience, would easily

become a decipherer. The peculiarities of the type are clear to the

skilled artist or engraver, but they are not so quickly apparent to

those less fitted for the closest observation.

Some of the difficulties encountered by the novice are explained by

Mr. Sinnett in the issue of the 27th. I shall be greatly pleased

to clear up some of this correspondent’s difficulties, in another

communication, but will only note in this two paragraphs. One

difficulty he mentions is that in certain passages he does not find

sufficient Italic letters to make up the extracted sentences. He had

overlooked the application of the passage in the book, on pp. 66-67:--

“In order to conceale my Cypher more perfectly I am preparing

for th’ purpose a sette of alphabets in th’ Latine tipe not

for use in th’ greatest or lengthy story or epistle, but as

another disguise, for, in ensample, a prologue, praefatio,

the epilogues, and head lines attracted too much notice. I,

therefore, have given much trouble to mine ayders by making

two kinds or formes of these letters. These be not designed

for other use than hath but now beene explain’d, nor must you

looke to see them employ’d if a reason for th’ change appeare,

but there will be warning given you for your instruction or

guidance. Noe othe’ waie of diverting th’ curious could be used

where th’ exteriour epistle is but briefe, however it will not

thus turn aside my decipherer, for his eye is too well practs’d

in artes that easily misleade others who enquire of th’ waie.”

There are a very few dedications, commendatory poems, headings, etc.,

in which Roman letters were used by Bacon. These are in his later

printings.

Another thing this correspondent makes note of is that many of the

old books of the Elizabethan period have the same differences. I have

examined many of these, beside those belonging to Bacon in which

differences occur. In some of them I was led to think the cipher might

be found, but on examination it was seen that the different forms were

used promiscuously, without method, and could not be grouped in fives

to read in the bi-literal.

Replying to Mr. Lee’s communication in the issue of the 27th, I quote

this extraordinary extract:

“I should like to state unmistakably that I hold there to be

not the smallest jot of even _prima facie_ justification ...

in the text of the First Folio for the belief that a cipher

is concealed in that volume. I write with a fine copy on my

desk.... Italic and Roman type appear in the preliminary pages

... they are never intermingled in the manner which would be

essential if the words embodied Bacon’s bi-literal cipher.”

His idea of the intermingling of the Roman and Italic type as an

essential is entirely wrong. If he had read my book understandingly,

he would have known the different founts used by Bacon were in the

differing forms of Italic type, not the Roman, except in the very

few instances noted above. The cipher letters are not produced by

intermingling Roman and Italic type in the Plays. He will find on

every page of the Plays more than one fount or form of these Italic

letters, and that not proper names only, but much besides was printed

in them. See especially pp. 42-43, _Merry Wives of Windsor_.

Quoting again from Mr. Lee:--“To assert that a bi-literal cipher can or

does appear in a text printed as the First Folio is printed is a bold

denial of plain facts.” I wish to repeat, with equal earnestness and

entire certainty, that to assert that the cipher cannot and does not

exist in the text is a denial of a fact which I have demonstrated.

He mistakenly says, “The proper names figuring in the text of the

plays alone appear in a different type.” To these must be added the

abbreviated names of the speakers, the running titles, etc., and all

other words in Italic type, which together make up when deciphered over

50 pages of my book that are extracted from the folio.

What shall we say of this quotation from Mr. Lee?

“Ignorance, vanity, inability to test evidence, lack of

scholarly habits of mind are in each of these instances found

to be the main causes predisposing half-educated members of

the public to the acceptance of the delusion (!). And when any

of the deluded victims have been narrowly examined they have

invariably exhibited a tendency to monomania.... May a second

Hogarth deal as effectually with Mrs. Gallup and Mr. Mallock,

and their feeble-witted followers.”

Mr. Mallock “addlepated!” and “half-educated!” Lord Palmerston

“feeble-witted”--“with a tendency to monomania!” Is this temperate

discussion of a new discovery? Is true criticism of this subject and

its believers reduced to vituperation, and this the end of the argument?

The public will refuse to accept Mr. Lee’s dictum as having any weight

at all over against the examination made, and being made, by Mr.

Mallock, Mr. Sinnett, and many others. I must assume them to be the

peers of Mr. Lee in intelligence and discrimination, for he is most

surely wrong and refuses knowledge, while they are willing to study the

subject with patience and candour.

LITERARY WORLD.

LONDON.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir:--There is a sense of relief after the worst has been said, in

the assurance that nothing more dreadful can be expected. Since the

“critic” of the _Literary World_ has consigned me to that _Avernus_

whose horrors all good people hope to escape, I should be beyond

attack, as none would willingly follow me into the infernal regions.

After reading the article entitled _Galluping in Avernum_, my eyes fell

upon a clipping in which George Brandes is named as the “famous Danish

critic, and the greatest of living Shakespearean commentators.” It

says: “He dismisses the whole 'Baconian Craze’ with the remark that it

is on the one hand a piece of weak and inartistic feminine criticism,

and on the other an Americanism and therefore lacking in spiritual

delicacy.”

The criticism in the _Literary World_ of Bacon’s _Bi-literal Cypher_

and of the _Tragedy of Anne Boleyn_ is not, I think, feminine nor

American, but somehow the quality of _spiritual delicacy_ seems

lacking, and it can hardly be called _artistic_.

It is only recently that I have noticed--this rule has not reached

America--that some writers apparently think it is good form to pun, or

play, upon another’s surname. If the name is not pleasing to the ear,

the mortal who bears it has perhaps a lifelong affliction, yet it is

certainly a misfortune rather than a fault. Nor did I suppose, until

I saw the articles of a large number of reviewers, that any--except

writers more intent on filling space than careful of the value of

the matter--rushed into print before the subject discussed, or book

reviewed was half read. And yet it is this critic’s own confession,

regarding the _Bi-literal Cypher_, that he has read but “half the

book, and a few scattered sentences of the rest.” From this admittedly

superficial reading he concludes a “Phantom personating Bacon claims

to have written all the plays” etc.--the literature throughout

which the ciphers have with infinite pains been traced, and the

principles upon which they are based, the keys and directions for

their decipherment, ascertained and set out in the work he attempts to

criticise.

After quoting the statement that Elizabeth and Dudley were honorably

married, and that Bacon and Essex were the issue of this union, our

critic asks, “when were Elizabeth and Leicester again married?” This is

answered in the _Bi-literal Cypher_ (p. 154).

A little farther on critic says: “_If_ there had been a marriage,

which there wasn’t, sometime in the four months between Lady Dudley’s

(Amy Robsart’s) death and (the supposed) Bacon’s birth, it would have

legitimated Bacon; but then he would not have been a Tudor but a

_Dudley_.”

Bacon evidently considered himself legitimated by “this second nuptial

rite,” and when he wrote, probably knew quite as much of the law, and

of the time the marriage took place, as our critic. It was not descent

from Dudley that made him prince. Long-established custom was the law

that gave “to the first borne of the sovereign the title of Prince of

Wales.”

Our critic makes a point of the use and spelling of _Brittain_ and

of the expression '_in_ the throne,’ quoting: “Ended now is my great

desire to sit in the British throne.”

In the _Advancement of Learning_ (1605) he may read: “Queene Elizabeth,

your immediate Predecessor in this part of _Brittaine_” (B. 1, p. 36);

while in Shakespeare he will find:

“Shall see me rising _in_ my throne,” R. II. 3-2;

“When I do rouse me _in_ my throne,” H. V. 1-2;

“But one imperious _in_ another’s throne,” 1 H. VI. 3-1;

“_In_ that throne

“Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,” 3 H. VI. 1-1;

“And shall I stand, and thou sit _in_ my throne?” 3 H. VI. 1-1;

“And see him seated _in_ the regal throne,” 3 H. VI. 4-3;

“Once more we sit ~in~ England’s royal throne,” 3 H. VI. 5-7;

“And plant your joys ~in~ living Edward’s throne,” R. III. 2-2;

“We will plant some other ~in~ the throne,” R. III. 3-7;

“You are but newly planted ~in~ your throne,” T. A. 1-1;

“My bosom’s lord sits lightly ~in~ his throne,” R. & J. 5-1

Our critic has not read his Shakespeare well, if he thinks the term

unusual in Bacon’s time.

He also objects to the phrase, “_Every land_ in which the English

language hath a place.” Bacon wrote his cipher history to be read, when

deciphered, in all parts of the world. The reference to our colonies,

etc., was a prophecy more than half realized even then, and he claimed

for Elizabeth command of the sea which he called a “universal monarchy.”

Critic again quotes: “We spent our greatest labours in making cyphares’

(a noble occupation!)” Certainly, and a natural one when seeking means

of communicating important matters. Some one has suggested that instead

of committing his secret history to ciphers, he should have written

it out and confided the papers to the keeping of trusted literary

executors. But that would have been the action of mature years, or of

one who believed he was about to leave this life. Bacon then was an

eager youth, hardly yet upon the threshold of manhood, and he believed

his claims would ultimately be acknowledged. As to the nobleness of the

occupation, Bacon says of it: “These Arts (cyphers) being here placed

with the principal and supreame Sciences, seeme petty thinges: yet to

such as have chosen them to spende their labours studies in them, they

seem great Matters”--_Adv. of Learn._ B. 2, p. 61. (1605).

Our critic states: “To the real Bacon Elizabeth’s movements in January

1560-1 would have been known.”

To an _infant of days_? That is very good. These things _became_ known

to him in the way he states.

Again, “Robert Cecil, at the period referred to, was about fourteen

years of age.” Critic must have copied this from Mr. Andrew Lang who

makes the same mistake. The encyclopaedias give the date of Robert

Cecil’s birth as 1550. He was therefore eleven years older than Bacon

and about twenty-seven years of age when, Bacon says, he caused the

tempestuous scene that resulted in the disclosure to Francis that he

was the son of the Queen.

Then, “Hamlet was not in 1611 a new play.”

Could Bacon record in the types of a play then appearing for the first

time, that it had “breasted the wave gallantly?” Whatever the play or

whenever it was “new,” it could not be the 1611 edition of Hamlet.

The critic further says: “For Bacon’s style we know--compact,

well-built, grammatical, lucid; no feeble tautology, dilutions, or

repetitions; harmonious, and satisfying to the ear; pregnant with

meaning, and grateful to the intellect. But what about the Phantoms?

Here we find clumsy and sprawling sentences of half a page, or nearly,

with shambling subordinate clauses 'spatch-cocked’ in between brackets

or dashes” etc.

Refer again to the _Advancement of Learning_ (1605):

“Antonius Pius, who succeeded him, was a Prince excellently learned;

and had the Patient and subtile witte of a Schoole man: insomuch as in

common speech, (which leaves no vertue untaxed) hee was called _Cymini

Sector_, a carver, or a divider of Comine seede, which is one of the

least seedes: such a patience hee had and setled spirite, to enter

into the least and most exact differences of causes; a fruit no doubt

of the exceeding tranquillitie, and serenitie of his minde: which

being no wayes charged or incombred, either with feares, remorses,

or scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodnesse

without all fiction or affectation, that raigned or lived: made his

minde continually present and entier: he likewise approached a degree

neerer unto Christianitie, and became as _Agrippa_ sayd unto S. _Paule,

Halfe a Christian_; holding their Religion and Law in good opinion:

and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement of

Christians.” (B. 1, p. 35).

“Compact, well-built, lucid,” “satisfying to the ear,” “not clumsy,

sprawling sentences of half a page”--and yet here is nearly a page

before Bacon completed his period, and what about unity of subject?

And again from the same work:

“In which kind I cannot but mencion _Honoris causa_ your Maiesties

exellent book touching the duty of a king: a woorke ritchlye compounded

of _Divinity Morality and Policy_, with great aspersion of all other

artes: & being in myne opinion one of the moste sound & healthful

writings that I have read: not distempered in the heat of invention

nor in the Couldnes of negligence: not sick of Dusinesse as those are

who leese themselves in their order; nor of Convulsions as those which

Crampe in matters impertinent; not savoring of perfumes & paintings

as those doe who seek to please the Reader more than Nature beareth,

and chiefelye wel disposed in the spirits thereof, beeing agreeable

to truth, and apt for action: and farre remooved from that Natural

infirmity, whereunto I noted those, that write in their own professions

to be subject, which is, that they exalt it above measure.” (B. 1, 2d

p. 69).

I quote again:

“This kinde of degenerate learning did chiefely raigne amongst the

Schoole-men, who having sharpe and stronge wits, and aboundance of

leasure, and smal varietie of reading; but their with being shut up

in the Cels of a few Authors (chiefely _Aristotle_ their Dictator) as

their persons were shut up in the Cells of Monasteries and Colledges,

and knowing little Historie, either of Nature or time, did out of no

great quantitie of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, spin out

unto us those laborious webbes of Learning which are extant in their

Bookes,” (B. 1, 2d p. 18).

In eleven lines we are told that 'this kind of learning did reign among

schoolmen who did spin out to us those webs of learning extant in their

books.’

Many such examples could be quoted, but these will suffice to show that

this critic has not read Bacon well even in modern editions, and not at

all in the old English of the original editions. So slightly familiar

is he with the great author, that he has failed to discriminate betwen

the compact, forceful style of the _Essays_ and _Apothegms_ and the

“clumsy, sprawling sentences,” of his scientific works--a variation in

the manner of writing so marked that one might think these were not

from the same pen.

Mr. Candler has kindly replied to the objection to the sentence, “Such

things _doth_ burn,” but I will add other instances: “Which Religion

and the holy faith _doth_ conduct men unto” (A. of L. B. 2, 4th p. 69);

“which the example and countenance of twoo so learned Princes ... hath

wrought” (A. of L. B. 1, p. 11); “like Ants which is a wise creature

for itself” (B. 2, st p. 93).

Our critic next quotes: “'Whilst writing these interior works

these keies and joining words did _deter_ [it means _retard_] th’

advancement’ (pretty, to see keys and words writing).”

On page 26 of the _Advancement of Learning_ Bacon says: “For I am not

ignorant howe much that diverteth and interrupteth the prosecution,

and advancement of knowledge”; and on page 27, “which hath not onely

given impediment to the proficience of Learning.”

Preceding examples have shown want of unity in the subject, but I

will give an additional illustration to follow “whilst writing these

interior works” etc. It is this: “Hearing that you are at leisure to

peruse Stories a desire took me to make an Experiment,” (Letter to the

King).

A little farther on the critic states: “Especially careful is the

real Bacon in the use of the present conditional, (_if, lest, tho’_)

_it be_, &c.; but here we sometimes find _may_ stuck in,--'Dread

lest our secret history _may_ be found out’; 'ere the pleasure _may_

disappear,’” &c.

In a letter to Essex (1598) the critic will find: “If the main

conditions _may_ be good.”

And again: “Sometimes a future indicative, 'If it _shall not be_ (for

_be not_) found.’”

In a letter to the King we have: “If it _shall be_ deprived”; in _A. of

L._ (p. 5) “if any man _shall_ thinke.”

Again: “Many of the Phantom’s tautologies are positively imbecile,

_e.g._: '_Frequently_, aye _many a time_'; 'a _narrative_ of a

_story_'; 'the play previously _named_ or _mentioned_'; '_very_

pleasing _to such a degree_'; 'a most _cleare playne_ ensample’;

'_fulmin’d lightning_'; '_a coming_ people _in the future_'; and the

like.”

In the _History of Henry the Seventh_ is the peculiar combination,

“then a _young Youth_” (p. 247); and in the _Advancement of Learning_

(1605) these lines: “True _bounds_ and _limitations_, whereby humane

knowledge is _confined_ and _circumscribed_: and yet without any such

_contraction_ or _coarctation_”; “being _steeped_ and _infused_ in

the humors of the affections”; “not referred to the good of _Men_

and _Mankind_” (p. 5); “let men endeavour an endlesse _progresse_

or _proficience_ in both ... and again that they doe not unwisely

_mingle_ or _confound_ these learnings together” (p. 6); “the accuser

of _Socrates_ layd it as an Article of _charge_ & _accusation_

against him”; “and to suppresse truth by force of _eloquence_ and

_speech_”; “there hath beene a _meeting_, and _concurrence_” (p. 7);

“the modern _loosenes_ or _negligence_;” “it is a thing _personall_

and _individual_”; “have an _influence_ and _operation_” (p. 13); “to

_pierce_ and _penetrate_” (p. 15); “_fit_ and _proper_ for”; “can

_taxe_ or _condemme_” (1st p. 16); “have sought to _vaile over_ and

_conceale_” (p. 22); “Man’s owne _individuall_ Nature” (B. 2, p.

56); “which cannot but _cease_ and _stoppe_ all progression. For no

perfect discoverie can bee made uppon a _flatte_, or a _levell_” (p.

34); “which hath been likewise handled. But howe? rather in a _satyre

& Cinicaly_, then _seriously & wisely_ for men have rather sought

by wit _to deride_ and _traduce_” (B. 2, 1st p. 77); “being _set

downe_ and strongly _planted_ doth _judge_ and determine most of the

Controversies” (B. 2, p. 72); “For _Narrations_ and _Relations_” (B. 2,

p. 14); also “But as for the _Narrations_ ... they are either not true,

or not Naturall; and therefore impertinent for the _Storie_ of Nature”

(B. 2, 2d p. 6).

Again “The real Bacon, as a pretty good classic, could not have spelt

_Illiad_, _spirrit_, _Brittain_, _Citty_, _instructted_ &c., with

doubled consonants; or _comon_, _sufer’d_, &c., with a single one; and

rarely, if ever, did he adopt that curious growth of the old genitive

suffix (-_es_)--_is_ into the detached possessive _his_ (in imitation

of which, her came to be similarly used); yet in the Phantom’s twaddle

instances abound--'Essex _his_ plea’; 'the author _his_ poems’; 'the

Queen _her_ crown’; &c., &c.”

In _Love’s Labours Lost_ (5-2) _Illion_; in _Troilus and Cressida_

(1-2) _Illium_; in _All’s Well_ (3-5) _Citty_; in _Advancement

of Learning_ (B. 2, p. 32) _Brittaine_; Book 2, (p. 18) _maner_,

_comonly_; (p. 36) _canot_; (p. 74) _amogst_, _comand_; (p.

74) _comoly_; (p. 87) _wisedom_; and on page 92 _circurence_

(circumference).

In printing the deciphered work, similar elisions when they occurred

were marked with an apostrophe, the modern abbreviation, rather than

mar the page with such seeming errors.

I have already given six examples from the _History of Henry the

Seventh_ of the detached possessive _his_, and many others could be

cited. “A thing familiar in my Mistris _her_ times” occurs in a letter

to Northumberland; “I. S. _his_ day is past and well past”--Letter to

the King (29th of April, 1615).

“It needeth no proof _of the fact_ that” is characterized as modern

padding, but in _Advancement of Learning_ we read, “where there is

assurance and cleere evidence _of the fact_.”

Most, if not all the so-called modern expressions that have been

criticized--including some noted by another critic--are found (mildly,

exciting, headings), and in 2 _H. IV._ (1-1) is the line, “You cast the

event of war.”

A prominent assertion is that concerning repetitions. Most overlook

the fact that the cipher narrative was placed in a large number of

books and at different dates. The contents of the _Bi-literal Cypher

of Francis Bacon_ were deciphered from fifty-five works, some of them

subdivided into many separate parts, as in the Shakespeare First Folio

and Ben Jonson’s Folio. Bacon declares his reason for reiteration was

that he could not know in which book the cipher would be discovered,

nor could he suppose that it would be followed through all the works.

The article concludes with a promise of more to follow--then I trust I

may be granted space for further reply.

Yours very sincerely,

ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.

REPLY II.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LITERARY WORLD:

Sir:--It is unnecessary to explain again the principles of the cipher

I have set forth. Mr. Fulcher, Mr. Sinnett, Mr. Mallock, Mr. John

Holt Schooling, the critic of the _Literary World_, and others, have

done this with sufficient elaboration. Then, too, in _De Augmentis

Scientiarum_ they are fully illustrated and clearly taught by the great

inventor himself.

Few realize that Bacon’s own explanation was withheld until the very

last of his career. Without the key, the cipher could not have been

discovered, and in that lay his safety. In that, too, the importance of

the cipher was shown, for in stating that he invented it in his youth,

and explaining the same in his age, he set his seal upon it, so to

speak, as something useful and worthy of preservation.

And again, there is that very marked reference to this cipher in

the 1605 edition of the _Advancement of Learning_--that “quintuple

proportion required in no other”--so that a summary gives us: Invented

1579, mentioned 1605, illustrated 1623, employed a lifetime before it

was explained, as I have now proved true by actual decipherment from

fifty-five different books.

The critic states: “With respect to the Shakespeare Folio of 1623, Mr.

Sidney Lee, the final authority, declares that no cipher exists in it.

On this point, having examined a large number of detached passages up

and down the volume, we can bear subsidiary testimony. Not but what

there are many individual non-normal letters,” etc.

These 'individual non-normal letters’ can be separated into two

distinct classes. The practical application of Bacon’s invention was

merely a selection of the different forms as far as they existed, and

the production of others where there was a lack. In the cipher, this

is clearly stated. There was no impropriety in such an adaptation--of

forms already existing--so long as in their use there was uniformity

throughout each work.

Our critic says, “Nothing is more frequent than such mixtures in

books,” but there should also be added, what I have learned to be

true, that in Bacon’s works the different founts were used with a

_system_, have a rational dependence and connection, demonstrating the

incorporation of the bi-literal cipher. He admits there was a careless

use of the initial and interior forms, especially of the small _v_ and

_w_.

This very fact assured Bacon that their methodical employment would

pass unnoticed. One form is consistently used as an '_a_ fount’ letter,

and the other as _b_, unless there be a printer’s error, in which case

it is easily corrected by the context.

Our critic further states: “The book contains nearly 400 pages ...

which must equal more than three million cipher letters, distributed

it is asserted, over numerous old books printed in different years, by

different printers,” etc., and that “to deal reliably with the supposed

'normal’ and 'twin’ fonts requires a special training and experience.”

His estimate is approximately correct. Having examined with the care

that was requisite--usually with a magnifying glass--every letter in

that 'three million,’ may I not say I am “fitted by experience” to

differentiate the forms, and that I _know_ whereof I speak?

I make no claim to genius but the 'genius of hard work,’ nor to

inspiration except that coming from success which gave me courage to

persevere.

There has been a slight misunderstanding regarding the method of

deciphering. Both ways suggested by the critic were tried in the

beginning, as well as other methods, but the one finally adopted was

found to be most expeditious. I have many times given this in detail,

perhaps to some of your readers.

The Italic letters of a page or two of the text were first copied in

consecutive order by an operator using a typewriting machine that,

arranged to space after each fifth letter, automatically formed the

requisite cipher groups. When sufficient study had made me familiar

with the forms and classification of letters in the book--sometimes a

matter of days and even weeks--I placed a mark under the copied letters

indicating the fount to which each Italic letter belonged. Tentative

divisions were required to ascertain the correct grouping, and to

determine the starting point, but when these had been unmistakably

found, the copying would be resumed and the sheets containing the

transcribed _Italics_ thus properly grouped--but always in their

consecutive order as they stand in the books--would be brought to me.

Having in the meantime memorized the alphabets, I noted each '_b_

fount’ letter and placed a stroke (/) under the corresponding letter on

the typewritten sheet. All the others, belonging to the '_a_ fount,’

were marked with a short dash underneath, by an assistant, and the

resulting bi-literal letter was then set down. This was the MS. to

which I referred, and it is of this that “critic” facetiously asks:

“What need of MSS. if the cypher was already embodied in the printed

texts?”

Had he been at all familiar with ciphers he would have known they are

not to be read at a glance. They are purposely made obscure, and are

designed to be impossible to decipher by those not possessing the key,

and difficult in any case.

Before reviewers cite Mr. Lee as authority upon the cipher, they should

know whether or not his premises are correct. Mr. Lee says: “Italic

and _Roman_ types are never intermingled in the manner that would be

essential if the words embodied Bacon’s bi-literal cypher.”--this

shows, as I have before pointed out, in print and otherwise, that Mr.

Lee misapprehends the essentials. The Roman and Italic types are not

intermingled to form bi-literal letters. From 1579 to 1623, a period

of forty-four years, no Roman type was employed for cipher purposes.

On pages 66-67 of the _Bi-literal Cypher_ reference is made to their

use in a few short passages, only, of the later publications--the

preliminary pages of the _First Folio_, and of _Vitae et Mortis_,

etc. Mr. Lee is, therefore, not good authority, because he does not

understand the principles of the cipher, and, drawing his conclusion

from false premises, declares the cipher non-existent that I know

_does_ exist.

My critic says: “Just as in the Spenserian passage, the Gallupian

_b_-type has been somehow introduced into the reproduced text [of the

_Novum Organum_] so as to give the desired cipher-groups: but how, and

by whom?”

If he refers to the '_b_ type’ of the photographic facsimiles, it is a

frank acknowledgment that he can see the differences in the types. He

could, therefore, become a cipher expert if he chose. The '_b_-type’

was introduced when the originals were printed, the one in 1620, the

other in 1591.

If the reference is to the passages that were set up in modern type

by our printers, for the purpose of illustrating the method of

deciphering, the answer is in the statement itself. The two founts were

purposely selected with differences sufficiently marked to be apparent

to the dullest vision.

The facsimiles were omitted from the third edition of the book, not

because they proved too much but too little. In spite of the care

taken to secure accuracy, some distinctive differences were lost, and,

as a consequence, deciphering from the reproductions, was much more

difficult than from the originals, therefore not suited to novices in

the art.

Our critic makes a misstatement in saying that one section of the book

“purports to be a translation of Homer’s _Iliad_ made by Bacon and

buried in cipher in Burton’s 'Anatomy of Melancholy.’”

This section is fully explained to be but an epitome--argument,

Bacon calls it--of the chief events, with the names of the principal

characters, to be used as a guide and framework of the fuller

translation. The complete poem is embodied in the works and is to be

extracted by means of the word-cipher, a very different method. Our

critic also repeats the baseless aspersion made by Mr. Marston that

the Argument is a prose paraphrase of Pope’s translation. I have, in

replying to Mr. Marston’s criticism of my work, fully refuted this

charge, and I repeat that it is wholly without foundation.

That our critic understands little of the books he reviews, is apparent

in his reference to the method of constructing the _Tragedy of Anne

Boleyn_, and this requires that I again explain the difference of

method in the two ciphers. The bi-literal is in the _Italic_ letters

of the original volumes--in two founts or forms of type--and has been

extracted letter by letter, separated into cipher groups of five,

and the result set down. The word-cipher is much more elaborate, and

consists in a reconstructing of the history, poem, or drama that had

been disseminated through the works. Words, phrases, and passages,

pertaining to the same subject, are brought together by the keys and

joining-words, and in this new sequence relate an entirely different

story. Yet this interior history is the original. If our critic had

thoroughly read the introductory pages of the _Tragedy of Anne Boleyn_,

he would have understood that the lines were taken bodily from _Henry

VIII_--and the 107 other works--in accordance with this clear and

definite plan. The “argument” or synopsis, 'framework’ if he pleases,

of this _Tragedy of Anne Boleyn_, is given in the _Biliteral Cypher_

to aid in collecting the scattered passages, as the _Argument of the

Iliad_ is given to aid in gathering the scattered fragments of the

fuller translation of the great Greek poem. Some of the fragments of

this work are in the text of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, but it is

seldom that many consecutive lines are found there. The following

will however be recognized:--“Pandarus, Lycaon’s son, when he shot at

Menelaus the Grecian with a strong arm and deadly arrow, Pallas as a

good mother keeps flies from her child’s face asleep, turned by the

shaft, and made it hit on the buckle of his girdle.”--Part. ii, Sect,

iii, Mem. iii. Many of the proper names are also found in the _Anatomy

of Melancholy_. These fragments of the _Iliad_ are scattered throughout

all the works, but the largest portions are to be found in Greene’s

prose. I am explicit regarding this because so few understand that

Bacon refers to the poem in the word-cipher, when he mentions works

that contain portions of Homer.

Some writers, too, who have become acquainted with Bacon’s bi-literal

cipher, are not equally familiar with the word-cipher, although it is

mentioned in the _Advancement of Learning_ (1605) in the first lines of

the paragraph on ciphers: “For Cyphers they are commonly in Letters or

Alphabets but may be in Wordes.” Bacon chose an epistle of Cicero for

the illustration of the bi-literal, and it appears that it was in that

philosopher’s writings that he found the suggestion of the word-cipher

plan, for he says: “And Cicero himselfe being broken unto it by great

experience, delivereth it plainely; That whatsoever a man shall have

occasion to speak of, (if he will take the paines) he may have it in

effect premediate, and handled in these. So that when hee commeth to

a particular, he shall have nothing to doe but to put too Names, and

times, and places; and such other Circumstances of individuals.”

Bacon saw how the lines of history, or drama, or translation could be

separated and used in more than one place, and his invention consisted

in the use of certain key-words that marked the passages belonging

together. By making use of these in the original works, and taking

the work apart by the same keys that must be used in reassembling the

portions, his idea was successfully carried out. To guard against

mistakes, and to make the work less laborious to the decipherer, he

gave short “arguments” of the hidden work, as well as the keys, in this

auxiliary bi-literal cipher.

It is an error, then, to suppose that the sections are not brought

together “in any rational order.”

It would of course be possible to give the entire interior play or poem

in a single work, but this was not Bacon’s plan; and he adopted a very

ingenious manner of directing the decipherer by guide-words to the

different works, containing the scattered sections.

This disseminating of the original work that was to be brought together

again by this cipher, caused the anachronisms in the plays--the

dispersing of the Armada in _King John_, Cleopatra’s billiards,

artillery before it was in use, etc.--but it enabled him to hide his

principal and dangerous history, as well as other important writings,

to be collected again at a safe distance of time and place, and the

_end_ justified the _means_.

ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.

MR. DANA AND “MATTOIDS.”

Ed. N. Y. Times, Saturday Review:

Under the caption, “Shakespeare and Bacon. Writers about them are not

exactly lunatics--their cypher essentially a mattoid product.”--Mr.

Charles L. Dana gives what purports to be a review of a book recently

published, “The Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon.”

This cipher I had the fortune to discover, as it exists in the original

editions of the works of that great author, and I have deciphered and

given to the public what is contained in the volume referred to, hence

come under the classification which the gentleman seems to impose upon

a very considerable number of students and fellow-writers.

I hope Mr. Dana does not intend to be rude, but it seems to me that he

has unnecessarily gone out of his way in applying epithets to people

who differ from him in certain literary conclusions, and as the class,

which he condemns for such differing opinion, is a large and growing

one, and embraces names and persons even in his own city--judges,

lawyers, newspaper men, etc.--the peers of Mr. Dana in intelligence,

whom he would not dare personally to face with such aspersions as he

indulges in print, he shows himself inconsistent as well as reckless.

As a specimen of inconsistency, I quote from his opening paragraph:

“The question (Bacon vs. Shakespeare), however, continued to be

agitated or, rather, advocated, because few scholars regarded it

seriously. Some men of note, if not of learning, took it up, and Lord

Palmerston is said to have been a convert.” Certainly this is eminently

respectable company.

Near the close of the article, speaking of those who believe that Sir

Francis Bacon produced a much larger part of the literature of the

world than is accredited to him, and dare offer evidence of it, he

says: “They are not exactly lunatics, for the characteristic of lunacy

is weakness.” I suppose we should be thankful, therefore, that, by

the gentleman’s saving grace, we are not “lunatics, characterized by

weakness.”

Mr. Dana goes on to say: “Such people have received the scientific name

of mattoids”--a word apparently borrowed from the Italian alienist,

Lombroso, as it is not found in many dictionaries or encyclopedias. If

euphemistic, a critic like Mr. Fisk, uses the expression “eccentric”;

if addicted to slang, another would say, “cranks.” The use made, in

the article, of this term “mattoids,” is to designate those who have

“obsessions”--doing things “under the domination of an idea, which is,

as a rule, foolish”--in Mr. Dana’s estimation.

There can hardly be an “obsession” greater than to declare things

do not exist, because the individual is unable to comprehend their

presentation.

“Your opinion, my opinion, any man’s opinion, is the measure of his

knowledge.” If a man’s knowledge is ample and accurate, his opinions

are entitled to consideration. Mr. Dana’s knowledge of the bi-literal

cipher is evidently neither ample nor accurate. The fact is that the

presentation in the book he criticises is by fac-simile pages from

the original Latin edition of _De Augmentis Scientarium_, published

by Bacon in 1624, and by a verbatim reproduction of the first English

translation of the work, published in 1640. This cipher is explained

for the first time in 1623 Latin edition, though invented by Bacon in

1579, and used during the remainder of his life. The explanation is

Bacon’s own, and this cipher has been the basis of the most important

cipher systems that are in use in the world today.

Another thing that strikes me as inconsistent in the writer, and that

lays his article open to his own characterization of “weak logic,

stupendous misrepresentation, and erratic conduct,” is this: The value

of a critique is in telling something of the subject criticised that

will be of value to readers. Mr. Dana fails to make a single quotation,

controvert a single proposition which the book contains or give a

special reason for disbelief in the historical facts that have come to

light through the Cipher. It is simply his _ipse dixit_ that the Cipher

does not exist except in the imagination of the decipherer.

Is it profound criticism which exhausts itself in hurling anathemas

and vituperation? The creed of space writers in the newspapers, when

attacking things Baconian, seems to be that, as with the first man,

Adam, sin came upon all mankind, the insanity of Delia Bacon, who was

the first Baconian, was transmitted to all her successors, and that is

the end of the argument.

I think it only fair to the readers of the _Times_ that something

should be said on the subject, and of the book itself, which has led

to the discovery of “mattoids” among the authors of things not to Mr.

Dana’s taste, first saying that, personally, I have to confess to

mature years, and no little experience in educational work, preliminary

and preparatory to which was quite a thorough course of educational

training in our own country, supplemented by a considerable period of

study, in France and Germany.

Long before I had more than a passing and superficial knowledge of

Bacon’s Bi-literal Cipher, I had observed what all careful students of

Elizabethan literature have noted and remarked upon in the original

editions, that the Italic letters in some of the books were in two

or more forms. Later, when an original _De Augmentis_ came into my

hands, I saw there a clear explanation and elaborate illustration of

a cipher that required simply a biformed alphabet. Bacon there speaks

of the time of its invention as in his youthful days while in Paris.

It is first mentioned in his _Advancement of Learning_, published in

1605, with a hint of its importance. This was twenty-five years after

its invention. Eighteen years later still, in 1623, we find it fully

elaborated, at no small cost and pains, this still further emphasizing

its value after forty-three years of time. These facts, in themselves,

would suggest that the originator had tested its practicability. The

discovery of its application to the Italic letters in differing forms

in the original editions of Bacon’s works, has proved that it was made

the medium (in no “spiritualistic” way) for the transmission of those

secrets concerning Bacon, without the revelation of which many things

in his life seemed obscure and paradoxical.

Seven years of time have I given to the study of Bacon and his

ciphers--not as a dilettante, desultorily, as a means of recreation

or use of spare moments--but as a student in the hardest, most

conscientious sense of the word. A study which has been a weariness to

the brain and destructive to eyesight. Has Mr. Dana given seven days,

or even hours, to real research?

As Bacon said in his _History of King Henry VII._ “We shall make our

judgment upon the things themselves, as they give light one to another,

and (as we can) dig truth out of the mine.”

Spurred on by the fascination of an important discovery, and by its

development, as the concealed story was unfolded, letter by letter,

word by word, revealing the hidden life, the secret thoughts and

emotions of that great mind and personality, concerning which but the

half has been known, I have examined over seven thousand pages of rare

and priceless old original editions, placed at my disposal by the

courtesy of private collectors in this country and in England, or found

in our public libraries, and in that greatest of all receptacles of

literary treasures, the British Museum. Every Italic letter on those

seven thousand pages has been set down in its proper group, classified

according to the rules of the Cipher, and the peculiar characteristics

of each letter studied until they became as familiar as the face of

a friend. The results of the deciphering so far published fill three

hundred and sixty-eight pages of the book under discussion. It would be

a vivid imagination, indeed, that could create an historical narrative

such as the Cipher reveals. I have earned the right to speak with

confidence of what this research has brought to light. I here repeat a

paragraph of the personal preface to the First Edition:

I appreciate what it means to ask strong minds to change long-standing

literary convictions, and of such I venture to ask the withholding of

judgment until study shall have made the new matter familiar, with the

assurance meanwhile, upon my part, of the absolute veracity of the

work which is here presented.... I would beg that the readers of this

book shall bring to the consideration of the work, minds free from

prejudice, judging of it with the same intelligence and impartiality

they would themselves desire if the presentation were their own.

Otherwise the work will, indeed, be a thankless task.

In conclusion, and I speak from knowledge gained at fearful cost, I say

with the utmost positiveness, that there is no more doubt as to the

existence of both the Word Cypher, and the Bi-literal Cypher, in the

works of Francis Bacon, nor as to his authorship of the Shakespeare

Plays, and certain other works accredited to other names, than there

is as to the existence of stars which only students of astronomy have

known.

So long as the “Baconian theory” remained a matter of literary

opinion merely, all had a right to their own, but no one has the

right to place his prepossessions against facts which he has not

properly investigated, and then charge that the result of the careful

investigations of others leads to “stupendous misrepresentations” and

to “mattoidal products.”

ELIZABETH W. GALLUP.

CORRESPONDENCE IN THE “TIMES”

COMMUNICATIONS TO THE “TIMES.”

LONDON.

BACON--SHAKESPEARE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES:

Sir:--Many of the writers who, in your own columns and elsewhere, have

been lately expressing their views with regard to the bi-literal Cipher

alleged to exist in the First Folio of Shakespeare have spoken of me

as a convert to Mrs. Gallup’s theory. I am not so. I am a convert only

to the view that her theory is sufficiently plausible to deserve to

have its truth tested. Regarded as a subject of inquiry, its great

merit lies in the fact that its truth or falsehood can be ascertained

by purely mechanical means, such as photographic enlargements of the

text, coupled with a systematic examination of them. I stated this

opinion in my article in the _Nineteenth Century_. Pending such an

examination, which I intend to undertake myself, other arguments

appear to me a waste of time. They are like arguments as to whether

a piece of plate has been hidden in a locked-up cupboard, when the

sensible course to pursue is to pick the lock and see. Mr. Sidney

Lee’s letters seem to me to contain little but statements--no doubt

true--as to the extent of his own learning, and urbane intimations

that all persons who differ from him are half-witted monomaniacs. With

regard to the general question of the authorship of the Shakespeare

Plays the monomaniacs are those who consider any doubt of Shakespeare’s

authorship unreasonable. The main grounds on which, so far as I know, a

doubt of his authorship rests are grounds which suggest themselves to

the common sense of an ordinary man of the world, and arise from the

few details ascertainable with regard to Shakespeare’s life, as put

before us by writers like Mr. Lee himself. The mere genius displayed

in the Plays offers no difficulty. The difficulty consists in the kind

of knowledge displayed in them. This simple fact Mr. Lee seems wholly

unable to appreciate, as the illustrations he adduces in your issue of

December 27 show. He says that to doubt that Shakespeare wrote the

Plays ascribed to him is like entertaining a similar doubt with regard

to Keats or Dickens, because both these writers, like Shakespeare, the

butcher’s son, were also born in comparatively humble circumstances.

The whole point of the question escapes Mr. Lee altogether. The poetry

of Keats displays no knowledge whatever the possession of which would

be singular in a person situated as he was, and having similar tastes;

whilst the knowledge displayed in the works of Dickens is not only not

inconsistent with what we know of his life, but is, alike in its extent

and its limitations, an accurate reflection of his opportunities for

observation, and of his experiences. It is precisely because the case

of Shakespeare, in this respect, instead of being parallel to that of

Keats and Dickens, as Mr. Lee supposes, is in striking contrast to it

that a doubt as to the possibility of his having written the works

ascribed to him has arisen; and if Mr. Lee does not understand this

initial fact--as it would seem he does not--he is, as yet, despite

all his scholarship, hardly in a position to describe the doubts of

those who differ from him as groundless. It is perfectly true that the

question has another side. Mr. Lee’s error lies in his assumption that

it has only one side.

With regard to his boast that he has collated 25 copies of the First

Folio, this fact is altogether irrelevant unless he has collated them

with a view to examining the forms of the Italic letters used, with

a view to testing the truth of Mrs. Gallup’s theory. This, I gather,

he has not done, for the simple reason that he does not seem to have

taken the trouble to inform himself accurately what her theory is. He

tells us that the Roman type employed in the First Folio is all from

one fount, as if this fact touched the position of Mrs. Gallup; whereas

what Mrs. Gallup alleges is that the Cipher is confined entirely to the

Italic portions of the text, and that the other portions have nothing

whatever to do with it. If he had said that he thought the question not

worth inquiring into, his position would have been quite intelligible;

but to express, as he has done, a vehement opinion with regard to it,

without having given it more than a passing and prejudiced attention,

is not a course which reflects much credit on his critical judgment.

For myself, I should be prepared to accept one solution of the problem

or the other with the same equanimity. Either, in its own way, would

be equally interesting. If Mrs. Gallup’s theory is altogether false,

the manner in which it has been elaborated will form a curious incident

in literary history. Should it prove true, it will be more curious

still. But what strikes me principally in this controversy is the

odd sentimental acerbity with which the upholders of Shakespeare’s

authorship receive the arguments of those who presume to entertain a

doubt of it. Shakespeare is a figure of interest to us only because

we assume him to have written the works that bear his name. What we

know of him otherwise tends to quench interest rather than arouse it.

What reason is there, other than the most foolish form of school-girl

sentiment, for resenting the idea of a transference of our admiration

of the author of the Plays from a man who is personally a complete

stranger to us--or at best a not very reputable acquaintance--to a man

who is universally admitted to be one of the greatest geniuses who have

ever appeared at any period of the world’s history?

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

W. H. MALLOCK.

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CYPHER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES:

Sir:--Since you have allowed a critic of Mrs. Gallup’s interpretation

of the “Bi-literal Cipher” to cast discredit on the whole of her work

on the strength of having discovered (what he thinks) one flaw in it,

surely you will allow a believer in “the Bacon-Shakespeare craze” to

put forward a few words in reference to the “Shakespeare-Stratford

superstition.”

There are two schools of thinkers in reference to that superstition,

those who have studied the matter and those who have not. The former

are Baconians. Talking recently with a devotee of the superstition, I

said: “Surely, if you say that, you cannot have seriously considered

... such and such points.” His answer was, “I would rather hang myself

than seriously consider anything so atrocious.” That is a common

attitude of mind, and the reason why, as yet, only a minority of

Englishmen possessing an unusual degree of culture are fully aware of

the fact that Francis Bacon wrote the Plays published under the name

of Shakespeare. The argument derived from the contents of the _Promus_

containing 1,700 private memoranda in Bacon’s handwriting, all of

which are used up by him later on in the Plays, the argument derived

from the manner in which the Plays, in the order of their appearance,

reflect the incidents of Bacon’s life, the little circumstance that

11 of the best known Plays were never acted, published, or heard of

till seven years after Shakespeare’s death are a few of the reasons

which influence the belief of those attached to “the craze.” A few

of the reasons why the superstition appears so comically absurd to

them have reference to the fact that there is no shadow of reason

for supposing that the Stratford boy--apprenticed to his father as a

butcher at 14--ever acquired the art, then very unusual among people

in his rank of life--the art of writing. Neither his parents nor his

children ever learned to write. He learned in later life to scrawl

something resembling a signature, not the bad writing of a literary

man, but the hesitating, vague scratching of one who hardly knew how

to hold the pen. After a few years spent as tradesman’s assistant in a

vortex of ignorance, the boy ran away to London and, according to the

superstition, immediately wrote _Loves Labour’s Lost_, _The Taming of

the Shrew_, and _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, which were brought out

the year he came to London. The ridiculous _souffles_ of imagination

presented to the world by the orthodox biographers of Shakespeare are

all based upon the authors’ theories as to what “probably took place”

or what “must have happened” because Shakespeare wrote the Plays.

It is impossible to deal intelligently with the cipher story till one

has first of all escaped from the trammels of the superstition. Let

people new to the subject be assured, to begin with, that, without

touching a scrap of evidence having to do with ciphers, those who

“seriously consider” the question approach the discussion of ciphers

from the point of view of knowing that the Shakespeare idea is pure,

idiotic nonsense, and that Bacon, of course, wrote the Plays. Then,

as regards Mrs. Gallup’s Cipher, the question is simply this: Has

she built up the whole of this long story out of her own head as a

conscious literary fraud, or, “errors and omissions excepted,” is it

to be accepted as genuine? There is no halting-place between those two

views. Now Mrs. Gallup did not work alone. She was assisted by quite

a group of people of unequivocal position and respectability, she was

eager to invite the observation of witnesses while engagd for six

months at the British Museum deciphering the present story, and the

fraud hypothesis becomes, for those who will take the trouble to make

themselves acquainted even in an elementary way with the facts, utterly

untenable. The way to deal with it is to check Mrs. Gallup’s work. If

the Cipher is verifiable to any appreciable degree--as Mr. Marston even

seems to admit, as Mr. Mallock has definitely stated--its verification

by a responsible committee will displace the whole subject from the

region of controversy and put “the Bacon-Shakespeare craze” on a level

with that which brought Galileo into so much bad odour with orthodoxy

when he maintained that the earth went round the sun.

As for the curious flaw Mr. Marston has detected in the _Iliad_

translation, we can afford to wait for Mrs. Gallup’s explanation. If

the whole problem rested on Mrs. Gallup’s good faith, the flaw might

seem supicious, but it rests on the shape of letters in books at the

British Museum. In itself it is the biggest literary problem ever set

before the world; the _prima facie_ case is overwhelming, as every one

who has studied the question knows full well. How is it possible that

a dreary, senseless old prejudice should be allowed to stand in the

way of the truth? Who among those in a position to do this effectively

will undertake the duty of organizing a really competent committee

(including some persons, at all events, who have studied the subject)

to determine once for all to what authorship the greatest writings in

the English language are to be assigned? As for little difficulties

about dates, they will have to give way if the cipher story is verified.

A. P. SINNETT.

27, Leinster-gardens, W., Dec. 20, 1901.

BACONIAN CYPHER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES:

Sir:--Prompted by Mr. Marston’s letter, one of your leader writers

makes an insinuation against Mrs. Gallup “which gallantry forbids us to

state.”

The lady, unlike R. L. Stevenson, is alive and able to deal with

innuendos of this sort.

That Pope had access to the MS. of Lord Bacon’s version is not

unlikely, or that he saw an earlier deciphering from the _Anatomy_.

Both Rawley and Ben Jonson were alive in 1628 and wrote the Cipher.

Apart from this, the phrases in the passage in question which are

common to both poets were not new at the date Pope wrote.

“Silver fountain” is in the Shakespeare Play of _Richard II._, Act 5,

Sc. 3; “hoary-headed” in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act 2, Sc. 1; and

“Titan rays” in _Titus Andronicus_, Act 1, Sc. 2.

May I humbly correct your “leader”?

The Cipher not only mentions a marriage ceremony in the Tower, but a

ceremony in September after the death of Dudley’s wife, at a time when,

according to Mother Dowe, of Brentwood (see “Calendar of State Papers

for August, 1560”), marriage was very necessary.

The Cipher does not say it took Francis four decades of interval to get

over his affection for Margaret of Navarre, but that: “Not until four

decades or eight lustres o’ life were outlived did I take any other to

my sore heart. Then I married”--that is to say, did not marry until

after his 40th year.

If Mr. Marston had imitated the caution of Mr. W. H. Mallock, instead

of rushing into print directly he believed himself in a position to

impugn Mrs. Gallup’s _bona fides_, your leader writer would have been

less fluttered.

Yours obediently,

PARKER WOODWARD.

King-street, Nottingham.

FRANCIS BACON AND THE CIPHER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES:

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.

Concerning my reply to Mr. Marston’s charges, I am in receipt of the

_Literary World_ of May 2nd, which over his name has the following:

“Dear Sir:--I will not waste your space replying at length to

Mrs. Gallup, except to ask her where she has replied to my

article in _The Nineteenth Century_ for January, and to my

letters in _The Times_?

“In your columns and in the May number of _The Pall Mall

Magazine_ Mrs. Gallup says she has _elsewhere_ replied to my

request for an explanation of the fact that many passages in

what she says is Bacon’s translation of Homer are identical

with Pope’s Homer published more than 200 years afterward!...

“In a letter in _The Times_ Mrs. Gallup did suggest that Bacon

and Pope had used some edition of Homer _unknown to any one

else_.”...

In the above we note the strange inconsistency of Mr. Marston, for

my letter published in the _Times_ _did not_ “suggest” or even refer

to any edition of Homer whatever. His reference is to a paragraph

in my reply (printed herewith) to his baseless aspersions, and shows

conclusively that he had read my refutation, and knew that in the

article submitted to his magazine and rejected I had “elsewhere

replied” to his request.

In the article next preceding Mr. Marston’s letter, “Reviewer” also

states: “Now as to Homer, I have read Mrs. Gallup’s 'answer’ to Mr.

Marston,” etc.

This indicates that both Mr. Marston and “Reviewer” had examined my

article, and they comment upon specific portions of it before it has

been published, while ordinary courtesy should have withheld criticism,

at least until the article had appeared in print.

It may not be inopportune to report at this time the results of

researches made for me at the British Museum and elsewhere, since Mr.

Marston’s malicious charge of “paraphrasing Pope’s translation of

the Iliad” was made. Fourteen translations in Latin, French, German,

Italian and English, published before 1620, were carefully examined

for the reading in the disputed passages. Bacon’s “impatient arrow” is

“eager shaft” in Chapman’s translation, and “long distance shots” is

rendered “his hitting so far off,” the Greek words conveying the same

idea to these two minds. Mr. Marston matched Bacon’s “cold Dodona”

against _Pope’s_ “cold Dodona,” but Hobbes has “Dodona cold,” and a

modern Greek scholar renders it “chilly Dodona.” He also pairs “rocky

Aulis” with the same in Pope, but gives it as the literal translation

also; and he places Bacon’s “he _leapt_ to the ground” opposite Pope’s

“_leaps upon_ the ground,” while it is more like the line of Hobbes,

“he _leapt_ to land.” Another renders this “he _leap’d to_ the land,”

and still another, “he _leaped upon_ the earth.”

The examination also developed the fact that Pope’s original MSS.,

preserved at the Museum, have closer resemblances to Bacon’s _Argument

of the Iliad_ than are found in Pope’s published work. This is very

significant, and in itself refutes the charge, as I have never seen the

MSS., and the first edition of my book containing the _Argument of the

Iliad_ was published the year before I went to England to pursue the

work at the British Museum.

In Bacon’s _Argument_ we find:

“_Peneleus_, Leïtus, Prothoënor, joyned with Arcesilaus and _bold

Clonius_, equall in arms and in command, led Bœotia’s hosts.”

This in his fuller poem appears:

“_Peneleus_, Leïtus, and Prothoënor,

Join’d with Arcesilaus and _bold Clonius_--

Two equal men in arms and in command--

Led forth Bœotia’s hosts.”

Pope’s MS. at the British Museum reads:

“The hardy warriors whom Bœotia bred

_Bold Clonius_ Leïtus and _Peneleus_ led.”

But these were afterward emended to suit his verse, and the printed

lines are:

“The hardy warriors whom Bœotia bred,

_Penelius_, Leïtus, Prothoënor led:

With these Arcesilaus and _Clonius_ stand

Equal in arms and equal in command.”

By these comparisons we see that, in the _printed poem_, _Clonius_ has

lost his _bold_ness and _Peneleus_ has changed the spelling of his name.

Again in the original MS. we find:

“When first I led my troops to _Phaea’s_ wall

And heard fair _Jardan’s silver waters_ fall.”

But in Pope’s _printed_ poem it reads:

“When fierce in war, where _Jardan’s_ waters fall,

I led my troops to _Phea’s trembling_ wall.”

In this place Bacon omits all mention of the Jardan, but in the

catalogue of the ships he says, “Phæstus, by the _silver Jardan_.”

Chapman gives the name of the river, _Jardanus_, another translator

speaks of the _Jardan_, but Mr. Marston, I notice, writes the word

_Iardus_.

In his MS. Pope had “hilly Eteon”; Bacon wrote “hillie Eteon”; but

Pope’s _printed_ work has “Eteon’s hills.”

It is conceded that Pope followed Ogilby very closely. There may be

some interesting developments in the history of the latter. We know

that he was much employed about Gray’s Inn, and that he was afterward

taught Greek and Latin by the Oxford students to enable him to

translate Homer and Virgil. One thing needs no demonstration, that

there was nothing in Bacon’s Homer that made it necessary to keep it

concealed before or after it was put in cipher. Upon that point he

says that cipher writing became so much a habit, and pastime, that he

embodied many things in it not necessarily secret. I quote:

“And yet I have also emploied my cyphers for other then secret matters

in many of my later bookes, because it hath now become so much an act

of habite, I am at a losse at this present having less dificile labour,

now, then in former times in Her Ma.’s service.”--_Bi-literal Cypher_,

p. 66.

In the matter of criticism and expression of individual opinion, we

might quote from Bacon’s Essay of Custom and Education: “Men’s thoughts

are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches

according to their learning and infused opinions, but their deeds are

after as they have been accustomed.”

ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.

Detroit, Mich., May 15, 1902.

REPLIES TO CRITICISMS.

ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.

In presenting the results of my work in deciphering the bi-literal

cypher, I expected criticism, but it has taken on some features that

have been quite surprising to me.

To answer fittingly all the questions raised would be to write a book.

Some are relevant, many not; some are prompted by desire for knowledge,

others by a desire to check what they regard as a heresy; most show

unfamiliarity with the subject, and not a few are mistaken in their

statements of facts.

REPLY TO MR. CANDLER.

Mr. Candler, in the January number of the _Nineteenth Century_,

republishes modified portions of an article that appeared in

_Baconiana_ to which I replied some time since, sending a copy of my

article to him and to that magazine.

Mr. Candler makes his objections under the heads: History, Language,

Arithmetical Puzzles, Geography, Proper Names, and Bacon’s Poetry.

HISTORY.

As to History, I can only say, if the decipherings had been my own

invention, I should have had them in substantial accord with such

records as exist, defective as they now appear. Had I “followed”

accepted history, and prevailing ideas, and found in the cipher

confirmation of what people wish to have true, I should have received

encomiums due to an important discovery, and commendation for great

skill and industry in working it out.

It was my misfortune that the cipher would not read that way, and no

preconceived notions of my own could affect it. As I have elsewhere

said “the facts of history” is an elastic term, and means to the

individual that portion which the individual has learned. The records

are by no means in accord, and discrepancies may well be left to the

investigators, whose revisions from data they may hereafter be able

to collect may greatly change existing ideas. The decipherer is in

no way responsible for the disclosures of the cipher, nor allowed

speculation as to the probabilities in the case. One question only is

admissible--what does the cipher tell?

LANGUAGE.

Under Language, Mr. Candler makes five subdivisions.

1. “It was the English custom to use _his_ in connection with inanimate

objects where we now use _its_. This custom died out about 1670.”

This first objection is answered by himself, but in this connection he

states:

“_Its_ (or earlier, _it’s_) began to creep into literature about the

end of the sixteenth century, though doubtless it was used colloquially

at an earlier date.”

As to his other deductions on this point, I cannot speak from

knowledge, but whoever put out the First Folio was certainly not averse

to the use of _its_. In my former paper in _Baconiana_ I gave from the

Shakespeare folio ten examples of the use of the word. As there is no

punctuation in the cipher, I am unable to determine which form Bacon

used, _it’s_ or _its_, but that he used the word frequently in some

parts of the cipher and not at all in others, any reader may easily

see. _Thereof_, of which Mr. Candler speaks, though more rarely found

was occasionally used.--(See _Bi-literal Cypher_, p. 30, l. 4; p. 61,

l. 24.)

2. “From the date 1000 or earlier, we find many instances of _his_ used

instead of _s_ in the possessive case, and similarly, for the sake of

uniformity, of _her_ and _their_.... But in Bacon, after a diligent

collation of a great many pages, I find the general use of s without an

apostrophe for the possessive case both for singular and plural, and no

use of _his_, _her_, or _their_ in this sense. When a noun ends with an

_s_ sound, Bacon joins the two words without a connecting _s_. Thus:

'Venus minion,’ 'St. Ambrose learning,’ and the curious form 'Achille’s

fortune,’ which may be a printer’s error, as the apostrophe here is in

the wrong place. All these come from 1640 edition of the _Advancement

of Learning_, Books 1, 2.”

In a footnote Mr. Candler speaks of the seven instances sent him of the

disputed form, but I wish to give them here. _Henry Seventh_, (1622),

“King Henry his quarrell,” p. 24; “the Conspiratours their intentions,”

p. 124; “King Edward Sixt his time,” p. 145; “King Henrie the Eight his

resolution of a Divorce,” p. 196; “King James his Death,” p. 208. Also

in _Advancement of Learning_ (1605), Book I, “Socrates his ironicall

doubting,” p. 26; and one may see, “Didymus his Freedman.” in the

_Tacitus_. How many instances does he wish?

Mr. Candler further says: “And now for the 'Bacon’ of Mrs. Gallup.

Turning casually over the leaves of her story I find 'Solomon, his

temple,’ p. 24; 'England, her inheritance,’ p. 27; 'man, his right,’

p. 23 and p. 24; 'my dear lord, his misdeeds,’ p. 43; 'the roial

soveraigne, his eies,’ p. 59; Cornelia, her example;’ 'the sturdy

yeomen, their support;’ 'a mother, her hopes;’ 'woman, her spirit;’

and, curiously enough, where we might have expected an Elizabethan to

have employed _his_ 'Achilles’ mind,’ p. 302.”

Aside from the apostrophe, which could not of course be placed

in cipher in the one case--suggested as a printer’s error in the

other--the forms “Achilles fortune” and “Achilles mind” are the same.

We have the following examples and many others of the first form

also in the _Bi-literal Cypher_, (omitting apostrophes,) “Elizabeths

raigne,” p. 4; “Kings daughter,” ibid.; “loves first blossom,” “lifes

girlod,” p. 5; “stones throw,” “Edwards sire,” p. 6; “lions whelp,”

p. 7, etc., etc., etc., and we see that both forms are used in the

published works and in cipher.

3. Mr. Candler says: “It was the custom to finish the verb with _s_

after plural nouns, as if it were the third person singular,” but

complains that I do not recognize this in the deciphered work.

In two plays fifteen instances were found, seven of which are with

the verb _is_ or the abbreviation _'s_. In the _Bi-literal Cypher_,

p. 177, l. 9, Bacon speaks of “Illes which _is_ laid by for the good

opportunitíe.” There are undoubtedly other examples.

4. “Mrs. Gallup’s 'Bacon’ is repeatedly quoting from his own published

works and from the plays of Shakespeare.”

A reason is given for this, in the _Bi-literal Cypher_, p. 25. There

are many examples also in Bacon’s open works, _e. g._, “Females

of Seditions” is found in _Henry Seventh_, p. 137, while in Essay,

_Seditions and Troubles_, it appears in this form: “Seditious tumults

and seditious fames differ no more but as brother and sister, masculine

and feminine.”

From the Shakespeare plays we have,

----“we see

The waters swell before a boyst’rous storme.”--_Rich. III._

This occurs again as follows: “And as there are certain hollow

blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas before a tempest.”--Ess.

_Seditions and Troubles_. Also this: “Times answerable, like waters

after a tempest, full of working and swelling.”--_Avdt. of L._ (1605),