Chapter VII: Preface (4)

On the contents of the biliteral cypher, considered under their more general aspect, we need not dwell longer. Enough has been said to show that, if it be a genuine document, the author had intelligible reasons for embodying it in this singular form. What mainly concerns us here is its purely literary significance, especially as regards the authorship of the so-called plays of Shakespeare. The mere fact that this biliteral Baconian cypher is incorporated in the first collected edition of these plays does not in itself prove, as we have seen already, that Bacon was the author of _King John_ and _Romeo and Juliet_, any more than it proves that he was the author of _The Fox_, which, though the same cypher occurs in it, is admitted to be Ben Jonson’s. The only evidence as to this point with which the biliteral cypher supplies us consists not in its existence in an edition of Shakespeare’s plays, but solely in the assertions which it contains that Bacon did actually write them, coupled with further statements relating to other cyphers--the word-cypher more particularly, also alleged to be contained in them. So far as concerns the biliteral cypher itself, the mere assertions as to authorship which Bacon makes by means of it have as much or as little value as they would have had had he made them openly. Their value depends on the value we are inclined to attach to his word, coupled with the probabilities of the case as estimated by the critic and the historian. The word-cypher, however, stands on a different footing. It depends on the text itself, not on the manner in which the text is printed; and the author of this cypher must necessarily have been the author of the plays. Now the biliteral cypher contains, if it really be a genuine document, elaborate instructions as to the word-cypher, and directions as to the method of unravelling it. That such instructions should be given if the word-cypher is a mere illusion, we need hardly say is incredible. Hence, according to all rules of common sense, our belief in the former carries with it a belief in the latter; and a belief in the latter--the word-cypher--also carries with it the further belief that Bacon actually was the author of the Shakespearian plays.

Whether such be the case or no, it is not my purpose to inquire. All that at this moment I am anxious to impress upon the reader is the fact that, in taking their stand on this new alleged discovery--this discovery of a cypher heretofore not dreamed of--a typographical cypher depending on the use of two printer’s alphabets, nearly alike but yet ascertainably different, the Baconians have shifted this controversy to wholly novel ground. The word-cypher is a cypher which, even those who believe in it admit, requires for its interpretation a certain amount of conjecture; but the biliteral cypher, if it exists at all, can be proved to exist, or, in the opposite case, it can be proved to be a mere hallucination, by the aid of a magnifying-glass applied to certain printed pages. There is no occasion here for any abstruse literary reasoning. There is no occasion for any literary reasoning at all. Either certain editions of the various books in question--the first folio of Shakespeare being the most important and the most famous of them--are, in so far as the italicised portions of them are concerned, systematically printed in letters from two different founts of type, or they are not. If, as is absolutely indisputable, two different founts are used, the letters from these founts are used in such a manner that, when separated into groups of five, and expressed as dots and dashes, each of these groups will denote a single letter, in accordance with the code set forth by Bacon himself; or else they will not do this, or will do so only by accident, most of the groups having no meaning whatsoever. And lastly, if these groups do assume a consecutive meaning, and actually give us a series of single letters, the letters will form words and intelligible sentences, or they will not. The whole case is one for simple ocular demonstration.

To make this demonstration conclusive in the eyes of the world generally would, no doubt, demand some time and labour. The question is, are there sufficient _primâ facie_ grounds for supposing that possibly the Baconian theory is true, to make it worth while for sceptics to undertake the inquiry? For my own part, unhesitatingly I venture to say that there are. In the first place, this cypher, as no one can deny, was familiar to Bacon, who claims to have himself invented it. He has himself admittedly supplied us with our specimen page of it, a passage from Cicero, reproduced by Mrs. Gallup in photographic facsimile, together with a companion page, in which Bacon has placed side by side the two alphabets employed, so that the differences between their respective letters may be more easily realised. Thus the biliteral cypher exists in one page of Bacon’s works at all events. There is nothing, therefore, fantastic in the idea that it may exist elsewhere. The only possibility of any doubt with regard to the question is due altogether to a purely physical circumstance. The types employed in printing the specimen passage from Cicero were designedly made of such a size, and the differences between the two alphabets were accentuated in such a manner, that the ordinary eye could readily learn to distinguish the letters that stand for dashes from those that stand for dots. Even here, however, the differences are for the most part so small and delicate that, in order to perceive them, we must scrutinise the page attentively; and an hour of such attention may elapse before we cease to be puzzled. But in the first folio of Shakespeare, as in most of the other volumes in which it is contended that the same type occurs, the type is much smaller. Although even the naked eye can be soon trained to perceive that in many cases the letters belong to different founts, yet these differences are of so minute a kind that in other cases they elude the eye without the aid of a magnifying-glass; and even with the aid of a magnifying-glass--I say this from experience--the eye of the amateur, at all events, remains doubtful, and unable to assign the letters to this alphabet or to that. The majority of educated persons, therefore, in the present state of the controversy, if they give to the italicised passages of the first Shakespearian folio and the other books in question only so much time and attention as may be expected from interested amateurs, may reasonably, if not rightly, entertain the opinion that the larger part of the differences alleged to exist between the italic letters employed are entirely imaginary, since their eyes are unable to detect them; that the supposed cypher is altogether a delusion, and has been read into the texts, not out of them, by Mrs. Gallup and her coadjutors.

On the other hand, the fact that the amateur finds himself, after weeks of study, still completely bewildered in his attempt to allocate the various letters to two different founts of type, in such a way as to elicit a sentence or even a word in groups of dots and dashes, according to the Baconian code, must not be taken too hastily as a proof that the alleged cypher is imaginary. Mrs. Gallup has done much, though not so much as she might have done, to enable her readers to settle this point for themselves. She has reproduced in facsimile from the original editions Bacon’s preface to the _Novum Organum_, 1620; and the Epistle Dedicatory of the so-called Spenser’s _Complaints_, 1591, in both of which it is contended that the Baconian cypher occurs. She gives similar facsimiles also of the Epistle Dedicatory, and the Commendatory Verses prefixed to the first folio of Shakespeare. She gives also an enlarged diagram of the different forms of italics used by Bacon in the printing of the _Novum Organum_; and of his preface to that work, and of the Epistle Dedicatory of Spenser’s _Complaints_, she gives the cypher meaning extracted letter by letter, each italic being thus allocated to its own alleged fount. Is this allocation merely fanciful or not?

I have studied for some weeks Mrs. Gallup’s facsimilies myself, and I give my experience, purely as that of an amateur, for what it is worth. When I examined the facsimiles first I could make nothing out of them; and of those from the first folio I can make very little still. All the letters seemed too much alike to allow of my separating them systematically into two founts of type. Differences which I thought I had discovered at one moment altogether vanished the next, and gave place to others, which soon, in their turn, escaped me. But with regard to the facsimiles from the _Novum Organum_ and Spenser’s _Complaints_ the case was otherwise, and for a very simple reason. In the facsimiles from the folio the type is extremely small, the original page having been reduced so as to accommodate it to an octavo volume. But in the Bacon and Spenser facsimiles the type is of the size of the original. It is comparatively large, and a study of it is proportionately easier. In these pages I was very soon able to distinguish the different founts to which several of the letters belong. I could presently do the same with regard to several letters more; and at last I was more or less master of two-thirds of the alphabet in such a way that I was able, with some confidence, to translate them, when in one form into a dot, and when in another form into a dash. I have tried this experiment with a large number of passages, and, comparing my interpretations with that of Mrs. Gallup herself, I have found that it coincides with hers, sometimes in four cases out of seven, and not infrequently in five. Many of the letters still continued to baffle me; but with regard to some I found myself always right; and the dots or dashes into which I had resolved these have invariably coincided with the requirements of the cypher, as Mrs. Gallup interprets it. It appears to me to be almost inconceivable that multiplied coincidences such as these can be the work of chance, or that they can originate otherwise than in the fact that in these pages at all events--the preface to the _Novum Organum_, printed in 1620, and in the Dedication of Spenser’s _Complaints_, printed in 1591--a biliteral cypher exists, in both cases the work of Bacon; and if such a cypher really exists here, the probabilities are overwhelming that Mrs. Gallup is right, and that we shall find it existing in the first folio of Shakespeare also.

It is unfortunate that Mrs. Gallup, whilst giving us the facsimiles already mentioned, has not given us any from the Shakespearian plays themselves, together with specimens of the cypher in them, interpreted letter by letter. I doubt, however, if such facsimiles would be conclusive if the page of the original folio were reduced to the size of an octavo. The process which ought to be adopted is one entirely the reverse of this. Passages from the first folio should be given not in a reduced but in an enlarged facsimile, so that the letters should, if possible, be something like half an inch high. Copies, moreover, of the letters, in all the forms in which they occur, should be arranged side by side in alphabets, according to the founts to which they belong; and a very few passages, if enlarged and illustrated thus, would be sufficient to show whether the admitted peculiarities of the type are merely accidental, as has vaguely been assumed hitherto, or are really the vehicle of an elaborately arranged cypher.

In order to show the reader that Bacon’s biliteral cypher can easily be printed in such a way that the inexperienced eye would wholly fail to detect it, and the uninstructed critic would reject its existence as a myth, I subjoin a passage taken from Bacon’s own chapter on cyphers:

~N~_ei_~t~_her_ ~is i~_t a_ ~s~_ma_~l~_l th_~in~_g t_~h~_ese_
_cyp_~h~_er cha_~ra~_c_~t~_er_~s~ _h_~av~_e, an_~d~ _ma_~y~
~pe~_rforme._ ~F~_or_ ~b~_y t_~h~_is_ ~A~_rt a_ ~w~_a_~y~
~is~ _ope_~n~_ed_ _where_~b~_y a man m_~a~_y ex_~pre~_sse_
_and s_~i~_g_~n~_ifi_~e~ _th_~e~ _int_~e~_ntio_~ns~ _of_
~his~ _mi_~n~_de at a_~ny~ _dista_~n~_ce of p_~la~_ce_, _b_~y
obj~_ec_~t~_s wh_~i~_ch_ ~m~_ay be pr_~e~_s_~e~_nted_ _t_~o~
_his eye an_~de~ _ac_~com~_modat_~ed~ _to_ ~t~_he_ _e_~ar~_e
p_~r~_ovi_~ded~ ~t~_hose o_~bj~_e_~ct~_s b_~e~ ~c~_ap_~ab~_le
o_~f a tw~_of_~o~_ld d_~iff~_er_~e~_nce_ _on_~ly~,
~a~_s b_~y be~_lls,_ ~b~_y_ ~t~_ru_~m~_pe_~ts~, ~b~_y_
_l_~i~_ght_~s~, _b_~y~ _tor_~c~_hes, by th_~e~ _re_~po~_rt_
~o~_f m_~u~_ske_~t~_s, and by_ ~an~_y instrum_~e~_n_~ts~
_o_~f li~_ke_ ~n~_a_~t~_ure._ ~B~_ut_ ~t~_o pur_~s~_ue o_~ur~
_en_~t~_erpris_~e~ _when...._

Into this passage I have printed the following lines in cypher:

The star of Shakespeare pales; but, brighter far,
Burns, through the dusk he leaves, an ampler star.

Founts of italic type might be found the differences between which would be much more minute than those existing between the two used here, but which would yet be visible to the trained eye of a printer’s reader, and by means of which a cypher might be printed quite legible to the expert, but undistinguishable for all the world besides. If, therefore, a biliteral Bacon’s cypher does really exist in the first folio of Shakespeare, we must be prepared to find that the unravelling of it is a matter of considerable difficulty, and that the ocular evidences of its existence are a long time in becoming plain to us.

I must now draw attention to another aspect of the question. If the cypher does not really exist, the entire matter, amounting to between three and four hundred pages, which Mrs. Gallup professes to have deciphered, is an elaborate literary forgery. I recommend the reader to study these pages, and ask if their character is such as to suggest this conclusion. I can here quote one passage only, which is alleged to have been printed, not into the Shakespearian folio, but into the _New Atlantis_. It refers to the writer’s supposed early love affair. If it be a forgery, it is one of extraordinary ingenuity; so full does it seem to me of pathetic and dignified beauty, and so strongly does it bear the marks of genuine and acute sincerity.

Th’ fame of th’ gay French Court had come to me even then, and
it was flattering to th’ youthfull and most naturall love o’
th’ affaires taking us from my native land, insomuch as th’
secret commission had been entrusted to me, which required
most true wisdome for safer, speedier conduct then ’twould
have if left to th’ common course of businesse. Soe with much
interessed, though sometimes apprehensive minde, I made myself
ready to accompany Sir Amyias to that sunny land o’ th’ South
I learned so supremely to love, that afterwards I would have
left England and every hope of advancement, to remain my
whole life there. Nor yet could this be due to th’ delight of
th’ country by itselfe; for love o’ sweete Marguerite, th’
beautifull young sister o’ th’ king (married to gallant Henry
th’ King o’ Navarre) did make it Eden to my innocent heart; and
even when I learned her perfidie, love did keepe her like th’
angels in my thoughts half o’ th’ time--as to th’ other half
she was devilish, and I myselfe was plung’d into hell. This
lasted duri’g many yeares, and, not until four decades or eight
lustres o’ my life were outliv’d, did I take any other to my
sore heart. Then I married th’ woman who hath put Marguerite
from my memorie--rather I should say hath banished her portrait
to th’ walles of memorie only, where it doth hang in th’ pure
undimmed beauty of those early dayes.

W. H. MALLOCK.

THE NEW SHAKESPEARE-BACON CONTROVERSY.

BY GARRETT P. SERVISS.

THE COSMOPOLITAN, NEW YORK, MARCH, 1902.

That smoldering question which nothing seems able to extinguish, “Did Shakespeare write the Shakespeare plays?” and the related question, “Is there a cipher hidden in those plays, which not only reveals their real authorship but betrays important state secrets of the time of Queen Elizabeth?” have just been brought before the public mind in a new and startling aspect.

And this time the problem is presented in a form which renders it capable of being submitted to something like a scientific test. It is, in fact, put upon a mechanical basis, so that it becomes a mere question of distinguishing between different shapes of printers’ types.

Mrs. Elizabeth W. Gallup, of Detroit, Michigan, avers that while engaged in an examination of old editions of the works of Francis Bacon, trying to trace there a “Cipher Story,” the key to which was discovered by Dr. O. W. Owen, to whom she was acting as an assistant, she became convinced that the careful explanation which Bacon has given in his celebrated work, _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, of a species of secret writing, invented by him, and which he calls a “Bi-literal Cipher,” was intended to serve some other purpose besides that of a mere treatise on the subject.

This Cipher is based upon the use of two slightly different fonts of type and, as we shall presently see, has nothing whatever to do with the literary form or sense of the books in which it is alleged to be concealed.

Remembering those puzzling italicized passages that occur in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, published in 1623, and for which no satisfactory explanation has ever been offered, Mrs. Gallup immediately examined them to see if, perchance, the bi-literal cipher described by Bacon might not be found in them. Apparently she was not confident of success, but, to her great surprise, as she affirms, the cipher was there!

She began to read it out, and if the story of what she says she found is true, nobody can wonder that she felt she had made _the_ literary discovery of the age.

Let us say at once that it is not only in the Shakespeare Plays that the alleged cipher is hidden, but it appears also in the works that were published under Bacon’s own name, being confined, as in the plays, to the italicized portions--italicized for no discoverable reason--and also, surprising to relate, in a variety of other books of the Elizabethan period, such as Spenser’s _Shepherd’s Calendar_ and _Faerie Queene_, Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, the plays of Peele, Greene and Marlowe, and even some parts of the plays of Ben Jonson.

Through all of these works, according to Mrs. Gallup, who has just filled a large octavo volume with her asserted revelations, runs a story, composed by Francis Bacon, and repeated over and over again, in varying, but never contradictory, forms, in which he affirms that he was the son of Queen Elizabeth by Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, to whom she was secretly married in the Tower of London when before her accession to the throne, both she and the Earl were imprisoned there; that, in order to keep his birth secret, he was given, while a child, to Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife Anne, who brought him up as if he were their own son; that he did not discover the truth about his birth until he was sixteen years old, when an intimation of it reached his ears through the indiscretion of a lady of the court, and then his mother, the Queen, in a fit of passion, confessed the truth to him, and immediately afterward sent him away to France in charge of Sir Amyas Paulet; and that while he was in southern France he fell in love with Marguerite, the beautiful wife of King Henry of Navarre, and the play of _Romeo and Juliet_ was afterward based upon this romantic episode in his life. In other parts of the story Bacon is represented as affirming that Queen Elizabeth had another son from her secret union with the Earl of Leicester, this being no less a person than the Earl of Essex, who was afterward executed for high treason by his mother’s command. Essex was thus, according to the story, Bacon’s younger brother, and, in the Cipher, Bacon appears as constantly lamenting the share which he unwillingly had in the tragic fate of his brother.

This story, whether it truly exists in the alleged Cipher or is the product of imagination, cannot fail to hold the reader’s attention, but before pursuing it farther let us see what the Bi-literal Cipher is.

In his work, _De Augmentis Scientiarum_, Bacon first shows that a cipher alphabet can be formed by various transpositions of the two leading letters of the ordinary alphabet, a and b, in sets of five, each set representing one letter of the Cipher, thus:

* * * * *

Such an alphabet in itself would be of no use for secret writing. For instance, let us print the word “Bacon” in it. It would run: aaaab, aaaaa, aaaba, abbab, abbaa. If a series of sentences were written, or printed, in that manner it is evident that the merest tyro would quickly discover the key and decipher the message.

Bacon’s next step, then, is to contrive a way in which the alphabet above described can be “infolded” in a printed book so that each set of five successive letters composing the words of the book, without changing their order and without reference to the meaning that they convey to the ordinary reader, shall represent one of the letters of the hidden Cipher. For this purpose it is necessary to employ two fonts of type, in which the forms of the letters slightly differ. Call one the “a font” and the other the “b font;” then every letter in the “a font” will stand for “a” in making up the sets of five a’s and b’s that compose the letters of the cipher alphabet, and similarly every letter of the b-font will stand for “b.”

* * * * *

_Note_: _An extended illustration of the working out of
the cipher is omitted here, the manner of it being fully
illustrated in two other parts of the volume._

Thus, by simply printing three sentences, containing one hundred and twenty-five letters in two kinds of type, another entirely different sentence, containing only twenty-five letters, is inclosed in them, and can be read only by one who holds the clue to the double system of types, which Bacon calls a Bi-literal Cipher. It is not necessary in any manner to interfere with the order of the words in the original work, and any book in existence could be made to hold a cipher of this kind. The only restriction upon the proceedings of the person who inserts the cipher is imposed by the necessity of using up five letters of the original for every one letter of his inclosed cipher.

In Bacon’s alleged use of the Cipher he is said to have included it only in the italicized portions of the books wherein it is found, using two fonts of Italic letters.

Now, even if the existence of such a Cipher in the Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, whose typographical eccentricities have long been a puzzle, can be established, that fact would not in itself affect the question of the authorship of the Plays. Being simply a matter of the types employed, any printer, if he had the opportunity--not to speak of a sufficient motive--could have inserted the story which Mrs. Gallup professes to have extracted.

Of course Bacon himself could thus have inserted it without having had anything to do with the original composition of the Plays. In fact, however, he claims in the alleged Cipher Story that he was the real author of those immortal compositions, as well as of other books, such as Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_ and Marlowe’s plays.

But the reader is likely to say: “This is so simple a matter that it should have been cleared up long ago. If there are two kinds of type used in the Folio Edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, and if all the italicized portions are printed in that manner, and filled with a secret story, it ought to be the easiest thing in the world to establish the fact by simple examination.” So it would be if the fonts of type alleged to have been employed by Bacon were as clearly distinguished from one another as are those which he used in illustrating the principle of the Bi-literal Cipher in his _De Augmentis_, or those which we have selected for a similar purpose. But, in fact, there is no such clear distinction. It may indeed be said that Bacon would have defeated his own end by making the differences of type manifest at the first glance. He had to choose letters which should be so nearly alike that they would pass under the ordinary reader’s eyes without exciting suspicion, and yet should be sufficiently varied to be distinguished without too great difficulty when at last the key was discovered and the deciphering begun.

Not only are the differences admitted by Mrs. Gallup, especially in the case of the small characters, to be so slight that very close examination is required to preceive them, but she avers that Bacon was not satisfied with using only two fonts; he employed many different fonts, and sometimes changed the order of their distribution among the “A’s” and “B’s,” apparently for the purpose of more surely concealing his cipher, for he is represented as saying that his life would be in danger if the fact became known that he was using this method of handing down to posterity secrets concerning the highest personages in the State which the few who were acquainted with them dared not whisper above their breath.

As Mr. Mallock has suggested, the thing to do is not to photograph the pages said to contain the cipher down to the dimensions of an octavo, as has been done, but to magnify them, in order that the typographical variations may be made more evident. By adopting that plan it may be possible to submit the whole question to a decisive test. At any rate, it is a question that can be tested by a mechanical examination, and there certainly seems to be no occasion for the display of heat and bad temper that has been called forth in some quarters by the discussion. On the contrary, it is full of interest, whichever way it may be decided.

Returning to the revelations which Mrs. Gallup assures us have been extracted from the books named with the aid of the Bi-literal Cipher, we come upon another point more surprising still. The Bi-literal Cipher is believed by her to have been intended as a key to other, more difficult, forms of cipher embedded by Bacon in his various works. The most important of these is described as a “word-cipher,” the translation of which does not depend upon the use of any special type, but is to be effected by means of certain key-words and directions given in the Bi-literal Cipher. This Word-Cipher, if it exists, could not have been inserted in a work originally composed without reference to it, but could only be worked into the web and woof of the composition by the original author, and to assert, as the story does, that Bacon was able to compose the finest plays that we know under the name of Shakespeare merely as cloaks for other hidden plays and narratives is indeed to tax credulity to its limit.

It will be observed that the “word-cipher” does not admit of any such mechanical test as can be applied to the Bi-literal Cipher, but is a subject for choice, judgment and ingenuity in interpretation, so that, to anybody not predisposed to accept it, it can never appeal with convincing force, as the Bi-literal would do if once the typographical differences on which it is based could be completely established. Let the Bi-literal Cipher’s presence be demonstrated beyond a peradventure, and then the word-cipher would stand a better chance of acceptance, because the other asserts its existence. The word-cipher compels those who accept it to believe that the person, who put the ciphers in Shakespeare’s plays and Bacon’s learned treatises and the poems and dramatic compositions of Marlowe, Spenser, Peele and Greene and the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ called Burton’s, actually produced all of those works.

Using the Word-Cipher, and following the clues accorded by the Bi-literal, Mrs. Gallup has recently deciphered, as she avers, one of the concealed tragedies of Bacon. It is called _The Tragedy of Anne Boleyn_, and is made up of bits from many of Shakespeare’s plays, matched together. For instance, we find Romeo’s words put into the mouth of King Henry VIII, and applied by him to Anne Boleyn:

“O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!”

All this is well calculated to repel dispassionate investigation of Mrs. Gallup’s claims because it so far offends the common sense and judgment of the reader that he must be tempted to throw the whole thing overboard at once. If the alleged discovery can ever be rendered acceptable to unprejudiced investigation, it must be on the basis of the Bi-literal Cipher alone. Let Mrs. Gallup successfully meet Mr. Mallock’s challenge by taking, as he suggests, the epistle from Macbeth to Lady Macbeth (_Macbeth_, Act. I, Scene 5), which is one of the passages in the first Folio printed in Italics, and indicating under each letter the font to which, according to her interpretation, it belongs. Then let Mr. Mallock have the passage photographically enlarged, so that the dullest eye can detect the smallest differences in the letters, and when the result is printed the public will have a fair chance to judge for itself.

But, whatever the outcome of the discussion aroused by Mrs. Gallup’s book may be, the story that Francis Bacon appears to tell in its pages does not fail in interest. The well-known fact that historical rumor has long whispered hints touching many of his alleged revelations serves to draw attention to them. Some of Mrs. Gallup’s critics intimate that those rumors may really be the sole foundation of her decipherings. But they do not accuse her of wilful invention, and if she has dreamed these things it must be admitted that she dreams interestingly.

Listen to Bacon’s complaint of the injustice done him, as Mrs. Gallup says she reads it in the double types of the “_Advancement of Learning_”:

“Queen Elizabeth, the late soveraigne, wedded, secretly, th’
Earle, my father, at th’ Tower of London, and afterwards at th’
house of Lord P---- this ceremony was repeated, but not with
any of the pompe and ceremonie that sorteth wel with queenly
espousals, yet with a sufficient number of witnesses.

“I therfore, being the first borne sonne of this union should
sit upon the throne, ruling the people over whom the Supreame
Soveraigne doth shewe my right, as hath beene said, whilst
suff’ring others to keepe the royall power.

“A foxe, seen oft at our Court in th’ forme and outward
appearance of a man, named Robert Cecill--the hunchback--must
answer at th’ Divine Araignment to my charge agains’ him, for
he despoyled me ruthlessly. Th’ Queene, my mother, might in
course of events which follow’d their revelations regarding my
birth and parentage, without doubt having some naturall pride
in her offspring, often have shewne us no little attenntion
had not the crafty foxe aroused in that tiger-like spiritt th’
jealousy that did so tormente the Queene [that] neyther night
nor day brought her respite from such suggestio’s about my hope
that I might bee England’s King.

“He told her my endeavours were all for sov’raigntie and
honour, a perpetuall intending and constant hourlie practising
some one thing urged or imposed, it should seeme, by that
absolute, inhere’t, honorably deriv’d necessitie of a
conservation of roiail dignity.

“He bade her observe the strength, breadth and compasse, at an
early age, of th’ intellectual powers I displaied, and ev’n
deprecated th’ gen’rous disposition or graces of speech which
wonne me manie friends, implying that my gifts would thus, no
doubt, uproot her, because I would, like Absalom, steale awaie
th’ people’s harts and usurp the throne whilst my mother was
yet alive.”

Bacon appears also as frequently lamenting the tragic death of his (alleged) brother Robert, Earl of Essex, and in _King Lear_ Mrs. Gallup reads from the Bi-literal Cipher a statement that Essex’s life might have been saved if a signet-ring that he desired to have presented to his mother had reached her: “As hee had beene led to bel’eve he had but to send the ring to her and th’ same would at a mome’t’s warni’g bring rescue or reliefe, he relyed vainly, alas! on this promis’d ayde.... It shal bee well depicted in a play, and you wil be instructted to discypher it fully.”

In Ben Jonson’s _Masques_, Mrs. Gallup says, she finds among other things this statement in Bacon’s Bi-literal Cipher:

“The next volume will be under W. Shakespeare’s name. As some
which have now been produced have borne upon the title-page his
name though all are my owne work, I have allow’d it to stand on
manie others which I myselfe regard as equal in merite. When I
have assum’d men’s names, th’ next step is to create for each
a stile naturall to th’ man that yet should [let] my owne bee
seene, as a thrid o’ warpe in my entire fabricke soe that it
may be all mine.”

In the same work Bacon is represented as saying that Spenser, Greene, Peele and Marlowe have sold him their names. This, it would appear, was not the case with Ben Jonson, of whom he speaks as his friend, and the implication is that Jonson knew what Bacon was doing with regard to the others.

Several times Bacon is made to refer to the murder of Amy Robsart, the Earl of Leicester’s wife, of whom he intimates, as rumor has long done, that the Earl wished to rid himself in order to marry Elizabeth.

The stories of his royal birth, of his love for Marguerite of Navarre, and all the rest of the tale are repeated again and again from the various books in which the Cipher is said to lie. Frequently Bacon appeals to the unknown decipherer whom he trusts some future time to produce, urging him to spare no pains to unearth the hidden things and promising him undying fame for his labor.

Among other things alleged to be contained in Bacon’s Ciphers are translations of Homer and of Virgil, part of which, in resounding blank verse, Mrs. Gallup publishes in her book. And some of her critics aver that it bears evidence of having been based upon Pope’s translation of the _Iliad_, because it contains names and descriptions that Pope introduced without any warrant from Homer.

It is strongly urged by some of Mrs. Gallup’s critics that if Bacon wished to tell such a story as is here put in his mouth he would never have done it in so cumbrous a fashion, but would simply have written it down and placed it under seal, in trustworthy hands, to be opened and read by posterity. But if, in spite of such objections, the existence of the Cipher should be proved, the question would then arise: “Who did put it there, if Bacon didn’t, and for what end?”

PROS AND CONS OF THE CONTROVERSY

THE BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF SIR FRANCIS BACON.

BACONIANA, LONDON.

ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.

EDITOR BACONIANIA:

From reading the January number of the Magazine, it would seem that I had at least furnished a new topic for discussion, and given a new impetus to the study of things Baconian, in the discovery that the Bi-literal Cipher of Francis Bacon was incorporated in the printing of his works, and that a secret story of the great Author was hidden in them. This in itself is a distinct gain for the study had seemed to languish for material upon which to feed until the opening of new channels of thought and research and comparison of ideas upon the new discovery. The object of the Society is investigation, First: of Bacon’s authorship of a much wider range of literature than has been accredited to him upon the title pages of the books of his time. Secondly: many have believed that Ciphers would be found that would present new phases of his life history which has seemed so mysterious, if only the right “key” could be touched. The limits of novelty in the discussion of all these things seemed to have been reached, however. Paralellisms in philosophy, language and thought had been urged until variety of phrases had been exhausted in comparing them, yet all arguments, while morally conclusive to the party urging them, were tinged with inconclusiveness in the lack of physical demonstration. The Ciphers found furnish the missing links which explain much, if not all.

Naturally the Ciphers and what they tell invite investigation and the pages of BACONIANIA would seem a not inappropriate forum for their discussion.

The understandings of different individuals concerning the same subject are almost as varied as the individuals themselves, hence we must expect a variety of opinions. Concourse of words has such different meanings to different people that we are compelled to believe that the brain is like a plastic matter of varying degrees of hardness, receiving but the faintest impression, or none, of some things, while others are deeply imprinted upon the recording tablets of memory. Then, too, the sources of information are so varied that the results of studying them are like looking through glasses of differing color and focus, and the individual receives and describes the impression from their own particular lense and confidently asserts that to be the only truth, hence investigation, comparison and discussion are needful in the clarifying process.

Investigation, however, does not mean rejection of that which is new or unpleasant or not in accord with our preconceived ideas, else my own labors upon old books would have stopped years ago, and I should not now be engaged in explaining what I have found, and the old beliefs would not have suffered the jar of a “Cipher discovery”.

Fully conscious of the absolute veracity of the work I have done, and my responsibility in the expression, I _know_ that the Bi-literal Cipher exists in the printing of Bacon’s works: I _know_ that others can follow over the same course, if they have the aptitude and patience for it, and can reach no other correct results. To those who have availed themselves of the opportunity carefully to study and follow my work, no argument is needed to convince them of my assertion. Doubts and objections come from those who have not had that opportunity or have given the work but slight attention.

There are those who seem to think the deciphered work as published is a creation of my own,--or that I am self-deceived. They do me too much honor,--or _too little_. It is an honor to be thought capable of such a production, through the gathering of historical facts, aided by a romantic imagination, and the power to express it all in the pure old English language of Francis Bacon. Did I possess such creative powers I would have devoted them to some more popular theme and spared eyes and brain from the nervous exhaustion of examining seven thousand pages of old English printing for the peculiarities of the Italic letters in them. I cannot aspire to the honor of such a “creation.”

On the other hand, it is not complimentary to my judgment, or that of my publishers, that I, or they, should go through the constant researches of the last seven years in libraries so widely scattered,--self deceived as to the resulting work, expending so much of time and strength and substance in developing something that was non-existent;--or if not that--and the Cipher has no reason for existence--what shall be said of so stupendous and brain-racking effort to deceive my readers with so purposeless a production.

It is urged that the Cipher disclosures do not accord with history. This is a field for the investigators. I can only record what I find as I find it. “The facts of history” is an elastic term and the deductions drawn from public records of the earlier ages vary greatly. The conviction is growing that much of interest was not recorded and it is certain that sources of information are too diverse and greatly scattered to be all brought together into an exact statement of facts. If the Cipher had a purpose, it was to record that which was being suppressed. It would have been a work of supererogation to put into Cipher the open records of the day.

Many inquiries have reached me asking “How is the Cipher worked?” and expressing disappointment that the writer had been unable after some hours of study, to grasp the system or its application.

It would be difficult, and hardly to be expected that an understanding of Greek or Sanscrit could be reached with the aid of a few written lines or with a few hours study. It is equally so with the Cipher. Deciphering the Bi-literal Cipher as it appears in Bacon’s works will be impossible to those who are not possessed of an eyesight of the keenest and perfect accuracy of vision in distinguishing minute differences in form, lines, angles and curves in the printed letters. Other things absolutely essential are unlimited time and patience, and aptitude, love for overcoming puzzling difficulties and, I sometimes think, _inspiration_. As not every one can be a poet, an artist, an astronomer or adept in other branches requiring special aptitude, so, and for the same reasons, not every one will be able to master the intricacies of the Cipher, for, in many ways it is most intricate and puzzling, not in the system itself, but in its application, as it is found in the old books. It must not be made too plain, lest it be discovered too quickly, nor hid too deep lest it never see the light of day, is the substance of the thought of the inventor, many times repeated in the work. The system has been recognized since the first publication of _De Augmentis_, but the ages since have waited to learn of its application to Bacon’s works; and yet the idea seems to be prevalent that “any one” should be able to do the work, once the bi-literal alphabet is known. This is as great a mistake as it would be to reject the translations of the character writings and hieroglyphics of older times which have been deciphered because we could not in a few hours master them ourselves. Ciphers are used to hide things, not to make them clear.

BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON.

A REPLY TO CERTAIN CRITICS.

BY ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.

PALL MALL MAGAZINE, MAY, 1902.

_To the March number of the_ PALL MALL MAGAZINE _Mrs. Gallup
contributed a preliminary paper on the controversy which has so
stirred the literary world. We now place before our readers a
second article in which Mrs. Gallup deals specifically with a
number of points which have been raised by certain individual
writers during the progress of the controversy. This Mrs.
Gallup has not been able to do before, because, as we have
already stated, the criticisms were not in her possession
when her first contribution left America. In sending us her
second contribution Mrs. Gallup wishes us to point out that the
articles to which she is now replying occupied considerable
space in the magazines publishing them, and the answers, to
be at all full and correspondingly valuable, require much
greater space than was placed at her disposal by the_ PALL MALL
MAGAZINE. _In fairness to Mrs. Gallup we think it right to
precede her paper with this explanation._

ED. P. M. M.

I gladly avail myself of the opportunity of replying to some of my critics in the PALL MALL MAGAZINE, as discussions in the daily press sometimes become acrimonious and detrimental to real study and calm judgment, while a presentation of the subject in the pages of a fireside companion can be enjoyed in the hours of leisure and recreation.

In view of the remarkable expressions in the _Times_ and other papers, and in two or three magazines in England, I should perhaps regard myself fortunate that there is now no Inquisition to compel a discoverer to recant, under penalty of the rack; and I can already sympathise with a contemporary of Bacon who, when forced publicly to deny what he knew to be truth, was said to have muttered, as he withdrew, “_E pur si muove!_”

The torrent of questions, objections, suggestions, inferences, and imaginings that have overwhelmed the press over Bacon’s _Bi-literal Cypher_, has shown an astonishing interest in the subject, and I may congratulate myself, at any rate, upon being the innocent cause of what somebody has called a “tremendous propulsion of thought currents.” Much of this energy has been expended along lines in no way relating to me or the validity of my work, but we may suppose there is “no exercise of brain force without its value,” and in the swirl there may be others who will say with me, “the world does move.”

I had expected, if not hoped, that with the aids I had set out, some adept in ciphers--sufficiently curious to enjoy solving Sphinxlike riddles--would have followed, and so proved my work. I have been surprised to find how few have been able to grasp the system of its application, and how much defective vision affects the judgment. I also regret very seriously the superficiality of most of the investigations. I am therefore obliged to go into details, when I had expected eager research by others would have made it a fascinating race to forestall me in deciphering the old books I was unable to obtain.

TEN OBJECTIONS IN THE “TIMES.”

“A Correspondent,” in the _Times_, fully discusses and sets out objections, summarising them finally under the following ten heads:

1. “There are discernible distinct differences of form in certain individual Italic letters used by printers of the period.”

This is an important admission of one important fact. Less careful investigators have directly, or by inference, denied that any such discernible differences exist at all. In the _Bi-literal Cypher_, p. 310, Bacon says: “Where, by a slighte alteration of the common Italicke letters, the alphabets of a bi-literate cypher having the two forms are readily obtain’d,” etc., which states clearly enough that he had few changes to make to secure his double alphabet.

It is admitted also that the full explanation of the bi-literal cipher is given in _De Augmentis Scientiarum_. Gilbert Wats’s translation says: “Together with this, you must have ready at hand a _Bi-formed Alphabet_, which may represent all the _Letters_ of the common _Alphabet_, as well Capitall Letters as the Smaller Characters in double forme, as may fit every man’s occasion.” He also says: “_Certainly_ it is an Art which requires great paines and a good witt, and is consecrate to the Counsels of Princes.”

So we have, in analysing this first objection, made good progress when we have learned--(1) the admitted differences in the types; (2) from Bacon himself of the use of bi-formed alphabets; (3) the clear and full explanation of the cipher itself, which can be applied to these differences; (4) his statement that it is an art which requires great pains and a good wit (and good vision as well); (5) that its importance is so great that it is consecrate to the counsels of princes. This really leaves but one question: did Bacon print this particular cipher into his books? I answer from a study of months and years that he did, and that I have correctly transcribed it.

2. The correspondent says: “These differences were by no means confined to the period when Bacon lived, or to the books in which Mrs. Gallup alleges a secret cypher--in fact, they are to be detected in similar profusion in books published thirty-five years after Bacon’s death--notably in the third folio of Shakespeare, 1661.”

I replied to this in a former communication to the _Times_, stating that in some old books of the period similar founts of type in two or more forms are used; that I have endeavoured to find the cipher in some of these, but found the forms were used promiscuously, without method, and the differences could not be classified to produce, when separated into “groups of five,” words and sentences in the bi-literal cipher. But this has no direct bearing on the subject. As Bacon’s invention consisted in making use (by slight alteration) of varieties and forms of type then, as now, in common use, he would have nothing to do with the introduction of the forms, their general use, or continuance. He employed a method by which two forms were arranged in a definite way, to serve his purpose in his own publications, while the method would be absolutely beyond discovery without the key. This key he withheld until 1623. We now know that Bacon used this method from 1579 to the end of his career, and that Rawley employed it until 1635 for cipher purposes. How much later it was used I have been unable to learn, that being the latest date of my deciphering.

“CONFINED TO FEW TYPES.”

3. “These differences, in so far as they are well marked, uniform, and coherent, appear to be confined to very few types--in the case of Shakespeare’s plays (first, second, and third folios, 1623, 1632, 1661) to some ten or twelve at most of the capital letters.”

This is incorrect, as I have observed in replying to Objection 1. But starting with twelve capitals, there is half that alphabet. The others can be found by closer observation. Many of the small letters are as well marked in some of the types, not only in the First Folio, but especially in the _Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh_ (1622), and in the first edition of _De Augmentis Scientiarum_ (1623).

DIFFERENCES DUE TO VARIOUS CAUSES.

4. He states: “Apart from such well-defined differences, there are to be observed in the Italic types of the period innumerable and unclassifiable differences of form, due, it would seem, to many contributory causes, such as defective manufacture, broken face, careless locking of formes (involving bad alignment or improper inclination of individual letters), bad ink, bad paper, and the great age of the impression.”

It is true there are differences that are not the distinctive differences governing their use, but it is very rarely indeed that a letter is found that is not paired with another, which, though like in some respects, is unlike in certain definite features. It involves no more difficulty to find how a number of letters similar, yet with certain distinctive differences, are to be separated into two classes, than to distinguish in the same way a number of letters in entirely different forms. Bacon himself speaks of the multi- or bi-formed type. We have difficulties arising from very natural causes, but there are none that cannot be overcome with time and patient study.

MR. MALLOCK’S EXAMPLES.

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.