Chapter IX: Preface (6)

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: