Baconiana, London.

Before these lines are printed, Mrs. Gallup’s very important work on “The Biliteral Cipher of Francis Bacon”[1] will have been for two months in the hands of the public. Since it is probable that there may be due discussion of its wonderful contents, it seems desirable to say a few words, not by way of review or mere expression of personal opinion (in such a case valueless), but in order to draw attention to certain points which, if not at present capable of absolute verification or contradiction, yet surely demand and are worthy of the closest investigation. Questions of this kind must naturally arise, “Is this cipher such as any person of ordinary intelligence can follow? Is it provably correct? Has any one besides Mrs. Gallup succeeded in depihering by the same means, and with similar results?”

These questions may without hesitation be answered in the affirmative. With the explanation given by the great inventor himself, anyone can master the method described in the De Augmentis (Book VI.). Ordinary patience and contrivance enable us to arrange two different alphabets of Italic letters and to insert these in the printed type, forming cipher sentences one-fifth in length of the “exterior” sentence or passage. Thus to bury one story within another is easy enough. To unearth it is another matter, and more difficult.

In the first place, there is nothing which particularly invites the decipherer to discriminate between the two forms of Italic letters which are essential to this typographical cipher; or, if differences or deformities in letters are observed, we have been required to believe them “errors,” defects in printing, carelessness of the compositor, or anything else which may explain them away. Be not deceived; there is no error, but consummate skill and subtle contrivance, all helping towards the cryptographer’s great ends.

Before beginning the work of deciphering, it is needful thoroughly to learn by heart the Biliteral Alphabet given by its Inventor in the De Augmentis. Here we see that the letters of the common Alphabet are formed by the combination of the letters A and B in five places, these two letters (A and B) being represented by two distinct “founts” of Italic type. To discriminate between these two founts, is the initial difficulty; but observing that, in the Biliteral Alphabet, A’s preponderate, and that no combination begins with two B’s, we judge that the most frequent forms of Italic letters are almost certain to be A’s. A decision is best arrived at by repeatedly tracing and drawing out the various letters; and the decipherer must have keen eyes and powers of observation to detect the minute differences. For our Francis would not make things too easy. He speaks of “marks” and “signs” to be heeded, and Roman letters are often interspersed. It is also patent (and was found by Mrs. Gallup, and independently by others) that, in every biliteral alphabet, letters are here and there intentionally exchanged, as a device to confuse and confound the would-be decipherer.

In many cases we find alphabets suddenly reversed—A becoming B, and B, A, a change hinted by some “mark” or “sign,” as a tiny dot. These changes seem to occur most frequently in very small books, where the limited space makes it the more needful to set snares and stumbling-blocks at every turn. Such things show that, besides the good eyes and keen wits required for successful deciphering, there must be no small amount of that “eternal patience” which Michael Angelo honored with the title of “genius.”

Let us contemplate the goodly volume presented to us by Mrs. Gallup, and try to realize the fact that every one of those 350 pages of deciphered matter was worked out letter by letter; that each ONE letter in this deciphered work represents FIVE letters extracted from the deciphered book—say, Shakespeare, or Spenser, Burton, or any of the eight groups of works indicated in the cipher. Not only should such reflections cause us highly to respect the “endless patience,” perseverance, and skill of the cryptographer to whose labors we are so deeply indebted, but they should warn us from depreciating or discrediting statements or methods which we ourselves are incapable of testing. “Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,” is a good, sound principle to begin upon, and Francis (“cunyng in the humours of persons”) had evidently observed the tendency of the human mind to fly from things troublesome, or to take refuge in disparagement and ridicule. His notes teem with reflections on this matter. “Things above us are nothing to us”—“just nothing.” “Many things are thought impossible until they are discovered, then men wonder that they had not been seen long before.” On the other hand, he continually encourages himself with thoughts, texts and proverbial philosophy, which we find him instilling into his disciples. “Everything is subtile till it is conceived.” “By trying, men gained Troy,” and so forth. But we must “woorke as God woorkes,” wisely, quietly, with persistent patience and unremitting care, and “from a good beginning cometh a good ending.”

So much, then, for the “biliteral” itself. Another crop of inquiries springs up when we attempt briefly to rehearse the wonderful revelations now before us, and which it is within our power to examine and essay to prove.

Elizabeth, when princess, and prisoner in the hands of Mary, secretly married Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Of this secret marriage two sons were born. Francis the elder would have been “put away privilie” by the wicked woman whom he never could bring himself to think of as “mother.” Lady Anne Bacon, however, saved his life, and under an oath of secrecy adopted him as her own son. The scene when these facts came to his knowledge, and again when they were tearfully confirmed by his “deare,” “sweete mother,” Lady Anne, are graphically described in the cipher narrative extracted from the “History of Henry VII.” (Ed. 1622). Further details of the same extraordinary episode are, as may be remembered, introduced in the “word cipher,” discovered, and in part published, by Dr. Owen, some seven years ago. From the disclosures made in the books deciphered, “it is evident,” says Mrs. Gallup, “that Bacon expected the biliteral cipher to be the first discovered, and that it would lead to the finding of his principal or word cipher which it fully explains, and to which is intrusted the larger subjects he desired to have preserved. This order has been reversed, in fact, and the earlier discovery by Dr. Owen becomes a more remarkable achievement, being entirely evolved without the aids which Bacon had prepared in this for its elucidation.”

But to return to our story.

Francis was now sent abroad by Elizabeth’s orders (not, as has been declared by his biographers, because Sir Nicholas Bacon wished him to see the wonders of the world abroad, but) in order to get him out of the way at the time when he had been the unwitting cause of a Court scandal. He left England in the suite of Sir Amyas Paulet, the English Ambassador. We know a little, and surmise more, concerning his travels, and the places which he visited, or where he stayed studying and writing. The sad story of his ill-fated love for “My Marguerite” is briefly touched upon, rather as a thing understood to the reader than as a record, and of this more will be related in a future volume. The present extracts are from the undated 4to. of Romeo and Juliet, where we may read:

“This stage-play, in part, will tell our real love-tale. A part is in the Play previously nam’d or mention’d as having therein one pretty scene acted by the two. So rare and most briefe the hard-won happinesse, it affords us great content to re-live in the Play all that as mist, in summer morning did roule away. It hath place in the dramas containing a scene and theame of this nature, since our fond love interpreted th’ harts o’ others, and in this joy, th’ joy of heaven was faintlie guessed.”

In the closing lines of King John are these instructions:

“Join Romeo with Troy’s famous Cressida if you wish to know my story. Cressida in this play with Juliet b——,” which, says the Editor,[2] “ends the cipher in King John with an incomplete word. Turning to Romeo and Juliet (p. 53), the remainder of the word and of the broken sentence is continued, being a part of the description of Marguerite, and the love Francis entertained for her.”

This love never faded from his heart, although before he married, at the age of 47, he had, he says, hung up, as it were, the picture of his love on the walls of memory. We remember the calm and uneffusive fashion in which he then imparted to his friends the news that he had found “a handsome maiden who pleased him well.” The tones in which he bewailed his lost love are pitched in a different key.

“It is sometimes said, no man can be wise and love, and yet it would be well to observe many will be wiser after a lesson such as wee long ago conn’d. There was noe ease to our sufferi’g heart til our yeares of life were eight lustres.[3] The faire face liveth ever in dreames, but in inner pleasances only doth th’ sunnie vision come. This will make clearlie seene why i’ the part a man doth play heerein and where-ere man’s love is evident, strength hath remained unto the end—the want’n Paris recov’ring by his latter venture much previouslie lost.”

A second son was born to Elizabeth, and named Robert, after his father, the Earl of Leicester. Robert was “made ward” of Walter Devereaux, Earl of Essex, who “died” conveniently and unexpectedly, when Robert was old enough to succeed to his title and estates. At what period the brothers became aware of their kinship has not yet been told in the cipher. Francis describes the personal beauty, gallantry, and boldness of his brother, and says that for these qualities Robert was a great favorite with the Queen, who thought that he resembled herself. The tale is still incomplete; but enough has already been disclosed to give us a firm sketch of the miserable outline. We see Robert taking advantage of the Queen’s doting fondness for him, and Francis endeavoring to keep his ambition within bounds, and to smooth matters with his irascible mother when, as was often the case, she became irritated beyond endurance by his arrogant audacity. The aim of Essex was, not only in the future to supplant his elder brother, but even in the Queen’s lifetime to seize the crown, and rule as king. It is a dark and painful page in history, and the more we read the less we marvel at the efforts made by Elizabeth to destroy or garble the records of her own private life, and of the times in which she lived. Having spoilt and indulged Essex so long as she believed him devoted to herself, she turned upon him “in a tigerlike spirit” when his treachery became patent, and because Francis had spoken strongly on his brother’s behalf, and had endeavored to shield him from the wrath of the Queen, she punished him by forcing him, under pain of death, to conduct the case (in his official capacity) against Essex, whom she had foredoomed to execution. An allusion is made to the ring which the Queen expected Essex to send her, but which miscarried. This story has been held doubtful, but it seems as though we may find it true.

The sentence passed upon Essex was just; but the horror of the trial and the circumstances connected with the execution, haunted Francis for the rest of his life, his tender and sensitive nature, and his highly strung imagination continually reviving, whilst they shrank from, the recollection of the horrible details of which hereafter we shall have to read. Although Francis speaks in affectionate terms of his “deere” and cruelly used brother, we cannot but think that the tenderness grew out of a deep pity; for Robert had long ago proved himself a most selfish and unsatisfactory person, and a perpetual thorn in his brother’s side, but, however this may have been, the gruesome tragedy remained imprinted on his soul, and clouded and embittered his whole life. “His references to the trial and execution of Essex, and the part he was forced to take in his prosecution, are the subject of a wail of unhappiness and ever-present remorse, with hopes and prayers that the truth hidden in this cipher may be found out, and published to the world in his justification.

“O God! forgiveness cometh from Thee; shut not this truest book, my God! Shut out my past—love’s little sunny hour—if it soe please Thee, and some of man’s worthy work; yet Essex’s tragedy here shew forth; then posterity shall know him truly.”[4]

The Queen commanded Francis to write for publication an account of the Earl of Essex’s treasons, and he did so. But the report was too lenient, too tender for the reputation of the Earl to satisfy his vindictive mother. She destroyed the document and with her own hand wrote another which was published under his name, and for which he has been held responsible. Such matters as these were State secrets, and we cannot wonder that Elizabeth should have taken care by all means in her power to prevent them from becoming public property by appearing in print. We may well believe that, as the cipher tells us, all papers were destroyed which were likely to bring dark things to light. Nevertheless much must have gradually leaked out through the actors themselves, and more must have been suspected, and only through dread of the consequences withheld from general discussion. “See what a ready tongue suspicion hath”; in private letters and hidden records the value of which is perhaps now for the first time fully understood, evidence is forthcoming to substantiate statements made in the deciphered pages of Mrs. Gallup, and her forerunner, Dr. Owen.

The matter gathered from the deciphered pages is not limited to personal or political history. For instance, speaking of the “Anatomy of Melancholy” (edition, 1628), the Editor says:—“The extraordinary part is that this edition conceals, in cipher, a very full and extended prose summary—argument, Bacon calls it—of a translation of Homer’s Iliad. In order that there may be no mistake as to its being Bacon’s works, he precedes the translation with a brief reference to his royal birth, and the wrongs he has suffered.... In the De Augmentis is found a similar extended synopsis of a translation of the Odyssey. This, too, is introduced with a reference to Bacon’s personal history, and although the text of the book is in Latin, the cipher is in English.

“The decipherer is not a Greek scholar, and would be incapable of creating these extended arguments, which differ widely in phrasing from any translation extant, and are written in a free and flowing style.”[5]

Readers must not expect to find in this book which we are noticing, a complete and shapely narrative explaining everything, and pouring out before us the true story of our wonderful “concealed man” from beginning to end. The cipher utterances are, for the most part, nothing if not fragmentary. The writer himself says so, and adds that his objects in thus trusting his secrets to the care of his friends and to the judgment of time were, First, that he might hand down to the future age the only faithful account of himself and his history, which would ever be allowed to reach them. Secondly, he proposed to link his unacknowledged works one with another in such a way that hereafter his sons of science should from the hints given in one work be led on to another, and so to another, until the vast mass of books, Historical, Scientific, Poetical, Dramatical, Philosophical, which he wrote, should be connected, welded together like an endless chain, and the true history of the Great Restauration and of the English Renaissance fully revealed.