BI-LITERAL CYPHER OF FRANCIS BACON.

Baconiana.

To thousands who tread unthinkingly the earth’s fair surface, the mineral constitution of the globe, or the history of its formation, is as a sealed book. The geologist, however, pointing out the parallel lines in a rock will tell us they indicate the glacial period. From a piece of coal he will describe the forests and plant life which formed the coal measures of the carboniferous era. He finds where volcanic action reveals strata from unknown depths, and reads their history like a printed page.

In architecture, the ages stamped, each its own, peculiarities upon column and temple, and the student of that science will declare the date of the ruins which accident or excavation have brought to view.

We see a tapering obelisk inscribed with hieroglyphics, and say this is Egyptian. The eye educated to discriminate will study the writings upon the stone that has been preserved from remote ages, and will say, this is the hieroglyphic proper; this ideographic; this the phonetic, or of this or that peculiar character, this is the Egyptian Hieratic; this the Phœnecian; these the Cuniform characters of the ancient Persian or Assyrian inscriptions, and few will challenge the correctness of the decipherings.

Thesavantwill tell us that the environment, the nationality and personality are unmistakably impressed upon the literature of every country, mark the times and character of its people and the stage of its progress. Year by year, decade by decade, age by age, time passed and wrought its changes until that period was reached in which the English people of the present day are interested because of the discussion which it has aroused—the latter part of the XVIth and beginning of the XVIIth Centuries. Knighthood had passed its flower but the English Court still loved the tales of Knightly deeds and founddelight in the fancies of the Shepheard’s Calender and Faerie Queene. Legitimate drama began to develop, replacing masques and mysteries. History was written and its lessons emphasized by dramatic representations. Essays brought the truth “home to men’s bosoms and business,” and experimental science made clear that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

This was the age when Francis Bacon lived and wrote, and fantasy, and essay, and drama began to appear, at first anonymously, and then under names of men as authors, whose lives, habits and capabilities presented the most incongruous contrasts to the works produced. They were days of peril and secret intrigue, when the words from the lips of the Courtier were often farthest removed from the thought of the brain, and when all secret communications were committed to cipher.

Of all the weighty secrets of that time, none save the Queen of England herself bore any more momentous than that prolific author. So momentous were they that few traces of their import found place upon the public records in connected or intelligible form, and were supposed to have died with those most intimately connected with them.

Bacon placed in his De Augmentis Scientiarum the key to a simple but most useful Cipher, of his own invention, and we now find that through its instrumentality the secrets so jealously guarded in his life time, were committed to his works, and waited only the hand and vision of a decipherer to be revealed to the ages which should follow.

Because the writer of this article has for seven years worked upon the Ciphers of Bacon, not as adilettante, but as one who realized the importance and vastness of the undertaking, urged on by the fascination of a great discovery and a growing interest in the developments of it, the statements made concerning the “Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon” are not “uninspired guesses,” nor mere conjecture, but such as come from knowledge gained by the hardest work and closest application, until the eye has been trained to that degree of discrimination by which, like that of the geologist, it is able to make hidden things plain.

In pursuit of the same objects as other students of things Baconian, my own investigations have been in quite a different field from theirs, and have met with most successful, as well asmost surprising results, not less surprising to myself, than they will be to my readers. I have been glad to submit the results of my years of study for the edification of those interested in the same subject, for they supply missing links in the literature of that era and explain much, if not all, that has been mysterious and difficult of explanation.

The last two numbers of Baconiana have presented varied comments upon the published results of my investigations. Naturally opinions differ, according to the point of view. Although the things discovered and brought to light are those which have been so diligently sought for, and believed to exist by the deepest students, yet the wider field unexpectedly disclosed and the marvelousness of it all, prompt to incredulity.

The objections urged against a belief in the cipher disclosures appear in a variety of forms. The astounding revelations are beyond the dreams of the most ardent believers that Bacon’s sphere of action and achievements were far greater than had been acknowledged, and some have gone so far as to think the recent publication of the “Bi-literal Cypher” must have been a romantic creation of my own, the words made to fit the differing forms of the Italic letters in the old books, and written out in imitation of the forms of thought and manner of speech of the old English language, enriched by the vocabulary of the great Francis. To suggest such a thing, with all that it implies, would bring its own refutation.

It is true that the Cipher Story does not in all respects accord, or stop with what has been supposed to be the “facts of history.” Authorities do not agree as to what the “facts” were, nor is it believed that all have found place on the records, and historians have filled gaps with deductions and conjectures, some of which have been most extravagant and impossible. Especially does this appear to be true in the light of the cipher disclosures, and whatever of variation there may be will furnish a profitable field for the investigators, and there is little reason to doubt their ultimate harmony. Cyphers would not be used to hide known facts, and could be useful only in recording those that had been suppressed.

Some have given expression to the thought that the Cipher Story shows a most unpleasant phase of character in Bacon, and a lack of that princely spirit which should have actuated the son of Elizabeth, entitled to the throne, in not trying topossess himself of royal power at any cost. Essex, of a more martial spirit, essayed to seize it, when Francis refused to make open claim to being Prince, in the face of the denials of the Queen,—and Essex was beheaded for the attempt. The murder of two princes of the blood royal by Richard Third; the imprisonment and execution of another, by Henry Seventh; the juggling with all rights by Henry Eighth, were not remote,—quite near enough to chill the blood of the peace-loving student and deter him from making himself sufficiently obnoxious to invite a similar fate. Later, his own account, in the Cipher, of the reasons for not striving to establish himself upon the throne appear quite adequate,—the succession established by law, and quite satisfactory to the people,—“our witnesses dead, our certificates destroyed,” etc., (pages 33, 38, 47, 201, and other references). He submitted to the inevitable as did Prince Napoleon, and as others have done in our own time,—for “what will not a man yield up for his life.”

Whether or not Bacon has “told the truth” in the Cipher, is not in the province of the decipherer to discuss. A decipherer can only disclose what is infolded. As to “slandering the Queen” in the statements which the Cipher records,—if so, Bacon would not be alone, for the old MSS, and as reliable and recent an authority as the National Dictionary of Biography admit the motherhood of Elizabeth, though they do not give the names of the offspring. This is supplied by the Cipher, written by the one person most likely to know. If the Cipher exists, and weknowthat it does, there must be some more reasonable theory for its being written into so many published books for more than fifty years, than for the purpose of slander or falsification. The peril of its discovery in the early days of its infolding would be enhanced by its being a slander, and the head would have “stood tickle on the shoulders” of anyone guilty of so causeless a crime.

Francis would have been more “lunatic” for risking such matter in cipher if not true, than “coward” for not daring openly to proclaim the truth which was being so carefully suppressed.

Many inquiries have reached me, asking “how is the Cipher worked,” and expressing disappointment that the inquirer had been unable to grasp the system or its application. It would be difficult to teach Greek or Sanscrit, in a few written lines,or to learn it by 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, persistency, 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 use in the 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 inventor’s thought many times repeated in the work.

The system has been recognized, and used, since the day that De Augmentis was published, and has had its place in every translation and publication since, but the ages have waited to learn that it was embedded in the original books themselves from the date of his earliest writings (1579 as now known) and infolded his secret personal history. To disbelieve the Cipher because not “every one” can decipher it, would be as great a mistake as it would be to say that the translations of the character writings and hieroglyphics of older times, which have been deciphered, were without foundation or significance, because we could not ourselves master them in a few hours of inefficient trial. I would repeat, Ciphers are used to hide things, not to make them plain.

The different editions of the same work form each a separate study and tell a different Cipher Story. The two editions of De Augmentis form an illustration. The first, or “London” edition, was issued, according to Spedding, in October, 1623. The next, or “Paris” edition, was issued in 1624. They differ in the Italic printing, and some errors in the second do not occur in the first. The 1624 edition has been deciphered; and the hidden story appears in the “Bi-literal Cypher” (page 310). The 1623 edition has not, as yet, been deciphered. It seems to be a rare edition. I found a copy in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian library at Oxford, two in Cambridge, and one inthe choice collection of old books in the library of Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence.

In the course of my work, Marlowe’s Edward Second had been deciphered before De Augmentis was taken up. At the end of Edward Second occurs this “veiled” statement, referring to De Augmentis (page 152 Bi-literal Cypher). “... the story it contains (our twelft king’s nativity since our sovereign, whose tragedy we relate in this way) shall now know the day....” Had Francis succeeded to the throne, he would have been the twelfth king (omitting the queens) after Edward Second, hence the inference that De Augmentis would contain much of his personal history. My disappointment was great when instead of this the hidden matter was found to be the Argument of the Odyssey, something not anticipated, or wanted, and would never have been the result of my own choice or imagination. At the close of the deciphered work in Burton’s Anatomy, in which the Argument of the Iliad was most unexpectedly found—another great disappointment—is this “veiled” statement: (page 309) “... while a Latin work—De Augmentis—will give aid upon the other (meaning the Odyssey). As in this work (meaning the Iliad) favorite parts are enlarged (in blank verse) yet as it lendeth ayde ...,” etc.,—i. e., sets a pattern for the writing out of the Odyssey in the Word Cipher. This explained the 1624 edition, and the inference is that the 1623 edition will disclose the personal history referred to on page 152.

In the 1624 edition there are some errors in the illustration of the cipher methods and in the Cicero Epistle which do not occur in the 1623 edition. The Latin words midway on page 282, “qui pauci sunt” in the 1623 edition, are “qui parati sunt” in the 1624, page 309,—an error referred to on page 10 of the Introduction of the “Bi-literal Cypher” as wrong termination, there being too many letters for the group, and one letter must be omitted. Other variations show errors in making up the forms on pages 307 and 308 in the 1624 edition, whether purposely for confusion or otherwise, it is impossible to tell. The line on page 307,

“Exemplum Alphabeti Biformis,”

should be placed above the Bi-formed Alphabet on page 308, while

“Exemplum Accommodationis”

should be placed above the example of the adaptation just preceding. The repetition of twelve letters of the bi-formed alphabet could hardly be called a printer’s error, as they are of another form, unlike those on the preceding page, and may be taken as an example of the statement that “any two forms will do.” In these illustrations the letters seem to be drawn with a pen and are a mixture of script and peculiar forms, and unlike any in the regular fonts of type used in the printed matter. No part of the Cipher Story is embodied in the script or pen letters on these pages. Whether or not the changing of the lines was done purposely, the grouping of the Italic letters from the regular fonts is consecutive asthe printed lines stand, the wrong make-up causing no break in the connected narration. There are many “veiled” statements throughout the “Bi-literal Cypher,” such as are noted in Edward Second and in Burton. To the decipherer they have a meaning, indicating what to look for and where to find that which is necessary for correct and completed work, as well as to guard against errors and incorrect translation.

My researches among the old books in the British Museum the past season have borne rich fruit, for there were found the earlier cipher writings. Shepheard’s Calendar, which appeared anonymously in 1579, contains the first, and discloses the signification of the mysterious initials “E. K.” and the identity of this person with the author of the work. The Cipher narrative begins thus: “E. K. will be found to be nothing less than the letters signifying the future Sovereign, orEngland’s King.... In event of death of Her Ma., who bore in honorable wedlock, Robert, now known as sonne to Walter Devereaux, as well as him who now speaketh to the unknown aidant decypherer ... we, the eldest borne should by Divine right of a law of God, and made binding on man, inherit scepter and throne.... We devised two Cyphers, now used for the first time, for this said history, as safe, clear and undecipherable, whilst containing the keys in each which open the most important.... Till a decypherer find a prepared or readily discovered alphabet, it seemeth to us almost impossible, save by Divine gift and heavenly instinct, that he should be able to read what is thus revealed.”

Following Shepheard’s Calender, the works between 1579 and 1590, so far deciphered (but as yet unpublished) are:

Arraignement of Paris, 1584.

Mirrour of Modestie, 1584.

Planetomachia, 1585.

Treatise of Melancholy, 1586. Two editions of this were issued the same year, with differing Italics. The first ends with an incomplete cipher word which is completed in the second for the continued narration, thus making evident which was first published, unless they were published at the same time.

Euphues, 1587; Morando, 1587. These two also join together, with an incomplete word at the end of the first finding its completion in the commencement of the Cipher in the second.

Perimedes the Blacke-smith, 1588; Pandosto, 1588. These two also join together.

Spanish Masquerado, 1589. Two editions of this work bear date the same year, but have different Italicising. In one edition the Cipher Story is complete, closing with the signature: “Fr. Prince.” In the other the story is not complete, the book ending with an incomplete cipher word, the remainder of which will be found in some work of near that date which has not yet been indicated and deciphered.

These, while not all the works in which Cipher will be found between the years 1579 and 1590, unmistakably connect the earlier writings with those of later date than 1590 which have been deciphered—as published in the “Bi-literal Cypher”—so that we now know that the Cipher writings were being continuously infolded in Bacon’s works, from the first to the last of his literary productions.

Elizabeth Wells Gallup.

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