PREFACE.
The Cipher discoveries in some of the literature of the Elizabethan period, as set forth inFrancis Bacon’s Biliteral Cypher—a book recently published in America and England—are most strange and important. To those not familiar with them, a few words are requisite for an understanding of the methods of the production of this Cipher play—The Tragedy of Anne Boleyn.
Two principal Ciphers have been found to exist in the works of Bacon. The first, the Bi-literal, by the use of Italic letters in different forms, concealed the rules and directions for writing out a second of greater scope—a so-called Word Cipher, in which key words indicate sections of similar matter, that, brought together in a new sequence, tell a different story. Both were invented by Bacon in his youth. The primary, or Bi-literal Cypher, is fully explained inDe Augmentis Scientiarum, but it is only recently that it has been found to exist in the Italic printing of a number of the books of the Elizabethan era—books ascribed to different authors but now proved to have been written by Bacon.
On pages following are extracts from theBi-literal Cypher, as published, relating in the words of the inventor himself the manner of using the Key-Word Cipher for the segregation and reconstruction of the hidden narratives, infolded in the pages as originally printed, with which we are familiar. These directions are fragmentary, scattered through many of the books deciphered, and are many times repeated in varying forms of expression.
The more important only are here gathered, which, with the “Argument” and the keys, now given, of this tragedy,will outline the plan of this work. It may be interesting to know that the use of the key words is progressive, and that a small number only are used at one time: the first six or seven writing the prologue, a few of the next the opening scenes of the play, and so on through the entire work, some being dropped as others are taken up successively until all have been used. An appendix gives the book and page from which the lines are taken that have been brought together as the “great architect or master-builder directed.”
In the reconstruction, especially when prose is changed to verse, the order of the words is slightly changed to meet the requirements of “rythmic measure in the Iambic.” The great author used large parts of many scenes in two distinct plays—open and concealed—now and then with the samedramatis personae, again with others clearly indicated as belonging, historically, to these particular scenes. This fact may jostle our ideas somewhat, as we find new speakers using the familiar lines, but there is an added interest, when the transposition gives the accuracy of history to the beauty of dramatic expression. Thisseemsthe reverse of the natural order, but it is seeming only, for the literary world became acquainted with the rewritten plays three centuries before the hidden originals came to light.
In the banquet scene of this tragedy, the first part is almost identical with that ofHenry Eighth, although—when “like joins like,” something from Macbeth, from Hamlet, from Romeo and Juliet, etc., etc., is added—while other diversions of that festival night are not given openly in any of the works. The handkerchief scenes of the imagined tragedy of Othello belong to this real, but concealed, tragedy of Anne Boleyn, and the accusations against the Queen of Sicilia are a part of the charge against this martyred Queen; the reply, a part of the pathetic but brave response she made. The second part was never before in any published drama.
It would seem that Bacon learned from Cicero the method of preparing matter which could with slight variations be adapted to more than one purpose. We find this in theAdvancement of Learning(1605, p. 52).
“And Cicero himselfe, being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainely; That whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speake of, (if he will take the paines) he may have it in effect premediate, and handled in these. So that when hee cometh to a particular, he shall have nothing to doe, but to put too Names and times, and places; and such other Circumstances of Individuals.”
A little further on (p. 56), is an instance where an inquiry about the tablets in Neptune’s Temple is ascribed to Diagoras, while in theApothegmsthis same question is put in the mouth of Bion. And, in the First Folio of the Shakespeare Plays, a very marked example occurs inRomeo and Juliet.
Romeo speaking, says:
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,Checkring the Easterne Clouds with streakes of light,And darknesse fleckel’d like a drunkard reeles,From forth dayes pathway, made by Titans wheeles.”
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,Checkring the Easterne Clouds with streakes of light,And darknesse fleckel’d like a drunkard reeles,From forth dayes pathway, made by Titans wheeles.”
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,Checkring the Easterne Clouds with streakes of light,And darknesse fleckel’d like a drunkard reeles,From forth dayes pathway, made by Titans wheeles.”
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,
Checkring the Easterne Clouds with streakes of light,
And darknesse fleckel’d like a drunkard reeles,
From forth dayes pathway, made by Titans wheeles.”
Then almost immediately after, the Friar gives the same lines, with very slight but distinctive changes:
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,Checkring the Easterne Cloudes with streaks of light,And fleckled darknesse like a drunkard reeles,From forth daies path, and Titans burning wheeles.”
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,Checkring the Easterne Cloudes with streaks of light,And fleckled darknesse like a drunkard reeles,From forth daies path, and Titans burning wheeles.”
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,Checkring the Easterne Cloudes with streaks of light,And fleckled darknesse like a drunkard reeles,From forth daies path, and Titans burning wheeles.”
“The gray ey’d morne smiles on the frowning night,
Checkring the Easterne Cloudes with streaks of light,
And fleckled darknesse like a drunkard reeles,
From forth daies path, and Titans burning wheeles.”
The modern editors cut out onequatrainas a supposed mistake, the decipherer discovers by the keys and joining-words that each has a place—the first in one work, and the second in another.
As the tragical events of this period in the history of the ill-fated queen, now known to be Bacon’s ancestress, havelittle by little unfolded in the deciphering, there has been a deepening sense of the pathos of the story. Like dissolving views the scenes appear, and fade, andthismightiness meets misery so soon that we feel the shock. There is the gentle Anne’s appearance at the banquet, “when King Henry for the first time cometh truely under the spell of her beautie”—his infatuation—his determination that nothing should stand in the way of making her his wife—the divorce from Katherine—the coronation—the disapproval of the people, not of Anne but of the King—the insulting song at the coronation festivities—the birth of Elizabeth, Bacon’s mother, and the King’s disappointment that the princess was not a prince. Later there is the King’s fickleness, which prompted the false charges against his wife—the mockery of the trial—the true nobleness of the victim—the injustice of her condemnation—the pathetic message to the King, as she was led to the scaffold—the cruelty of her execution.
It is no wonder that Bacon felt this deeply, nor that “every act and scene is a tender sacrifice, and an incense to her sweet memory.”
ELIZABETH WELLS GALLUP.
Detroit, November, 1901.
Detroit, November, 1901.