THE BACONIAN CIPHER.—II.
By Fleming Fulcher.
Last week we reviewed the subject matter of “The Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon” by Mrs. Gallup. This week we have to redeem the promise then made to discuss the claims which the discovery embodied in it has on our credence. Let us first clearly define what that discovery claims to be. It is not that Francis Bacon invented a cipher which he calls “Biliteral.” That is a fact which has been known to the world for three centuries. What the authoress claims to have discovered is that this cipher is used in all the original editions of Bacon’s printed works, and that she has deciphered the hidden story by means of it. If this claim can be substantiated, it will decide once for all the Baconv.Shakespeare controversy in favor of the former, for in the deciphered story Bacon claims the authorship of the Shakespeare plays and poems, as well as of other works which we have been accustomed to attribute, in some cases on little or no evidence, to others of his “masques.”
Some fifty years ago the theory was started, independently on both sides of the Atlantic, that “Shakespeare” was in reality only a pen-name of Francis Bacon, and that it is to that great genius, not to the actor of Stratford-on-Avon, that the world owes its finest dramas. A storm of derision, of course, greeted the theory, as it does every theory that attacks a generally accepted belief, however erroneous; and it was only necessary to hold the theory to be at once classed with the inmates of a lunatic asylum—though one would hardly have supposed such an institution a suitable residence (exempli gratia) for Lord Palmerston. Just such a storm of ridicule, coupled with persecution, happily for “Baconians” impossible in the nineteenth century, greeted Galileo’s discovery that the earth moves round the sun. “E puo si muove,” and during the past fifty years the Baconian theory, under the influence of careful and patient investigation of internal and external evidence, has been steadily gaining ground. A fair example of the way in which the Baconian theory is met by its adversaries is the reply which was given to a friend of the presentwriter by a well-known scholar and “Shakespearian” authority: “If Shakespeare were to rise from the grave and tell me that Bacon was the author of the plays, I would not believe him.” Take another typical specimen; it is a criticism (save the mark!) on the work we are now considering that appeared recently in a daily contemporary:—“A fresh campaign by the Baconian zealots is threatened. Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup claims to have discovered and deciphered the mysterious secrets which Bacon, she would have us believe, buried in his writings. In the 'Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon,’ Greene, Peele, and Marlowe, as well as Shakespeare, all go by the board; Sir Francis explains to Mrs. Gallup that their dramatic works were written by him alone. The proofs, she says, are 'overwhelming and irresistible.’ The day will come when Macaulay’s New Zealander will debate whether Bacon was a solar myth or a sort of Homer, who gathered together all Elizabethan literature in a—cipher.” But ridicule and invective are not argument, prejudice is not proof. “Some of our friends,” we used to be told in our childhood, “are for warning, others for example.” Taking those we have quoted for warning, let us give a fair and open-minded consideration to Mrs. Gallup’s claims.
To do this it will be necessary to describe Bacon’s Biliteral Cipher. His own description of it may be seen in any edition of hisDe Augmentis. Its principle is extremely simple, being, in fact, that of the Morse Code at present used in telegraphy—namely, various combinations of two differences. Thus, if we have two dissimilar things or sets of things, represented, let us suppose, byaandbrespectively, there are thirty-two different ways in which we can arrange them in sets of five; as, for example,aaaaa,aaaab,aaaba, and so on. (It should be noted that in these groupsaandbare merely used as symbols to represent two differences which might be equally well represented by dots and dashes or any other convenient symbols.) Now, by using twenty-four such groups, out of the possible thirty-two, and letting each stand for a different letter of the alphabet (in Bacon’s day I and J counted as one letter, as did also U and V), we can communicate by means of two differences with anyone who knows what letter each group stands for. Bacon’s method, the advantage of which lies in being able to insert anything in anything—omnia per omnia, as he says—is to have two complete sets, or “founts” as they are called, of type, which he designates theaandbfount respectively. All that is then necessary is to write out the secret message in its biliteral form letter for letter over orunder the matter to be printed, and, as each letter is required, to take it from theaorbfount according as the one or the other letter appears against it. For example, suppose the words to be printed are “The Court Journal,” and that we want to “infold” in this the signature “Fr. B.,” and suppose ourafount to consist of Latin and ourbfount of Italic letters. Now, in Bacon’s biliteral alphabet F is represented by a a b a b, R by b a a a a, and B by a a a a b. Our MS. would, therefore, appear thus:
In printing we should take the T and H from theafount, the E from thebfount, and so on. The words would then appear thus:
THECOURT JOURNAL.
The decipherer would mark the letters according to their respective founts, divide it into groups of five, and, knowing what letter each group stands for, would read “Fr. B.”
In these days of publicity we find it hard to accept anything that savors of mystery, and tolerance of opinion and freedom of speech have made it difficult to credit that a man should have had motive sufficient for putting a cipher in his books. Yet, at the present day all internal state correspondence is carried on in cipher. Why? Because every other state is a potential enemy. And this same reason made cipher writing common among individuals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for in those days when “a man’s head stood tickle on his shoulders” every other individual, with perhaps the exception of a few intimates, was a potential enemy. But in the case of Francis Bacon there are special reasons why we should not wonder at his putting a cipher, and that his own Biliteral Cipher, into his published works; and we shall be able to show that so far from its being strange that he should do so, it would be strange had he not. He invented this cipher at the age of about sixteen or seventeen, when he was in Paris. Nearly thirty years later, in 1605, he published his great philosophical workOf the Advancement of Learning. It is significant that he should have thought ciphers of sufficient importance to be touched on in his work, and that he should have alluded to this particular cipher as “the highest degree of cyphers which is to writeOMNIA PER OMNIA.”
In 1623 he published a Latin version ofThe Advancementunder the titleDe Augmentis Scientiarum. This is not even a mere translation. The book has been entirely rewritten andgreatly enlarged, and is translated into Latin professedly because he feared that the English language wanted stability, while he believed that Latin would be the language of the learned for all time. Surely now, after nearly two crowded decades of Statecraft, of Law, of Philosophy, in which he has “sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,” the eminent statesman, the learned lawyer, the profound philosopher will find no room in his immortal work for what we are apt to consider an ingenious amusement for a schoolboy. Far from being omitted, however, the paragraph on ciphers is enlarged to some pages, the greater part devoted to a detailed description and examples of the cipher alluded to by him nearly a score of years before, invented by him nearly half a century earlier. But before we can realize the full force of these facts it will be necessary to glance at some of the leading traits of Bacon’s character. It is not too much to say that most people’s knowledge of this great man is derived—directly or indirectly—almost exclusively from one essay and one line of poetry; while few have read anything of his writings except his essays. Macaulay’s essay, as far as it deals with the moral side of Bacon’s character, is probably the greatest libel on a great man that ever masqueraded in the “weed” of criticism, and Pope’s line is the text of Macaulay’s essay in half a dozen words. Both have painted as the portrait of Bacon a figure impossible in human nature, “a vast idol,” as Hepworth Dixon well expresses it, “the head of gold and feet of clay.” But this writer and Spedding have dipped deep into the well of Truth, and with her waters have washed away the mud which had been flung by the envious hands of the pigmy contemporaries over whom Francis Bacon towered, and have shown the whole figure to be sterling gold from head to foot. Even Macaulay and Pope, however, while they mistake Bacon’s moral nature, acknowledge the vastness and exquisiteness of his intellect, though again on this side they fail to appreciate fully his “infinite capacity for taking pains.” “His understanding,” says the brilliant essayist, “with great minuteness of observation had an aptitude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other human being. The small fine mind of Labruyere had not a more delicate tact than the large intellect of Bacon. * * * His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanov gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold it; and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady. Spread it; and the armies of powerful Sultans might repose beneath its shade.”
Bacon’s, then, was just such a temperament as would have delighted in the continual application of his cipher; one to which the great labor involved—a labor which to most would be insufferable drudgery—would have been a congenial exercise or might have proved a welcome distraction from painful memories. There is one more point which has an important bearing in this connection. The guiding star of Bacon’s life was utility. Everything he studied—and what did he not study?—he studied with a view to the use that could be made of it. And utility was the mainspring of his least actions no less than of his loftiest philosophy. If this be granted, and we believe no one will for a moment dispute it, we have the strongest probability, nay, the absolute certainty, that he used the cipher which he invented and published. But where? Only one answer is possible—“In his printed works.” For we have seen that it is to be performed by means of two founts of type. One more question naturally suggests itself. “Had he adequate motives for imposing on himself the labor which the extensive use of the cipher involves?” This can only be answered when the secret is no longer a secret, when the cipher is deciphered. The story as deciphered by Mrs. Gallup gives an emphatic answer in the affirmative. The statements unfolded by her are such that, while their publication during his lifetime would have been productive of no good, it would have cost him his life. But in the interests of truth and for his own justification he wished them to be given to a future age. It was with this object that he began to use the cipher, and he continued its use as a distraction from the agonies of retrospection. We have now established, as we think, beyond contradiction, the fact that so far from being incredulous as to the existence of the biliteral cipher in Bacon’s works, we ought to expect it. How is it, then, the reader will say, that it has remained undiscovered for so long? It is the old story once more of Columbus and the egg, or, as Mrs. Gallup aptly quotes from Bacon himself, “in which sort of things it is the manner of men, first to wonder that such a thing should be possible, and after it is found out, to wonder again how the world should miss it so long.”