THE BACONIAN CIPHER.—III.
By Fleming Fulcher.
Our discussion of this question last week led us byà prioriargument to the conclusion that Francis Bacon had put a cipher story into his printed works.
Now, either this long-neglected cipher has at last been discovered and deciphered or it has not. That is a truism. In the latter case two, and only two, hypotheses are possible; if they can be shown to be false, the affirmative proposition is established. These two hypotheses are—(1) that a deliberate fraud is being perpetrated; (2) that with perfectly honest intentions our authoress has, to use a familiar expression, “cooked” the cipher, and consequently the story is in reality the creation of her own brain. It would be a wonderful brain, indeed, that could have devised and executed such a work. The first supposition, we do not hesitate to say, will be at once dismissed by anyone who has even a slight acquaintance with the authoress. But as this is a privilege necessarily denied to the great majority of our readers, let us examine the question impersonally and impartially on its own merits. The “fraud” hypothesis would mean this—that the author had deliberately invented the whole story, and stated without the slightest foundation in fact that when resolved into Francis Bacon’s biliteral alphabet it would be found to correspond, letter by letter, with the two founts of Italic type which occur in such profusion in the works deciphered—for it is through the Italics that the cipher runs. Of the existence of different founts of Italic type in these works there is no question. It has long been known, though never hitherto explained; and anyone can verify this assertion by a glance at the original editions, or at the facsimiles inThe Biliteral Cipher of Sir Francis Bacon.
Now, to ensure this correspondence between the cipher story and the Italic print it would be necessary to count the letters in the latter—in itself a task almost as great as the genuine deciphering. And this would be but a small part of the labor required. It would be far surpassed by the immense amount of literary, linguistic, and historical knowledge and research indispensable for the avoidance of errors which wouldsoon be detected by the critics, and which would at once expose the fraud. Again, we might easily conceive that the author of our hypothetical fraud would pretend to find a secret history of Bacon’s time, with all its tragic interest, but it would be hard indeed to imagine that the idea would suggest itself of pretending to find summaries of and poetical translations from theIliadand theOdyssey, or that the author would be capable of expressing them with such true Baconian intuition and freedom as they display. Still less is it likely that the author would run the risk of wearying his readers with directions for working out another cipher, which would also, presumably, be non-existent, or with frequent repetitions, which, however, will be seen to be necessary if the cipher is genuine. These considerations, we are aware, though they amount to a moral certainty of the impossibility of the “fraud” hypothesis, do not constitute a mathematical proof of it. There is, however, one which seems to us to do so. In the case of some of the letters the differences between the two founts are so slight that it would be difficult, without more study than most people would be prepared to give, to pronounce with certainty to which fount these letters belonged. But, on the other hand, in the case of many of the letters—most of the capitals and some of the small letters—the differences are “so plaine as thou canst not erre therein.” Now, as these letters stand in fixed places and must be marked alwaysaorbaccording to their respective founts, the fraud would at once be detected, for it is a mathematical impossibility that thea's andb's of the biliteral form of a story not composed with reference to the actual letters could always fall in the right place. So much for the fraud hypothesis. The hypothesis of unintentional “cooking” may be very briefly dismissed. We had intended to give some rough calculations which would have demonstrated the untenability of this theory, but space and our readers’ patience, or rather the certain want of the one and the probable exhaustion of the other, forbid. When, however, it is considered that the cipher story has to be got out letter by letter from the printed matter; that it takes five letters of the latter to make one of the former; and that if one letter were got out it would give no assistance in extracting the next; unless there were a cipher there, it will be seen that no assistance would be obtained from the doubtful letters, and that it would be impossible to obtain any sense in this way. We have now fairly examined the only two hypotheses on which it is possible that Mrs. Gallup’s claim can be a “bogus” one, and proved them false. Thus we are driven by the inexorable force of logic to the onlyremaining conclusion: That Francis Bacon did put a cipher into his printed works; that Mrs. Gallup has discovered it and has translated it.
We had intended to produce much corroborative evidence which, though we now find it superfluous, we believe would have been interesting. The exigencies of space again prevent us. One piece, however, is so curious that we feel sure our readers will pardon us if we produce it. We can vouch for the fact that it was unknown to our authoress when the statement it corroborates was deciphered. In the north of London there is still standing a square building of red brick, dating from the reign of Henry VIII., which is known as Canonbury Tower. That in no history of the tower, nor in any life of Bacon is mention made of its being connected with him, is only one of the numerous instances of the mystery which always meets us when we try to search deeper into the life of Francis Bacon. Yet research at one of the public libraries has recently elicited the fact that he took a lease of it for ninety-nine years, that he lived there for some time, apparently in charge of the Princes Henry and Charles, sons of James I., and that he was actually living there at the time he received the seals.
Close under the ceiling, on the wall, in a dark corner of a passage in the Tower, is painted an inscription consisting of the Sovereigns of England from the Conquest. The names are mostly abbreviated, and with one exception follow each other in the recognized order. But between Elizabeth and James stands, in the same way as the other abbreviations, Fr. No explanation of this interpolation appeared until the deciphered story brought to light the facts that Queen Elizabeth was secretly married to the Earl of Leicester, and that the great man whom we have known as Francis Bacon was in reality her first-born son, and therefore the true, though unacknowledged, heir to the throne.
We must not conclude without a slight tribute, not the less sincere that it must of necessity be brief, to the merits of Mrs. Gallup’s brilliant discovery, and the patient diligence with which she has gradually unrolled the cerements and brought to light one by one truths so long buried. We feel almost tempted to envy the feelings which must have swept over her as the first sentence came to light from its cipher tomb. They must have been such as stirred the soul of Columbus when, after the long night of impatient expectation, the light of morning broke and revealed to his triumphant gaze the shores of the new continent. Let us frankly confessour gratitude to our authoress, who has enabled us to feel once more the “touch of a vanished hand,” to hear once more “the sound of a voice that is still”—a hand that was ever stretched down from lofty height to help and raise humanity, a voice that will ring trumpet-tongued through all ages—the hand and voice of one who “had an aspect as if he pitied men.”
The reference to Canonbury Tower, by Mr. Fulcher, renders the following quotations from a late number of “Baconiana” of especial interest, as tracing the history of this ancient and historic pile. The building is in a good state of preservation. The lines are in an obscure part of the building but are plainly observable, as was verified by a personal examination on the part of Mrs. Gallup, in November last. It is one of the interesting corroborations which are accumulating, and now being understood in the light of the cipher disclosures, going to show that Francis was entitled to a place in the line of England’s kings.
The reference to Canonbury Tower, by Mr. Fulcher, renders the following quotations from a late number of “Baconiana” of especial interest, as tracing the history of this ancient and historic pile. The building is in a good state of preservation. The lines are in an obscure part of the building but are plainly observable, as was verified by a personal examination on the part of Mrs. Gallup, in November last. It is one of the interesting corroborations which are accumulating, and now being understood in the light of the cipher disclosures, going to show that Francis was entitled to a place in the line of England’s kings.