XIXLORD BACON MUSES ON CIPHERS
“I’ll tell you one bet you’ve overlooked in your ramblings around with shades,” remarked the city editor, “and that’s the chance to get the right answer to that Shakespeare-Bacon controversy. I was reminded of it last night when I happened across that old story of the woman who said to her husband: ‘When I get to heaven I’m going to ask Shakespeare if he really wrote those plays.’ ‘But suppose Shakespeare isn’t there?’ returned her husband. ‘Then you can ask him,’ she replied. Have you heard any of the spooks discussing the question?”
“I’ve never even heard it mentioned,” I responded. “You may remember I had a chat with Mr. Shakespeare himself some time ago on the subject of the movies, but there was something in his attitude that kept me from asking what might have been embarrassing questions. And besides, as is quite common with these shades of the mighty, when they once get started talking it’s pretty hard to get a word inedgewise. I believe it would be better to tackle Lord Bacon and see what he has to say about it. If he has a grievance he’s a lot more likely to talk than the man who’s generally accepted as the author of Shakespeare’s works.”
I approached the eminent Lord Chancellor, jurist and philosopher with considerable trepidation, but like all the truly great his modesty and affability quickly put me at my ease.
“You wish to know who was the real author of the works attributed to Shakespeare, eh?” he replied, with a smile of amusement. “So they’re beginning to raise the question down on earth, are they? I thought those ciphers might puzzle ’em for a few hundred years yet. Well, and who do they think wrote ’em?”
“Some persons say you did, Lord Bacon, and others attribute the authorship to the Earl of Dudley and other of your contemporaries. A Detroit man got permission to dig in the bed of the river Wye for the head of the Earl, which was supposed to be buried there, together with a box of manuscripts that would prove him to be the real Shakespeare.”
“Hum, hum,” mused his lordship. “I guess somebody else lost his head that time. Well, all you tell me is extremely interesting, I’m sure. And I presume even Will Shakespeare has his partisans, too, who insist still that theuneducated village lad from Stratford who used to hold horses in front of the London theaters for a living—and then served his term as a ‘chaser’ on the stage during the supper hour in vaudeville—that this strolling actor was actually the author of the immortal plays bearing his name?”
“Oh, yes, your lordship, Shakespeare would probably win by a large majority, if the matter were left to a popular vote.”
“Excuse me if I smile. The thought is highly amusing. I don’t believe I am quite ready, as yet, to present any formal claim to the authorship, but if I were free to speak I could— But, pshaw! What’s the difference? There are plenty of similar cases of masquerading authors in even later English literature which no mortal has yet discovered. By the way, has any question been raised, to date, about the so-called Dickens novels? There hasn’t? Everybody takes it for granted that they were written by Charles Dickens, the young, untrained reporter, who never had any education after he was twelve years of age, who worked in a blacking factory when he was ten? Well, well. You surprise me. Has nobody found any ciphers yet in his work? Not a one? Well, then look out for a sensation one of these days. Ciphers have always been my hobby, but long before I foundany cryptic corroboration for my theory in Dickens’ works I was pretty sure who really wrote them. Can you think of a certain great statesman, like myself, but who flourished in the Victorian era, a dignified, austere personage who might not like to be known as the author of humorous works, but who might have got Dickens to lend his name for the purpose? You can’t? Try again. Well, I’ll make a suggestion: William E. Gladstone. Don’t smile. Wait until you hear the proofs. Gladstone had a contemporary and rival, Disraeli, who published novels under a pen name. Later Disraeli used his own name and the fact did not help his reputation as a statesman. Each of the principal so-called Dickens novels deals with some great proposed reform, such as the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the improvement of penal institutions and poor-houses, removal of delays in the law, the cutting of red tape in government offices, the wiping-out of the wretched Yorkshire schools.
“Gladstone was a born reformer. For a long time I was pretty sure that Dickens could not have written these books, but I never associated them with Gladstone until one day I happened to hit upon a cipher—as conclusive a one, I think, as any that have been discovered in the works of Shakespeare. Just before thisI heard of the finding of the manuscript of a letter written by Gladstone to his firm of publishers, relating to the use of the name ‘Murdstone’ as one of the chief characters in ‘David Copperfield.’ After writing a number of novels Gladstone evidently felt that he would like to leave some more obvious clue to their real authorship than a cipher, and apparently his intention had been to call this character ‘Mirthstone,’ a sort of pun upon his own name. But his publishers must have objected to the device as too transparent, for we find him replying: ‘Very well. Then Murdstone let it be.’ Another clue was afforded by the name of the ‘literary man with a wooden leg’ in ‘Our Mutual Friend,’—Silas Wegg. Here we have the initials in full in their regular order, ‘W. E. G.’
“And now,” continued Lord Bacon, “we come to the real cipher, buried in the first of his longer stories, the ‘Pickwick Papers.’ I call it the Ivy Green Cipher. Why this poem of three stanzas was inserted in this book has long puzzled students of Dickens. The ostensible excuse for its introduction was its recitation at an evening party at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, by the aged clergyman of the place, name not given, who posed as its author. But the poem has absolutely nothing to do with the plot ofthe story. Just write these first five lines, as I dictate, will you?
‘Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green,That creepeth o’er ruins old,Of right choice food are his meals I ween,In his cell so lone and cold.The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed—’
‘Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green,That creepeth o’er ruins old,Of right choice food are his meals I ween,In his cell so lone and cold.The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed—’
‘Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green,That creepeth o’er ruins old,Of right choice food are his meals I ween,In his cell so lone and cold.The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed—’
‘Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green,
That creepeth o’er ruins old,
Of right choice food are his meals I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed—’
“Now, kindly take your pencil and write down the first letter of the first line’s last word, the second letter of the second line’s last word, the third letter of the third line’s third word from the last (a not uncommon variant in ciphers of this character) and the fourth letter of the fourth line’s last word. Those four letters, in this order, spell GLAD. Now glance along the next line for the word that would form the second syllable of a proper name. The next to the last word is STONE. And there you have the conclusive clue to the authorship of the Dickens novels!”
“That seems to be a clincher, your lordship,” I said, “and I am sure your theory will create a sensation down below when the earth-dwellers hear of it. But will you not tell me whether you are the author of ‘Hamlet’ and the other immortal plays?”
“You may remember,” he replied with an enigmatic smile, “Sir Walter Scott’s answer to the lady who asked whether he wrote the ‘Waverly Novels,’ when they were appearing anonymously? ‘I did not write them,’ he rejoined, ‘but if I did I would not tell you.’ Some very curious circumstances were connected with the writing of the works called Shakespeare’s, and one day the world may learn of them. What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would still cost twenty-four dollars a dozen on Fifth Avenue.”
Then his lordship bowed me into my waiting astral plane.