The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-05

that the numbers Of the pages had nothing to do
with it. The second part of Henry w con-
cludes on page 100 The next play, Henry "
begins on page sixty-nine Page 232 concludes
the play of Henry VIII and the next play
Troilus and Cressida, begins on page seven ty-
seven, and is PACED as far as page eighty. and
there the paging ceases. drew the conclusion
that the plays had been written originally with
the cipher in them for insertion in an intended
folio edition, written on sheets that would
respond with the capacity of folio page, and
that in getting up the folio of 1923
the arrangement had been recent. The book
was divided into three parts because, as
the pages were to be multiplied in the cipher
multiplication of page 1000, we will say, would
be much more cumbersome than multiplication
of page SO or so. / also found that the double
words united with hyphen and the words in
brackets are given without any regard to rhet-
ORIG or necessity. On some pages there would
not be single word in brackets on another
there would be multitude. Compare page 70
of the histories with page rs of the same. On
the first there are words In brackets, ard
only one hyphenated word on the other there
are fifty-four words in brackets and fourteen hy-
phenated words. There seems to be no rule for
placing words ia brackets or doubling them. On
page SO of comedies William is sometimes in
brackets and sometimes it is not, while other
words are placed in brackets, such as
fire, in violation of the rule which requires that
the word in brackets should be one that the sem
tence can be read equally we'll with or without.
The practice of that age was to italicse the
proper names, but in the folio they are rendered
Unfortunately in Roman or italic type. A
striking instance will be found in the repeated
use of Francis one-h half of which are italicised
while the other half not. The use of
hypnenated words is extraordinary, and only to
be justified by the necessities of cipher Look
at this sentence-Act H. scene /, first part of
Henry w. page SO of the folio: 4 am Joined
with no foot-landrakers no mustachio-purple.
hued-maltworms.' Here are seven separate
words, having no necessary connection knocked
into two compound words. These combina-
tions become necessary to make the counting
match.
VIII
"All these curious features satisfied me that
there was a cipher in the plays, and l set to
work diligently to find it out / progressed
slowly during three years of labor. working
ten and twelve hours day. Constant expert
mentation yielded one step after another. 1
have at last discovered the complete rule, and
the rest of the task is simply the working out Of
the story"
lis there much of the cipher narrative in the
plays?"
II think at least one.ffth of the whole plays
1.-THE qulntuple repetition spoken of in the cipher
rule in De Augmentis is cipher. It is the
most marvellous piece of ingenious dovetailing
and patchwork the wit of man ever invented
'Was it written into the plays while he was
composing themp
ut could not have been Bacon had a story to
tell for the ears of posterity a story that he
dared not whisper in his own times; story that
would have brought his head to the block. 1t
was pregnant and mighty story worthy the
brain of so great man. He determined to
write "a secret book, full of peril, and matters
deep and dangerous He conceived the plan Of
making his plays serve as the vehicle of his
story. So far judge, all the plays
were first written purely for representation on
the stage and to make money We have, as a
specimen of this, the first Merry Wives and the
first Hamlet. The introduction of the cipher
increased them TO as much again. as one of the
prefaces says. He first think, wrote his secret
story, then he proceeded to arrange it by the
cipher, scattering the words around accord
ing to au infexible rule. He then had q
skeleton of play-words dotted and prepared
all over the pages. Then he took his play and
proceeded to adjust it to these cipher words.
The word Bacon and the word William COM
PEELED the introduction of an entirely new scene
into the play of the Merry Wives'-a scene
having no Conference with the rest of the play.
You have seen young man write an acros
tic to his lady love. He writes Maria Jane
placing letter in due order at the head Of each
line, and then he accommodates the poetry to
Maria Jane These plays were written on q
similar plan. The vital thing in the cipher story
the great plays matchless in human literature,
the story. 1t is history and biography EN-
balmed in the heart of the drama More than
that. the cipher, as some one has said, is an in
delible copyright stamped on the face of the
works"
1.-THE man who wrote the cipher assuredly
wrote the plays There can, therefore, be no
real dispute as to the authorship. If Bacon had
left statement as Talleyrand left his journal
to be opened one hundred years after his death,
and in it had claimed that he was the real author
of the Shakespeare plays, one-half of mankind
would have always persisted that it was cow
ardly attempt to steal dead mans laurels.
of no cir rcfo 10 afo~ koqn
II have crossed it midway. The play of Rich
ard II, in which is represented the deposition
and killing of the king, played very important
part in the political history of that time One
of the charges made against Essex was that his
men had paid Shakspeares fellow-actor, Angus
tine Phillips, forty shillngs to play it, so as to
excite his followers with visions of the over
throw of the sovereign. Where I have crossed
its track, the cipher deals with that play.
"Bacon's cousin Cecil son of the Lord Treas
urer, was a humpback. The cousins were NOR
tai enemies and the terrible character of Richard
ILL., the bloody, crook backed tyrant was the
cipher says intended as mask for Cecil-and to
make the infrmity from which he suffered con-
temptible in the eyes of the multitude Cecil
was Bacon's bette noir and saw through the pur-
pose of the play of Richard H. Bacon, as one
of the Essex party, sought in that play to lessen
the popular feeling as to the divine right Of
kings by showing sovereign deposed, degraded
and murdered. Such a play would have In q
lesser degree the same effect upon the popular
mind as to the divinity that doth hedge a king
that the execution of Charles had. Cecil tells
Elizabeth the purpose of the play and argues
that Shakespeare could not have written it. To
prove this he narrates, incidentally, the facts Of
his career-that he robbed Sir Thomas Luces or
chard and was whipped for it; that he got a crowd
of men and boys together who killed SirThomas's
deer and beat his keepers; that he fed to Lon
don. was followed outrode his pursuers and ap-
peared at the gates of the Curtain playhouse,
ragged, poor, sick and begging for bread Here
he met Bacon's servant, Henry Percy, through
whom he became acquainted with Bacon.
Bacon admits that the weak and foolish Rich
ard III was really mask for the greedy and
wanton old termagants Elizabeth, sometimes
called the old jade, becomes enraged and has
the players arrested and makes an order to
bring the matter before the council. Cecil re-
fers TO- Shakespeare as a man without wit, i'm
agination, learning, or intelligence, and incapa-
bic of writing the PLAYS Incidantallv the his