Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1888-05-02
A TENNYSON CYPHEs,.
Another DonneIly Shows That Oar
win Wrote the Famous Poems.

Mr.. SwInburne's theory of the Dar-
winian authorship Of Tennyson's
poems will open a new field of specu-
lation. 1t may be found that authors
have changed places, for the fun of the
thing, more than this stupid old world
has any idea of. Perhaps it may be
found that Gilbert & Sullivan wrote
1.-THE Origin of Species" and that
Martin Farquhar Upper is responsible
for the bold flights of fancy that ap-
pear under the name of Swinburne.
But the thought is bewildering. Let
US suppose, for the sake of a temporary
standing ground In this equation of
unknown quantities, that Darwin is
Darwin, the scientist and philosopher,
and then 1t is not difficult to imagine
him taking long excursions into the
realm of poetry as a sort of rest or
recreation of his mental powers. In
deed, he may have designed to set up
the two works, the one of scientific in
vestigation and the other of imagina-
tion, and quietly watch in his declin-
ing years the survival of the fittest.
And so he
"Smote the chord of Self, that, tremb-
ling, passed in music out of sight. T"
Yet bits of his geological research
will occasionally crop out. He says to
Beauty:
''He will hold thee, when his passion
shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, little
dearer than his horse"
And again, and this is very like him
self:
stT i1ra a dor ba bupfo In draapoS ,,
And here is hint of his own great
discoveries with which he heard the
world ringing when he wrote 1t:
''Men, my brothers, were the workers,
ever reaping something new."
This speaks of his own faith of the
truth of his theory:
'Yet doubt not through the ages one
increasing purpose runs"
This confidence finds expression con-
tinually throughout the poems, but
especially in Locksley Hall:
'I am heir of all the ages, In the fore
most files of time"
Here again the race influence and
the conflict of heredity:
81 will take some savage woman, she
shall rear my dusky race"
But after all, says the critic, this
does not prove that Ba-tnat is to say
that Darwin wrote Tennyson. Now
let us take some couplets at random,
beginning with the one above last
quoted, and without pausing for ciphers
or cryptograms, See what they contain:
s'For it was in the golden prime,
| OF good Haroun Alraschid."
''Let the great world spin forever
down the ringing grooves of change ,
To mould mjzsIy stats,s deeraa.
4. And shape the whisper of the thrOne.'
1t will be found, after a little
scanning, that the name ''Charles Dar.
win is cleverly buried in each couplet
If we number the letters, and add to-
gether the values of those used, and di.
vide the sum of all the examples above
given by four, the result will exactly
equal twice the square foot obtained
by the same method in numbering the
extracts backward. There are other
striking condolences which we have
not space at present to point out. The
ingenious student of Tennyson will
find them for himself, after he shall
have thoroughly explored, under the
guidance of Mr. DOnnelly, the Bacon
ian cryptograms in the plays COM
monty attributed to Shakespeare.