St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-06-10

O>~O~-SSN 1900 cAAS
the reason Bacon resorted to cipher to tell
I his story was that the Queen would have
destroyed him, son Of hers though he was, if
he had shown the temerity to write openly
In proof OF .Efzabeth's sanguinary dispo-
sition, the doctor told us among other
things, that her majesty's greatest pleasure
was to decapitate her refractory subjects and
decorate the palings of her palace garden
with their heads. This gentle Queen didn't
care SO much for the heads when they were
green, but after they had become ripe she
delighted to stroll through the royal garden
amid these CHASTITY trophies. At one time,
she had eighty Of these heads, more or less
decomposed, set up for her private enjoy
ment. Why, she even set up the CHASTITY
heads along the banks of the Thames, that
they might not be away from sight or smell,
when she occupied the royal barge. He tells
US that the daughter of Sir Thomas More
threw her fathers head into the Queens boat
as it was passing, and her majesty with a sheer
said thou lest lower than thou didst," and
ordered it flung overheard. DR.. Owen, of
Detroit Michigan, overlooked the fact that
Sir Thomas More lost his head when Eliza
beth was two years old and as yet undreamt
OF as an heir to the throne.
Having told us, ad na,lsean., about the
habits of the Queen, which in the head-hunt-
ing line would make Borneo Dyak green
with envy, he proceeded to enlighten us in
his own self-contained way, with his right
hand on his hip, and smile of conscious
superiority on his lip, as to what he had dis
covered through the cipher, ignoring the
general desire to learn how he had discovered
it. Yes, he did tell us that he found the
cipher staring him in the face" in King
John. Here he got clue that sent him to
Bacon's article on masks, and so on in wild
and woolly, and to his hearers an entirely in
comprehensive, way, to ''the truth"
The doctor used a few Latin words, the
accent being invariably brought down on the
penult with a bang, as If that were its only
place. He also ventured on three French
words which he pronounced with full recog
milton of the final consonants, and in way
that would have delighted the soul of Mrs.
Darlington, who "never saw a fox pass (fa,sJ
pas but once" To do the doctor justice,
however, he acknowledged that when he
came to decipher Bacon's philosophical
works, all of which are in Latin, he had to
call in the help of what college boys call ga
pony"-that is q translation.
I have intimated that the lecture had
neither literary form nor the faintest sus-
picion of rhetorical grace, but the decipherer
tried to make amends for this by showing US
how he had improved On Shakespeare, and
as he made an attempt at Evolutionary read
ing, his ignorance of the art became painfully
evident According to DR.. Owen 'sman has
eight ages" the last being after he is dead,
and he proved it, to his own satisfaction, by
showing that Jacques sohloquy on the seven
ages in Gas You Like It." is incomplete.
Burton'sl Anatomy of Melancholy is brought
10 to supply the defect and to link Jacques
speech with Hamlets soliloquy beginning "To
be or not to be-" all of which, according to
the decipherer, should be Joined together to
get perfect whole.
After the alleged lecture, the doctor placed
his hands on his hips, intensified the self
satisfied smile on his lips, and said he was
ready to answer questions, though he looked
as if he did not expect any one present would
have the boldness to tackle him. DR.. Flem-
ing, we'll known as a scholar and an accom-
pished Shakespeare student, did ask ques-
lions, as did others, and DR.. Owen showed
to ask another question, or to point to some
passage in one of the deciphered volumes,
then close the book with vicious snap and
throw it down on the table with an angry
bang.
Ny reason for giving so much space to DR..
Owen is that the subject is one of great
interest, and as the present attempt to de-
throne Shakespeare is confessedly money
making scheme, we are sure to hear more of
it. will not say, nor will any man COM
petent to judge in such matters, that there
may not be cipher concealed in the works
cited by DR.. Owen, but unhesitatngly
affirm that he does not prove it in his lecture
nor in his books. If there be cipher, and
he and his friends care more for money
than for historic truth, let them wait
till all the books are ready, then copy
right them with the key and cipher and
they will gain their purpose; but the methods
80 far employed by the doctor in his lectures
and the publishers in their books are not
calculated to win confidence.
ROBERT FOLSOM.