The Irish standard., 1901-01-12
His Book Entitled 1.-The Great Cryptogram Ecits Comment
from Literary Men Of the World
Butvery Few Persuaded by the Ingenious Argument
; Against the Mighty Shakespeare.
The Great Majority Of the Lerat Believe that Bacon
is not the Author Of His Plays.

eve have here the same condensed,
pithy sentences which mark the great
philosopher, together with the same
antithetical way of balancing thought
against thought. Yet this is from
Shakespeare. 1t will be found in
Measure for Measure
After another and similar compari-
son comes this closing paragraph:
"In short, the resemblance between
the two bodies Of compositions is as
close as could be reasonably expected,
where one is almost exclusively
prose and the greatness of the other
consists in the elevated flights of
poetry. In one case it is the lammer-
geyer sitting among the stones; in the
other it is the great bird balanced on
majestic pinions in the blue vault Of
heaven, far above the mountain top
and the emulous shafts Of man."
Thus closes book one Of the work.
The second book, or half, is occupied
with the demonstration; the cipher
in the plays. Having come to the con-
clusion that Shakespeare did not write
his plays and that Bacon did, Don
nelly went to work with an energy
not to be overmastered by task, he
would tell why Shakespeare came to
get the credit Of them. 1t would
seem to the average reader that to do
this Mr.. Donnelly went'' around Robin
Hoods barn." for he discovered and
satisfied his own mind that he had not
only written them, but in them hidden
in cipher many things he could tell to,
future generations. Bacon was an ex-
pert in the use Of ciphers. He was in
terested in them as much for the play
of ingenuity they permitted as for
their practical value, and, having ar
ranged one Of the most complicated
ciphers himself, he wrote number of
lengthy treatises on the subject.
1t was upon the basis Of all this that
Mr.. Donnelly worked in struggling to
find the cipher in the plays. "If Fran
els Bacon wrote the plays he will have
hidden somewhere in their lines such
statement as this: 4, Francis Bacon of
St. Albans, son of Nicholas Bacon, lord
keeper Of the great seal of England,
wrote these plays which go by the
name of William Shakespeare For
this statement the quest began. OF
this Mr.. Donnelly writes:
"In the winter Of 1889 said to
myself: 4 will re-read the Shakespeare
plays not as heretofore, for the delight
they give me, but with my eyes direct
ed singly to discover whether there is
not in them any indication Of a
cipher"
Nor did the search which was then
begun cease when it became apparent
that.its prosecutor would be unable to
,substantiate his claim of having
found the secret message. For many
years he continued to work and hope
that this theory would prove itself cor
rect, although the impossibility of it
grew rather than diminished. He
searched apparently through all the
plays before he found the word bacon,
occurring in the Merry Wives of
Windsor" He found shakes on one
page and peer on another, but this did
not deter him from putting the two to-
gether to form the one word Shakes
peare. He also discovered what he
believed to be very certain reference
to Bacon's father, reference to a hid
den meaning in things and so forth,
and by patching the various bits to-
gether he made a whole which he him
self confessed was most uncertain.
Notwithstanding his Disappointment
in this, he continued to believe in the
cipher and to search for some evidence
of it.
'In 1929" he wrote, "when Shakes
peare had been dead seven years, Ba-
con amid the wreck of his fortune was
settling up his accounts with his own
age and getting ready for posterity.
He wrote to Tobie Mathew: AS for my
Essays and some other particulars Of
that nature, I count them but as rec
reation of my other studies and in
that sort I propose to continue them,
though l am not ignorant that those
kind Of writings should, with less pain
and enforcement, perhaps yield more
luster and reputation to my name than
others which have in hand. But 1
count the use that man should seek
of the publishing Of his own writings
before his death to be but untimely
anticipation OF that which is proper to
follow man, not to go along with
him."
In the foregoing sentence Mr.. Don
nelly discovered hidden meaning and