publishing. It should be noted also that the two fonts may be used interchangeably; in other words, to add to the difficulty of deciphering, the a font can be used for the b font on a message or part of a message.

The complete cipher message in Digges's poem in the First Folio is as follows:

Francis of Verulam is author of all the plays heretofore published by Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Shakespeare, and of the twenty-two now put out for the first time. Some are alter'd to continue his history. Fr. St. A.

The message in the same poem in the Second Folio by Rawley begins thus:

Many old poems of Sp. and Sh. at a due time (will) shew mayhap, w'ch MSS. F. hid. But such nere won great praise look'd, men now say, so faire, etc.

This is but a part of a longer message by Rawley beginning with the poem "Upon the Effigies." The abbreviations and elisions, made in it for brevity, render it somewhat obscure. Not only were the same emblematic head-pieces and colophons used by Bacon in various works, but the same type, and this practice was continued by Rawley after his death.

It occurred to us that the best test of Mrs. Gallup's trustworthiness as a decipherer would be to enfold in the body of the "I. M. Poem" a combination of German words, and submit it to her. We therefore had a photograph, many times enlarged, made of the poem, from which the letters were cut, and an alphabet made of the two fonts of type in which it was printed. Though time and patience had been devoted to distinguishing between the letters t, n, e, o, u, and r, the proper ones were selected as nearly as possible, pasted upon a large sheet of cardboard, and then photographed down to the original size as found in the Folio. This we mailed Mrs. Gallup requesting her to favor us by deciphering it. In due time we received, with an apology for her " rusty German," the following:

Search Kaiser Kultur Krieg Tod gemachten Macht ist Rachen of Verulam.

While this contained several errors, we regarded it as a remarkable exhibition of Mrs. Gallup's skill, for we found that we had misplaced some letters. To make our test more difficult the words comprising the hidden word “Search” were left unchanged, and were followed by our strange combination of words which used up all the letters in the word "Baron" in the Folio but the last letter n. This stray letter, however, was not the stumbling-block which we expected it to be, for Mrs. Gallup recognized and included the meaningless letter in her exhibit. We then corrected the work as carefully as possible and returned it for revision. To our great satisfaction it proved to be correct, and we here give her reply:—

Regarding the biliteral example I have examined the corrections and find them quite right. Everything else being as before, it reads Search Kaiser Kultur Krieg und Schlachten Macht ist Recht, n of Verulam. Her solution and the poem follow.

E

A

R

с

H

K Tothe memor ieofM WShak espea reWEE wondr I S F R K U

edsha kespe areth attho uwent staos ooner

U

R K

R

I

romth worl desta getot heGra uesty ringr

E

G

H

U

N

D

S

H

с

oomew eetho ughtt heede adbut thist hypri L A C T F ntedw orthT elsth ySpec tator sthat thouw N H C T I entst butro rthTo enter witha ppiau seAnA entat

To the memorie ofM.W.Shake-fpeare.

VVEE wondred (Shake-fpeare) that thou went ft fo foone
From the Worlds-Stage,to the Graues-Tyring-roome.

Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
Tels thy Spectators, that thou went ft but forth

To enter with applaufe. An Actors Art,
Can dye, and line,to alle a fecond part.
That's but an Exit of Mortalitie;

This, a

a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.

1. M.

ALPHABET OF ENLARGED ITALIC AND ROMAN LETTERS IN THE "I. M. POEM." WITH ADDITIONAL LETTERS FROM FIRST FOLIO NECESSARY TO COMPLETE GERMAN WORDS CONCEALED IN IT:

e emm u u

MM

Sss

PR f f

SSS SS 8 g • oy g

This example should satisfy one whatever his preconceived opinion may be, that the claim of those who have studied Bacon's biliteral cipher that he made use of it, is not unreasonable. So much has been attempted to controvert this claim, that our success in the test given impelled us to go farther in testing the validity of this particular cipher, especially as many Baconians still decline to admit it to discussion; only, however, by discarding several valuable additions to Baconian literature which they have adopted, can they be quite consistent. As already stated we do not wonder that so many are skeptical regarding the existence of ciphers in works ascribed to Bacon, because of the difficulties which present themselves to every one who attempts to study them, but we believe that any one with good eyes and an ambition to master these difficulties can do so by persistent labor, as much labor, for instance, as would be required in mastering a difficult foreign tongue.

A CIPHER IN THE SECOND FOLIO

To test the validity of a cipher in the Second Folio we offer a more lengthy experiment; and, first present an enlarged alphabet of the two fonts, found in the adulatory poem of Leonard Digges; and taking Sonnets xxxII, XXXVI, XXXVIII,