ditch1 seems to have first called attention to this book as an ingenious example of the cryptic art, and he points out the relation which it holds to the Folio, giving examples of the skill of his friend, the late Samuel Cabot, based on a wide knowledge of ancient cryptographs, in discovering Bacon in the plays.

Oej of a

Quarta Tabula, ex Vigenerio, pag. 202. b. vindicat fibi pracipuum, quod Vocalibus tantùm fcribere bic liceat.

THE CIPHER KEY

That the Duke's book, and its pictorial title-page, disclose the true story of their authorship is certain. Even Bacon's cipher key is given in it, a fact of remarkable significance in itself. But still more so is the fact that the author dedicates it, as Maier dedicated his Rosicrucian book eight years earlier, to "Dr. Francisco, Antonio, London, Anglo, Seniori," which fully identifies Francis and Anthony Bacon, of London, England, though to the initiated Francis alone, as Anthony had then been dead twenty-three years. Besides, the author at the

1 Charles P. Bowditch, The Connection of Francis Bacon with the First Folio of Shakespeare's Plays, etc., with the Book on Cipher of his Time. Cambridge, 1910.

outset calls attention to the well-known fact that Bacon assisted Camden in his historical work, and refers to that author's "Remains," published in 1616, where, under the head "Surnames," page 16, appears a head-piece upside down, which would pass as an error were it not a well-known device to call attention to something concealed, a method, say's Lawrence, “continually resorted to when some revelation concerning Bacon's works is given." Under this heading appear the names of a village which never existed, "Bacon Creping," and "Shakespeare, Shotbolt and Wagstaffe." This would signify nothing but for this cryptic book, the title-page of which is here produced. This title-page especially appeals to us, for not only are the figures of the true and the false author plainly recognizable, but the same figures reappear on the title-page of Bacon's "History of Henry the Seventh" in 1642. These title-pages are here printed together for 'comparison. In the first of these, in the panel on the right, is the figure of a gentleman, as he has a sword at his side, and wears a hat. He is giving a book or manuscript to a rustic, with hat in hand, holding a spear in his left hand. The rustic is seen alone walking off briskly with a staff, carrying his spear on his left shoulder with his "fardels on his back," and the book or writings entrusted to him. Near the top of the panel is an eagle, the messenger of Jove, which has possessed itself of the writing entrusted to the careless rustic, and is bearing it to immortality in spite of the bolt intended to arrest its flight.2

The figure of the gentleman is a suggestive likeness of Bacon with the conventional hat, and the rustic of the actor, whose face is unmistakably the one which was originally on his Stratford tomb. On the opposite panel he is seen on horseback riding toward a city triumphantly blowing his horn. He is the same figure with the sprig in his hat, and the exaggerated spur on the right heel of his buskin, for he is now a gentleman having a coat of arms. This buskin alone would iden1 Bacon is Shakespeare, p. 114. 2 Bowditch mistakes the eagle for a dove.