And also, that when they find

No safeguard in law, that it

Doth release the inheritors of this realmn

(By the utter subversion of the ancient common laws)

From the charge of rebellion, and therefore

They did refer the causes

Of the two oppressed women to the god of arms
And attainted the fair lady,

Her father and husband, with treason,

And in time did send them all unto the block.

Mary appeared for a time to think

More about power than of theology;

But finally the dogmas of the Church of Rome

Blotted out, and, as it were,

Drowned and swallowed up
Her sound judgement and will,

And did betray her into an infinite

Variety of paltry and petty jealousies.
For after she did espouse Philip

(Which gave him power of disannulling laws,
Disposing of men's fortunes and the states,
And the like points of absolute power),
There was a truce with England's
Glory, happiness and conditions;

For she did suffer him to give up

England's glory to France, by the loss of Calais,
And after her mean marriage with the king,
Who, by his voluptious life had become effeminate,
And less sensible of honour and reason of state
Than was fit for a king, she arms her boldly,
To this country's great amiss;

And all regard of honour having thrown aside,

In fury 'gan to undertake the quarrel

Of Rome. and sought foul means

To stint the religious strife

Of the country and state, and

To extinguish the dawning light did
With raging passions and

Fierce tyranny. compel all the people
Of this fair land to adore

The great proud king of Babylon;
And they that would not

She with furious force and indignation fell,

With cruel hand their heads from off

Their bodies wrest, or made them feel

The pain of the pope's triumphant victory;

For with high solemnity she

Burned those who favour the laws and customs

Of her father. Tongue cannot tell

More sad and heavy plight,

Nor can heart reach so deep a sea

Of sorrow as her cruelty wrought in
This warlike isle.

NOTE.-This fills the quota of pages the decipherer has thought best to publish

in his first book. The "letter" will be continued in a volume to be published in the near future.

ARGUMENT.

BACON vs. SHAKESPEARE.

The arguments, which have appeared in the Arena in this "celebrated case," are much like the encyclopedias and biographies of the present day, which devote page after page to Shakespeare-all conspicuous for the absence of proven facts-full of surmises, conjectures, "probably was" and "might have beens." Col. Robert Ingersoll, in his eloquent lecture on Shakespeare, says that "the known facts concerning the great poet could be con densed in a dozen lines," and then proceeds to build up in poetic imaginings, from the plays attributed to Shakespeare, an environ. ment and history, which are in no way substantiated.

I claim, and it has been my good fortune to find an overwhelming series of proofs, that Bacon was the author, not only of the plays credited to Shakespeare, but those also of George Peele, Christopher Marlow and Robert Greene, and the works of Burton and Spenser.

This startling statement (with the exception of Spenser's Faerie-Queene) has been before advanced by Mrs. Pott, William White, J. E. Roe and others, but none of these authors has ever produced the proofs, taken from the plays, allegories, or prose works, of their claims. The keys and cipher have now been found, which unlock the strangely hidden writings, and the hidden story is being rapidly deciphered. I offer as evidence the works themselves as proof of the single authorship, and I request the readers to set aside the different names upon the title pages, and ask themselves whether two or more men could have written so exactly alike.

Turning to Love's Labour's Lost, on page 141 of the 1623 Folio Edition, of the so-called Shakespeare Plays, we read:

“The Pedant, the Braggart, the Hedge-Priest, the Foole, and the Boy, "Abate throw at Novum, and the whole world againe

"Cannot pricke out five such, take each one in 's vaine."

"The ship is under saile, and here she comes amain."

This "Ship" has no relevance or meaning in this connection, but we find that Sir Francis Bacon's Novum Organum has an allegorical frontispiece representing a ship full rigged, sailing directly at the reader.

Analyzing these lines, we find that "The Boy Abate," leaves but four names; 'Novum" would make the five; then, of the "five in the first show," one is a "Pedant, another is a "Braggart," the next a "Hedge-Priest," the fourth a "Foole," and the fifth "Novum."

Follow this with two quotations from Hamlet, page 258:

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,

"Than are dream't of in our Philosophy."

Page 263:

"There is something in this more than Naturall, if Philosophie could finde it out."

The Winter's Tale, page 298:

“Which, who knowes how that may turne backe to my advancement?” What did Shakespeare mean by speaking so plainly of the 'Novum," which was not published until 1623? If William Shakespeare wrote the Plays, in what line of thought was his mind working, when he spoke of "My Advancement," "Our Philosophy," and of "The Novum"? Bacon was the only man at that time who was writing an "Advancement of Learning," and a "Natural Philosophy."

The other four authors mentioned in the first quotation are easily discovered by the names Bacon gives them.

Robert Burton was born February 8th, 1576, and was a "Pedant" at Cambridge.

Robert Greene in 1584 held a living in Essex, resigned in 1585, and became a drunken "Hedge-Priest."

Christopher Marlow boasted that he could perform all the miracles of the prophets, and such a "Braggart" was he, that he was cited before the Ecclesiastical Court.

Shakespeare was called an upstart crow decked in our feathers," and in the eulogy of Ben Jonson, so often used, are these very sarcastic lines:

"And though thou hadst small Latine and lesse Greeke."

"Looke how the father's face lives in his issue, even so the race

'Of Shakespeare's minde and manners brightly shines.'

This eulogy by Ben Jonson, himself the Secretary of Bacon, is, when closely read, a most ironical, sarcastic and fitting introduction to the accrediting of such literary productions to the son of John Shakespeare, who could neither read nor write, and whose signature was a thumb blot. There is nothing in the antecedents or in the known career of William Shakespeare to make it possible to believe him a great author. Of this the discussions in the Arena have given ample evidence.

If I was right in the surmise that Bacon, Burton, Greene, Marlow and Shakespeare were the "five in the first show," then

the study of these together might be profitable; and what did that study disclose? Through them all I found concordant lines, similar paragraphs, absolutely identical words, and thoughts that could have emanated but from one and the same brain.

99 66

I found the names "Francis,' Bacon," frequently recurring. I found the key words, " Fortune,' 'Nature, Honor" and "Reputation" repeated in these works, by count 10,641 times, and about them revolved the cues for shifting to the different works, which properly joined together, formed connected and continuous stories most marvelous and entrancing.

I found, to my surprise, that the Anatomy of Melancholy, attributed to Robert Burton, was first issued in 1586, with 'Bright T.," as its author. Burton was but ten years of age at this time, and must, indeed, have been a precocious child to have written such a wonderful work at that age. Bacon was at that time twenty-six, and a scholar of note. In the edition of the Anatomy, published in 1617, or 1622, occurs the following:

"Our noble and learned Lord Verulam, in his book De Vite et Morte, commends therefore all such cold smells."

The Historia Vito et Mortis, was published in 1623, and was written by Francis Bacon.

That there is a cipher in the plays is plainly told in Love's Labor's Lost, pages 124 and 125:

Now here's three studied, ere you'll thrice wink, and how easie it is to put yeres to the word three, and study three yeeres in two words, the dancing-horse will tell you."

A most fine figure."

64

To prove you a Cypher."

The "Dancing Horse," Morrocco, was owned by a man called Cuddie Banks. Bullen calls attention to the fact that the dramatic writers, mentioned here, have all written about this "dancing horse." Thus it makes :

"A most fine Figure, to prove you a Cypher."

The student of Shakespeare has been puzzled to understand the meaning of many passages in the Plays-and the following passage from Love's Labor's Lost, page 136, has been a stumbling block-a curiosity in words, a meaningless jargon at best, by any known rules of construction:

"I marvel thy M. hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitu-dinitatibus. Thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.'

"Peace the peale begins."

"Mounsier, are you not lettred?”

'Yes, yes, he teaches boyes the Horne-Booke: What is Ab speled backward with the horn on his head?"

"Ba, puericia, with a horne added."

44

Ba, most seely Sheepe, with a horne: you heare his learning.”
Quis, quis, thou Consonant?"