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THE CRYPTOGRAM.
Ignatius Donnelly’s Book Issued
at Last*
A WORK OF GREAT INTEREST
Did Shaxpnr or Francis Bacon Write
, Shakespeare?
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Preliminary Sketches — The Wonderful
Scholar Iiacon — The Illiterate Stratford
Family_How Did Sh_ 3P - r Spell His
; Name? His Daughters Learning of the
Plays—Law of the Plays—Course of the
Discussion How Ignatius Donnelly Lx
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!• txausts the Subject.
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In the latter part of the sixteenth century
;wo great lights suddenly blazed out in the
galaxy of British intellecta So far did they
nrpass all who went before, that each is
aken as the founder of a new system, both
is the beginners of a new era. So great have
hey seemed to all who have come after that
:omparison is considered high praise. So far
Lid they outshine all contemporaries in their
everal lines, that those are for the mast part
»nly quoted as witnesses to these two; and
vhile the time abounded in heroes, states
nen, scientists and explorers, these two gave
t that distinctive glory which still attaches
o the Elizabethan age. These men were a
certain dramatist, whose name is in dis¬
pute, but usually printed “Shakespearo,”
?.\nd Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam and
Viscount of St. Albans. Comes now
the Hon. Ignatius Donnelly aud offers
Cio prove that these two were one;
that “Shakespeare” is a nom do plume,
dopted in mild burlesque of a cer¬
tain witty actor and stage manager; that
she authorship of the plays was concealed for
political reasons, and thus the ignorant actor
iias been credited with the philosopher’s
work. It is as if wo should place Pike’s
I’eak upon Popocatapetl, or add the strength
Cyf Samson to the muscles and stature of
Voliah. If wo must add the greatest philoso¬
pher down to that time to the greatest dra¬
matist of all time, the colossal intellect thus
invoked overpowers the common mind, and
Ve can only remit the explanation to the
philosophy of miracles.
Let us, therefore, examine Mr. Donnelly’s
a rgument careful!} r and add to it what
others have discovered, for the theory is no
Slew thing For nearly half a century it has
?>een gaining adherents; at least 250 books
mid pamphlets thereon have been issued, and
literary men are already ranged in two hos¬
tile camps—the Baconians aud Shakespear
lans. This article is merely an attempt to
present the evidence in compact form, and
E int out the strongest and weakest counts
Mr. Donnelly’s pica, just issued.
TUE CONTRASTED TWO.
No two men could differ more widely than
the known philosopher and the supposed
(dramatist. Lord Bacon was nobly born,
rich (except during ono period of his life) and
learned beyond all men of his time, a re¬
fined courtier, a profound lawyer and an
able judge, an aristocrat in~polifiics and a
life long companion of noblemen and the
adherents of royalty Of the supposed
dramatist the exact reverse was true in
every respeet until the middle or latter part
of his life, when he had gained fame and
fortune. The contrasted evidence is amaz
ing and startlingly suggestive. Of Ix>rd
Bacon we know as much as if any man in
English history. Ho was born at York
house, in the Strand, Loud n, Jan. 22, 15(51,
and died at High gate, April !», 1626. His
father was a baronet, Sir Nicholas Bacon;
his mother of noble blood and *.\traordinary
talents. The few sjHwmens extant of her
letters are j>erfoot models of graceful and
classical English. The style is noticeably
“Shakespearian.’* She adopted Puritan
views, and her letter warning her sons,
Francis and Anthony, against tho theatre,
bears a striking similarity to passages in the
£ reat dramas. Francis was precocious and
his health was delicate. At b years of ago
p 0 road tho books usually perused by his
parents; at 11 he produced an essay on tho
laws of the imagination, at 13 he entered
Tl . inity w n cg0t Cambridge, whence he grad
uated with high honors, and at t he age of 10
ho issued u protest against tho philosophy of
Aristotle, then preferred at the college, and
against the general system of teaching.
“They learn nothing,” he said, “except to be
liov,, Tl,,y are like « becalmed ship, they
move but by the wind of other men s breath
and have no oars of their own to steer
withal." From childhood he was polite and
witty.
“How old are you, my pretty boy?” asked
Queen Elisabeth when his mother brought
him to court.
“1 wo years younger than your majesty’s
happy reign, replied the witty little cour
He read all the Greek and , Latin authors
critically, spoke French and Italian, and
had some knowledge of Danish and German.
He traveled on the continent of Europe,
studied in I'aris, roa &law two years, and was
admitted to the bar at tho age of 21. At 28
he was made counsel extraordinary to the
* guv: i, at 22 he was chosen member of parlia¬
ment for Middlesex, and devoted himself to
a reform of the luw3. Subsequently he was
special counsel to King James 1; then solic¬
itor general, attorney general, and finally
lord high chancellor. In 1618 he was created
Baron Verulam, and in 1621 Viscount of
fc)t. A Ilians
We turn now to the alleged dramatist, and
are at once almost lost in obscurity. At first
view lie would seem no more a real historical
jierson than Romulus or Agamemnon. W
know that there is a name, “Shakespeare,
attached to immortal works, from which wt
form exalted conceptions of tbo author, and
a portrait accompanying the works, which Is
admitted to lie an “improvement” or flatter
ing imitation of a very different picture We
also know thut there was an individual whose
name (wre a very slight similarity to tho
other in sound, and a closer resemblance iu
selling,-that he came at an early age from
Fu i utl ord-on-A von, lived thirty years in Lon¬
don, grew very rich as manager of n theatre,
rctunn’d ro his native pi ace, and spent his
f‘vi remaining yeai-s in easy living, diversified
I v some rather discreditable actions. But
t!w»t individual’s real name we cannot know,
Kbice die few of his relatives who could write
SjH.-lled it in at least fifty five different ways,
from Jaoquespecr, Shacksjteer mid Jaxpyr,
though the slow evolution of SI. ax peer,
Shackxpyr, ShacUsjx'er and Sliaxper, dowu
to Shakjfpeer and finally ShaksjKjrc, at which
it rested during the later years of William
ShaksjxTe, after he had tried thirteen differ
cut ways of sjeliing it, only to make its final
change some time after his death into
“Slmkesjieare,” when his heirs claimed tbo ,
honor of the dramatic authorship and it was
assorted that tho family had been founded by
a noted warrior who was knighted for his
hravery with the sjiear. And. finally, there
is sortie evidence that the original was tho
Norman nick name, for a [icasant, Jacques
Pierre, which was pronounced Zhackspeair
and meant “Jack Peter.”
For information of this William Shaxper
or Shakspere we turn first to the public and
official ammls of the time and find not a line.
We turn next to the letters and other pro
ductions of eminent men of the time, and it
was indeed an age of greatness. There were j
Robert Earl of Essex, Sir Francis Drake,
Sir Walter Raleigh, Cecil Lord Burleigh, j
Nicholas, Anthony and Francis Bacon,
Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Henry Wotton and
Sir Philip Sidnev. with Walsingbam,
Coke, Cahideii^ Hooker, - Drake, "Inigo
Jonos and all that brilliant galaxy of
warriors, scholars and navigators, who only
began their career in the reign of Elizabeth
and became noted in that of James, and
therefore must have been for a short time
contemporary with William Slmkspere.
The literature still extant as made by these
men is voluminous; yet in all of it there is
no reference to the man, and very little in
deed to tho plays. Let us pass this omission
as duo to their preoccupation in other affairs
and turn to the poets and other writers of
the timo. Here we find a few, very few,
references to William Shakspere as a genial
fello%v, a boon companion at a supper and
abounding in wit and humor. But one of
all those, however, tho noted Ben Jonson,
left any testimony implying that William
Shakspere was a man of great talents. To
sum up: All we really know of tho man was
gathered after his death by visitors to Strat
ford-on-Avon. Seven years after the death
of Shakspere appeared tho first complete
edition of “Shakespeare,” called the edition
of 1023; then tho reporters of the day went to
Stratford and hunted up the particular^
and what they reported, and their successors
have discovered, sums up substantially as
follows:
the sh—k-sp-r-s of stratford-on-avon.
stratford-on Avon was one of the dirtiest
towns in EllK , and a ^ whe „ th( , fllthl .
nos8 of conimon i ife was indescribable,
Night travel in the streets was made danger
ous by deep and jnuddy puddles, and tho peo
pie utilized them for manure bins. When
tho “reform movement” set in an alderman
and several prominent citizens, including
ono of the Shaxpeers, were prosecuted for
making manure heaps in front of their doora.
The dwellings generally were dark and WiffinSn Jfftl
some. In ono of the best of those
Shakspere was born, in April, 1504; and'In
a much more elegant one, called New Plaoo,
he died, April 23, 1010. His father, cdtild John
Shagspur, or Shaxper, or Shakspere,
not write, but was a fairly well to do citi
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S2IAKSPERJE1AN AUToOUAITIS.
zen; his mother was equally uneducated,
most of his relatives the same, and his own
daughter Judith, at tho ago of 27, could not
sign her name. When William was but 15
years old his father became a bankrupt
William worked successfully as butcher and
wool stapler till the age of 18, when he was
compelled to marry Anne Hathaway, 8 year*
older than himself. Their first child was
born a few weeks after, and their twins,
llamuet and Judit h, some two years after,
Tho young husband and father became
rather dissolute; was prosecuted and whipped
for stealing deer from the park of Sir
Thomas Lucy, and took revenge by circulat
ing a coarse piece of poetry ridiculing tho
mug i sir:: to, for winch he was so threatened
that ut t he ago of 21 he (lod to London. There
he lived a short time by tbo humblest occu
Rations, t hen ticcamo an actor, and very soon
after appeared the first, and perhaps the
finest, <*f the 1 hakcsqiearian plays.
And hero wc arc face to face with the first
great mystery.
• * Sh >ero wrote “Shakespeare,” then
v *c‘ must Udieve that tho illiterate village
boy nd vamvtl i:i two or throe years to
Hie capacity o: producing dramas which
suivp liio vvhole gamut of human fixil
ing, rise to the heights of learning and go
do .;! t< the depths of mental and moral
philosophy, display n knowledge of courtly
btc mid gentle inamicis eijuai to that of
iuilcigh and uu insight into the princlp*cs of
law almost rival mg Coke, at tho sam' 1 timo
(hat they show u command of Latin derive
lives never in any other case gained except
by a kvv< re classical training, a .smoothness
versification no Other poet lias attained
without yours of application and an insight
into tho workings or the human heart never
granted to any other writer it t Fn «st sur
I** 4 * 5 * tho power of human credulity It
is perhaps jjossible to accept it as a fact
without invoking miracle as the exp .ana
turn, but wo need uoi '-‘uj 1 r that many
thousand thoughtful men disbelieve it.
Tills is the 51-st anu greatest mystery, and
second is like unto it, namely—Why did
William Shakspere, if tho great dramatist,
suddenly cease to write at the very time
Lord Bacon was promote! to high office, ro¬
tiro to Stratford and never mention his im
mortal works! As wo have seen, the first
P l »y s appeared almost as soon as the youth
became an actor, though there is evi
deuce that plays very similar in char
acter and title had been shown
London before Shakspere arrived
them Before 15U3 appeared seven plays and
two poems, all these before William Shalcs
pere was 30 years old! Between the latter
date and 1(500 appeared thirteen more plays,
and thus they continued to appear till Bacon
was promoted-then Shakspere went to Strafc
ford. As manager of the theatre in London
ho had acquired a great fortune; we should
presume, therefore, that he would thereafter
toad the life of a retired scholar, and hi*
mansion be tho resort of learned men. Notb
lug of tho sort. On tho contrary, ho engaged
in the brewing business, loaned small sum*
on ironclad mortgages, pursued debtors with
merciless severity, in one instance suing a
man for twe shillings, indulged various vices,
contracted (according to one of bis eotem
porories) a loathsome disease, and finally
died in a fever produced by a long debauch
aud tho accompanying exposure in all
«»•' l* <#«*. 'S™* ha. foilM *•
produce a scrap of his writing except five
ff mature*; none of these had any connection
' v *kh literature, nor is there any proved copy
of anything ho wrote In which he referred to
“Shakespeare's” dramas. He made a will in
which lie mentions all his petty household
stuff* his bowls, his breeches and hi3 second
host bed; but in it there is no word referring
to’tlis books, no mention of his plays or any
cla!#i to copyright, not one allusion to hi*
possible tame. Did ever great scholar or
writer make a will without such reference!
W$h might Ralph Waldo Emerson say, “I
cannot marry the facts to his verse."
The Continued history of his family
greatly adds to the mystery. His daughter
Judith, at tho age of 27, had her “mark" cer¬
tified to because she could not write. His
parents’ graves were unmarked by any stone
aud unknown to his children. His daughter
Susnmm married Dr.
Hall in haste, and with¬
out publication of Imnns,
for which they were cited
to appear before tho ee
clcsiastical court, and
were ablo to prove that juditu HiiAnspeaz’s
tbo haste was at least ad- “ AR *‘
visabla A little later the doctor sued
two ncighliors for libel, in that they had re¬
ported bud conduct in his wife, and a*
there is no record of n verdict, lawyers have
thought that the case was compromised.
Dr. Hall was a busy and careful man. He
kept a voluminous diary of his patients, hi*
life and his many interests, which is still ex¬
tant, and has been greedily searched by
scholars; but it contains nothing to prove
claims to any rights in “Shakespearo.” In
the next generation tho family became ex
tinet, the grandchildren dying childless; the
property, the little that was left, went to
collateral heirs, and the family dropped into
its original obscurity. That out of such a
family should suddenly have risen the great
est genius of earth, descended from along
line of peasants and boor*, that lie should
havo lived such a life, died such a death, left
daughters uneducated and taken no thought
for his fame, is of course possible; but it i*
against alt experience.
INTERNAL EVIDENCES.
^ The plots of many of tbo play* arc
from Latin, Greek and Italian authors, and
whole lines and jiaragraphs are almost lit
era j translations from the obscure classics,
The ready explanation was that the unlearned
Rh ft j ih jx.ro obtained his knowledge from
translations, but recent research has a con
cj^vo negative in this, many of these
works had not then been translated into
English, and at (east one of them Is not
translated yet. More convincing still, In
thoee cases where an English translation was
then extant the author of “Shakespeare” has
rejected tho style and wonls of the transia
tion, and reproduced in his drama a literal
reuderiug of the original, thus proving that
jj 0 (tot only read it, but had it inwrought
into the very texture of his mind. Even the
^ ca j] w j niiatakes of “Shakespeare” often
J)r0 vc to ho classical. Thus, in “Antony and
Cleopatra” Charmtan ftroiiosea a gome of
billiards. In the ordinary reader this ex
a smile. But the encyclopedic brain