Baconian Acrostics, Anagrams, Monograms, & Secret Signatures, in the Shakespeare Poems & Plays

[A Phoenix]

The monogram (the initials of the name of an individual) of Francis Bacon (FR. B) appears in the first stanza of The Rape of Lucrece (1594), the first sonnet in Shakespeares Sonnets (1609) and (FRA) in the first verse of A Lover’s Complaint ((1609). On the last page of The Rape of Lucrece is the secret signature F. BACON.

                                               Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,

                                               Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,

                                               And coasting homeward come to Ephesus,

                                               Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought

                                               Or that or any place that harbours men.

                                               But here must end the story of my life,

                                               And happy were I in my timely death,

                                               Could all my travels warrant me they live.

                                                   [The Comedy of Errors: 1: 1: 132-39]

FRAN BACON.

                                                Con. O be remou’d from him, and answere well.                                              

                                                Aust. Doe so King Philip, hang no more in doubt.

                                                Bast. Hang nothing but a Calues skin most sweet lout.

                                                Fra. I am perplext, and know not what to say.

                                                             [The Life and Death of King John]

Shakespeares Comedies Histories, & Tragedies (London: printed by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623), p. 10]

FRA. BACON.

                                                    And for this cause a-while we must neglect

                                                    Our holy purpose to Ierusalem.

                                                    Cosin, on Wednesday next, our Councell we will hold

                                                    At Windsor, and so informe the Lords:

                                                     But come your selfe with speed to vs againe,

                                                     For more is to be said, and to be done

                                                                           [I Henry IV]

[Shakespeares Comedies Histories, & Tragedies (London: printed by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623), p. 49]

F.BACON

For those who wish to explore the subject further and to whom I am greatly indebted see:

William Stone Booth, Some Acrostic Signatures of Francis Bacon (London: Archibald Constable & Co., Limited, 1909)

William Stone Booth, The Hidden Signatures of Francesco Colona and Francis Bacon (Boston: W. A. Butterfield, 1910)

William Stone Booth, Subtle Shining Secrecies (Boston: Walter H. Baker Company, 1925)

Edward D. Johnson, Shakespearean Acrostics (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers Ltd, 1942)

Kenneth R. Patton, Setting the Record Straight: An Expose of Stratfordian Anti-Baconian Tactics: The Vindication of William Stone Booth (San Diego, California: 2000)

For a series of articles on acrostics and anagrams (and other related subjects) see:

A. M. Challinor, Francis Bacon Philosopher, Statesman, Poet: An Index to Baconiana and its predecessors 1886-1999 (The Francis Bacon Society, 2001), pp. 78, 79; Appendix, pp. 1-2, 4.

[A Phoenix]

                                                                          BACONIAN ANAGRAMS IN THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

This little known figure Petruccio Ubaldini who spent a great deal of time with the Bacon family at Gorhambury and York House and had a long hitherto hidden and obscured relationship with Francis Bacon for more than thirty years was the model for Petruccio in The Taming of the Shrew. In the play Petruccio pursues Katherine who shares the same Christian name of Bacon’s aunt Katherine Cooke Killigrew, younger sister of Lady Anne Cooke Bacon. Katherine has a sister named Bianca from which can be derived the anagrammatic contraction AN BAC that clearly suggests the name Anne Bacon. While able to choose from a countless number of names our supreme poet and dramatist gives Petruccio’s father the name Antonio, the Italian form of the Christian name of his brother Anthony Bacon. He also furnishes Petruccio with several servants who are met with after his marriage to Katherine at his country house two of whom are named Nicholas and Nathaniel the same Christian names of his two elder half-brothers (from Lord Keeper Nicholas Bacon’s first marriage) Sir Nicholas and Sir Nathaniel Bacon. 

                          PETRUCCIO

                                                 For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,

                                                 And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate

                                                 Conformable as other household Kates.

                                                    [The Taming of the Shrew: 2:1: 270-2]

F. BACON.

                                                  Be patient, tomorrow’t shall be mended,

                                                  And for this night we’ll fast for company.

                                                  Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.

                                                      [The Taming of the Shrew: 4: 1: 162-4]

BACON.

Edited April 21, 2022 by A Phoenix
revision

[A Phoenix]

Hi Yann, welcome back-we have missed you!

[Allisnum2er]

9 minutes ago, A Phoenix said:

Hi Yann, welcome back-we have missed you!

Hi A Phoenix, I have missed you too ! 😊 I took a small Easter break to recharge. It is good to see you !

[Light-of-Truth]

Good to see you back!! 🙂

 

[A Phoenix]

THE SHAKESPEARE PLAY RICHARD II ORIGINALLY PART OF LORD BACON'S COLLECTION OF MSS KNOWN AS THE NORTHUMBERLAND MANUSCRIPT (C. 1597), THE TITLE PAGE OF THE ANONYMOUS 1597 QUARTO EDITION CONTAINING THE ACROSTIC BACON & THE ANAGRAM BY ONE BACON IN THE TEXT. 

On the outer-cover containing its list of contents is a large mass of scribbled writings of the utmost importance to the authorship of the Shakespeare works. Down the left side of the page appears Honorificabiletudine a variant of the long word honorificabilitudinitatibus in Love’s Labour’s Lost (5:1:41). Further down appears the line ‘revealing day through every crany peepes and see Shak’, essentially line 1086 of The Rape of Lucrece ‘revealing day through every cranny spies’. Furthermore this is the only contemporary manuscript where the names of Bacon and Shakespeare appear together. In fact the name of Bacon/Francis Bacon & his pseudonym Shakespeare/William Shakespeare have been scribbled across its outer-cover on more than a dozen occasions. In particular above the entry for the Shakespeare play Richard II appears the entry ‘By Mr. ffrauncis William Shakespeare’ and further down the page the word ‘Your’ is twice written across his pseudonym William Shakespeare-so it reads ‘Your William Shakespeare’.                             

                                               By this time, had the King permitted us,

                                               One of our souls had wandered in the air,

                                               Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh,

                                               As now our flesh is banished from this land.

                                               Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm.  

                                                               [Richard II: 1:3: 187-91]

BY ONE BACON.

[Light-of-Truth]

Thank you A. Phoenix! By 4/9/2026 Bacon will enjoy his dream, 400 years after the Easter he died on the "crosse".

Still busy for another day, but may jump back in soon. Looking forward to Allisnum2er (Yann) jumping in too.

Too bad we need to spend time surviving day-to-day when what we all do is SO important. But can't tell the electric company that we are too busy sharing the Bacon Truth to pay bills. 😉

Yet, we all know where the priority should be. 😉

Northumberland MSS came up today in a casual conversation. "Too bad there is no handwritten document with Bacon and Shakespeare in it." But there is, and I was eager to tell about it! Also saying so far there is no known letter written by Willy Skakspur or a letter written to Shakspur when thousands of letters were saved and documented by everyone who was anybody. The Strat candidate who changed the English language, with Bacon's help, never wrote a letter?

Be back soon...

[A Phoenix]

                                                                                  ONE OF THE BACONIAN ANAGRAMS IN THE TEMPEST.

It is no coincidence that The Tempest whose central character Prospero is a disguised dramatic portrait of his creator Lord Bacon was placed first in the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio and likewise the very first page of the play containing the large ornamental letter B is also very special. This ornamental B conceals and reveals the identity of its secret concealed author Francis Bacon and just for good measure on the second page of The Tempest in the Shakespeare Folio there is a confirmatory anagram spelling out the name of its author:

                                                      For thou must now know farther. 

                                                            Mira. You haue often

                                                      Begun to tell me what I am, but stopt

                                                      And left me to a bootlesse Inquisition,

                                                      Concluding, stay:  not yet.

                                                      F. BACON.

[Shakespeares Comedies Histories, & Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies (London: printed by Isaac Jaggard, and Ed. Blount, 1623), p. 2]

Edited April 21, 2022 by A Phoenix
typo

[A Phoenix]

 

                                                                                       DEFINITIONS OF AN ACROSTIC AND ANAGRAM.

By the late sixteenth century, acrostic conventions allowed for vertical, lateral, and/or diagonal movement. Standard varieties included the initial acrostic (the first letters of successive verse lines); the mesostich (the first letters after caesuras); the telestich (the last letters of successive lines); and the double acrostic (first and last letters of successive verse lines). As the mesostich and double acrostic demonstrate, acrostics need not conscript adjacent letters; they can be dilated (or “dispersed”) through a given text. So we can usefully distinguish two acrostic modes: nondilated (we follow sequential letters, in whatever direction, without skipping) and dilated (we skip over nonsalient letters-for example, in a double acrostic, all letters that neither begin nor end a line-in order to pick out salient ones).

[Andrew Sofer, ‘All’s I-L-L That Starts “I’Le”: Acrostic Space and Ludic Reading in the Margins of the Early Modern Play-Text’, Renaissance Drama, 48 (2020), I have used the unnumbered online article so for the convenience of the reader I here provide it closest reference number in the paper, n. 22]

  
Acrostic: a device whereby the letters of a name or other words are dispersed according to a regular pattern, often as the first letters of successive verses (INITIAL ACROSTIC). Other options include the last letters (TELESTICH), first and last letters (DOUBLE ACROSTIC), the first letters after caesuras (MEDIAL ACROSTIC), etc. Acrostics may be thought of as special instances of DISPERSED ANAGRAM: like the anagram, an acrostic may be open-displayed typographically-or hidden.

Authorship might also be affirmed through an acrostic…
In the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, acrostics were so common that educated readers seem to have traced them almost at sight. Writers such as Francois Villon (1431-after 1463), Francesco Colonna (1433/4-1527), and Palingenius (Pier Angelo Manzolia) (c.1500-c.1543) still signed their works acrotically. A prominent English example is John Gower, who gives his acrostic signature in a prologue to book I of Vox Clamantis. 
        
Anagram: words within words. A device whereby the letters or syllables of a word or phrase are rearranged or else dispersed within a larger text. Used to link a name with satiric or eulogistic comment on it (e.g. MARGARET THATCHER: THAT GREAT CHAMBER). Sometimes combined with ACROSTIC or REBUS. Anagrams may be CONDENSED (rearranged within a short text or DISPERSED among other letters). Anagrams may be openly displayed or concealed (as when embedded in a longer text). 
 

[Alastair Fowler, Literary Names: Personal Names in English Literature (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 77, 235]

[Light-of-Truth]

For me, the TempesT is the most important play of them all. So many ciphers contained discovered before I was a Baconian, so many discovered after with a handful even by me. The first time I read the "EPILOGVE", I was blown away as Bacon wrote that to me! It was a few months after I started to crack the Pyramid design and it just blew me away. These 133 words had my head spinning for weeks:

EPILOGVE,
spoken by Prospero.

NOw my Charmes are all ore-throwne,
And what strength I haue's mine owne.
Which is most faint: now 'tis true
I must be heere confinde by you,
Or sent to Naples, Let me not
Since I haue my Dukedome got,
And pardon'd the deceiuer, dwell
In this bare Island, by your Spell,
But release me from my bands
With the helpe of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours, my Sailes
Must fill, or else my proiect failes,
Which was to please: Now I want
Spirits to enforce: Art to inchant,
And my ending is despaire,
Vnlesse I be relieu'd by praier
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy it selfe, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your Indulgence set me free. Exit.

Years later I am wise enough to know that Bacon did indeed write those words to me, but to many others as well. Yet the impact and power of reading it that day is part of why I do what I do. It is a duty, a responsibility to carry out Bacon's project.

For me, Prospero has always been Dee. Lately  I am starting to accept that Prospero may be Bacon, with characteristics of Dee. Dee conjured a storm that helped the English beat Spain in a battle. That is a historical rumor based on a fact of history. Dee was a magician, so on, etc.

A. Phoenix says Prospero is Bacon. I questioned in my mind at first as my mind is not easily changed, and yet the evidence A. Phoenix puts out there has opened my mind. Upsets me sometimes to consider I was wrong, but feels good to accept a mistake and move forward. LOL

I see Sonnet 14 as about Dee totally, and seems to suggest Dee was Prospero, or at least in Bacon's head as he wrote The Tempest. So if Bacon IS Prospero, he is including some of Dee in his character development.

Sonnet 14:

NOt from the stars do I my iudgement plucke,
And yet me thinkes I haue Astronomy,
But not to tell of good,or euil lucke,
Of plagues,of dearths,or seasons quallity,
Nor can I fortune to breefe mynuits tell;
Pointing to each his thunder,raine and winde,
Or say with Princes if it shal go wel
By oft predict that I in heauen finde.
But from thine eies my knowledge I deriue,
And constant stars in them I read such art
As truth and beautie shal together thriue
If from thy selfe,to store thou wouldst conuert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
Thy end is Truthes and Beauties doome and date.

DEE is 14 Simple cipher. JOHN DEE is 188 Kaye cipher and Line 188 is in Sonnet 14, "Pointing to each his thunder,raine and winde,".

Day 33 is also in Sonnet 14 with the first four full lines of Day 33 (and 33 words) being:

But from thine eies my knowledge I deriue,
And constant stars in them I read such art
As truth and beautie shal together thriue
If from thy selfe, to store thou wouldst conuert:

This IS my favorite Bacon acrostic, by far. It is the first four lines of Day 33. BINGO. Bacon put it there on purpose.

See, and also line 182 the last line of Sonnet 13 says, "You had a Father,let your Son say so.".

ONE EIGHTY TWO is 157 Simple and 287 Kaye cipher.

Remember line 33 asks where is "For where is she so faire whose vn-eard wombe". Line 32 ends with the word. mother." And I've demonstrated how Sonnet 33 is possible written by Elizabeth to Bacon.

Anyway...

To me, Sonnet 14 is written by Bacon about Dee sharing his frustration that Dee has advised Elizabeth as her Astrologer and trusted confidant basically orchestrating his life. "Or say with Princes if it shal go wel." I share his frustration, years of reading with emotion what Bacon has told in his Sonnets. Yet 400 years later, even frustrated, I trust Dee did the right thing and Bacon likely knew it as well. The concept of Bacon being born to a Virgin, his names, "William Tudor", "Francis Bacon", and even "Shakespeare" may have all come from Dee and his calculations and special insight into the future centuries. The story is clearly told, and the cipher numbers back it up.

I wish Bacon could have been acknowledged as King of England and the author of Shakespeare while he was alive. But if that happened all of the other stuff Bacon worked so hard for may have been for nought.

The next 4 years leading up to the 400 years anniversary of Bacon's "death" will be interesting. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

[Light-of-Truth]

I've never done the Allisnum2er (Yann) technique on the first page of The Tempest, yet have always been curious about the extra large dot after

Tempest.

Last word on the page is "Who." Do I see four F BACON acrostics in one line starting with the exaggerated dot on the first page of the First Folio that is already famous for its Bacon ciphers?

And "son", "King", "(my DEErest father)".

Sorry, I see what i see, not trying to promote a theory, just keep seeing what I see and sharing.

 

 

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Light-of-Truth

[A Phoenix]

Hi Rob, it must have been some kind Baconian cosmic synchronicity as not only was I looking at Sonnet 14 around the same time some time yesterday I was also writing out the same anagram. I also think there is a second anagram in the fifth line:

                                                                                               Nor can I fortune to breefe mynuits tell  

                                                                                                                   I F. BACON.

The Tempest is undoubtedly one the greatest of the Shakespeare plays and central to the whole canon. It is also one of the most Baconian of all the plays, arguably the most Baconian. Its central character Prospero dominates the whole play. I have said this before that through his all-knowing and all-seeing mind the scientific-philosopher Prospero controls the world and future destiny of mankind and can be seen as the commander-in-chief of the Rosicrucian Brothers who govern Salomon’s House in Bacon’s New Atlantis (Land of the Rosicrucians), with Solomon’s House, or Solomon’s Temple, adopted as the central legend of its outer body, the Freemasonry Brotherhood. The Tempest described by Dr Yates as a Rosicrucian manifesto, is a condensed dramatic reflection of the discovery of the New World of North America and New Atlantis (Land of the Rosicrucians) a philosophical and scientific blueprint for what became the United States of America, whose coeval the first Rosicrucian manifesto the Fama Fraternitatis was first issued with their godly statement of intent-The Universal of the Reformation ofthe Whole World. 

As you know Rob, the great and universally learned Dr Dee mentored FB from a very early age and the influence he exercised over his young charge is in my view simply immeasurable. Dr Dee opened up new vistas and worlds in the mind of the young precicous genius who went on to become the Father of Modern Science and the Modern World. While I have no doubt that Prospero is modelled upon his creator Lord Bacon I certainly think that the spectral presence of Dr Dee also inhabits certain aspects of Prospero. It seems logical if Dr Dee was such an influence on FB then some of that is likely to be transmuted into the character of Prospero, maybe he is a refracted composite of Lord Bacon and Dr Dee. The thought of their combined learning and genius makes me tingle.  

 

[Light-of-Truth]

THE TEMPEST...

TEMPEST has two T's, two pillars and also TT is Thirty Three.

The letters in between EMPES are 55 Simple cipher. We just had an interesting discussion on the number 55:

Yann's contribution was beautiful:

https://sirbacon.org/bacon-forum/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=969&key=65e858105b95b532c067b204e87bffbf

Sonnet 55 is important:

NOt marble, nor the guilded monument,
Of Princes shall out-liue this powrefull rime,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Then vnswept stone, besmeer'd with sluttish time.
When wastefull warre shall Statues ouer-turne,
And broiles roote out the worke of masonry,
Nor Mars is sword, nor warres quick fire shall burne:
The liuing record of your memory.
Gainst death,and all obliuious emnity
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall stil finde roome,
Euen in the eyes of all posterity
That weare this world out to the ending doome.
   So til the iudgement that your selfe arise,
   You liue in this,and dwell in louers eies.

 

The Tempest was probably the last play written, at least by the time the First Folio was published. Yet is the first play in the collection demonstrating passing beyond the Pillars into the New World. Page 1, Act 1, Scene 1 (1 1 1). The Prologue was likely the final Bang of the works. I picture Bacon and Jonson by lamp at night fine-tuning the words and numbers for the most powerful impact. That would be in plain text words, but also the magic and power of their highly focused "Will" using secret techniques we today can only imagine.

Makes me tingle as well!

 

 

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Light-of-Truth

[A Phoenix]

                                                                          THE DOUBLE BACONIAN ANAGRAM IN THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

In the passage below from Act 1 Scene I in The Merchant of Venice Antonio (Anthony Bacon) is linked with Janus the Roman god of beginnings and endings as well as duality, transitions and gateways. According to mythology Janus had two faces-one looking forward to the future and one looking back to the past. In the passage Francis Bacon has secretly incorporated a near anagram of his name upwards and downwards: F Becon from the letter F upwards and F Becon from the letter F downwards (my italics). The name Bacon is a derivation of Beacon.  

                                                                                        Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad 

                                                                                        Because you are not merry, and ’twere as easy

                                                                                        For you to laugh, and leap, and say you are merry

                                                                                        Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,

                                                                                        Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time. 

                                                                                                [The Merchant of Venice: 1:1: 47-51]

[Light-of-Truth]

Bacon synchronicity is crackling, I read your article on Merchant this morning. 🙂

Just think, 406 year ago right now, as the story goes, Ben Jonson was drinking with Willy. We could say Ben drank him under the table for sure. 😉

 

 

 

[Allisnum2er]

Indeed, Bacon synchronicity is crakling !😃

Talking about Ben Jonson , Willy and  "DEFINITIONS OF AN ACROSTIC AND ANAGRAM."

https://archive.org/details/workesofbenjamin00jons/page/210/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Allisnum2er

[Light-of-Truth]

157 characters (a and e counted as one character in Chimaera )

   With the Chimaera of the Rosie-Crosse,
Their Seales, their Characters, Hermetique rings,
   Their Jemme of Riches, and bright Stone, that brings
Invisibilitie, and strength, and tongues:

🙂

 

Edited April 22, 2022 by Light-of-Truth

[Allisnum2er]

Here is the name of our Bard, Conceal'd Poet, hidden in Ben Jonson' s Eulogy on Shakespeare.

SHINE FORTH , FRANCIS BACON, THOU STARRE OF POETS !

 

 

 

 

 

[A Phoenix]

Good evening High Wizard of B'Hive. Given the context a thousand times significant. Brilliant.

[Light-of-Truth]

Tvdor in there too!

[Allisnum2er]

Good evening and thank you very much A Phoenix !

I try humbly to be equal to the quality of your insightful analysis and publications .

Thanks for making this Topic. 

I am sorry to be less active on the forum on the past few days.

The truth is that last tuesday I made a very interesting discovery that I would like to share with you tomorrow.  But with my regular job, the deadline is short ! 😄

[A Phoenix]

Hi Yann, no need to apologise. Your remarkable and groundbreaking contibutions to B'hive have been enormous and invaluable. I am very much looking forward to your new discovery. 

[Light-of-Truth]

Allisnum2er, Yann, we all miss you when you are away. My life is heading towards more "real" work, so I understand. Totally.

Thanks for being here when you can. You add the Baconian "Spice" that adds flavor to all of our work!!

You nailed it today, in a spot that matters significantly!! 🙂

[Kate]

On 4/21/2022 at 5:56 PM, A Phoenix said:

 

                                                                                       DEFINITIONS OF AN ACROSTIC AND ANAGRAM.

By the late sixteenth century, acrostic conventions allowed for vertical, lateral, and/or diagonal movement. Standard varieties included the initial acrostic (the first letters of successive verse lines); the mesostich (the first letters after caesuras); the telestich (the last letters of successive lines); and the double acrostic (first and last letters of successive verse lines). As the mesostich and double acrostic demonstrate, acrostics need not conscript adjacent letters; they can be dilated (or “dispersed”) through a given text. So we can usefully distinguish two acrostic modes: nondilated (we follow sequential letters, in whatever direction, without skipping) and dilated (we skip over nonsalient letters-for example, in a double acrostic, all letters that neither begin nor end a line-in order to pick out salient ones).

[Andrew Sofer, ‘All’s I-L-L That Starts “I’Le”: Acrostic Space and Ludic Reading in the Margins of the Early Modern Play-Text’, Renaissance Drama, 48 (2020), I have used the unnumbered online article so for the convenience of the reader I here provide it closest reference number in the paper, n. 22]

  
Acrostic: a device whereby the letters of a name or other words are dispersed according to a regular pattern, often as the first letters of successive verses (INITIAL ACROSTIC). Other options include the last letters (TELESTICH), first and last letters (DOUBLE ACROSTIC), the first letters after caesuras (MEDIAL ACROSTIC), etc. Acrostics may be thought of as special instances of DISPERSED ANAGRAM: like the anagram, an acrostic may be open-displayed typographically-or hidden.

Authorship might also be affirmed through an acrostic…
In the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, acrostics were so common that educated readers seem to have traced them almost at sight. Writers such as Francois Villon (1431-after 1463), Francesco Colonna (1433/4-1527), and Palingenius (Pier Angelo Manzolia) (c.1500-c.1543) still signed their works acrotically. A prominent English example is John Gower, who gives his acrostic signature in a prologue to book I of Vox Clamantis. 
        
Anagram: words within words. A device whereby the letters or syllables of a word or phrase are rearranged or else dispersed within a larger text. Used to link a name with satiric or eulogistic comment on it (e.g. MARGARET THATCHER: THAT GREAT CHAMBER). Sometimes combined with ACROSTIC or REBUS. Anagrams may be CONDENSED (rearranged within a short text or DISPERSED among other letters). Anagrams may be openly displayed or concealed (as when embedded in a longer text). 
 

[Alastair Fowler, Literary Names: Personal Names in English Literature (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 77, 235]

Thanks for explaining all this. 
I’m wondering how much you guys know about Cardan Grilles? I’m only just exploring them myself.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardan_grille

Seems to me that all the embellished first letters in the First Folio could have been put into a grid and a grille used to reveal the authorship - but of course we’d not know the width of the grid. I suspect they would have left a clue somewhere though, in the form of an emblem or image?

Here’s the sequence of embellished letters taken from the British Library copy

WFTTSWT

Then the plays:

BCSEPTLNIAIIIINOSOMHAINIGBNGGWWINNY

F Bacon or F Baconi is obviously in there and not an Earl or Vere in sight! I 

There are also 3 capitalised letters that are not square, decorative, woodcuts but which sit prominently, these are 

OIH

These are at the start of Henry V, The Prologue and Julius Caesar. 

Anyway, this method intrigued me so thought I’d add it in for posterity and lightbulb moments. 

Maybe the word, Grilles should be added to the topic headline?
 

 

Kate

This method could also be used to decipher the Dedication in the Sonnets too?

[Light-of-Truth]

These letters add up to 157 Kaye cipher using the 26 letter codes:

W F T T S W T 

The letters of the plays in 5 rows of 7:

B C S E P T L
N I A I I I I
N O S O M H A
I N I G B N G
G W W I N N Y

And:

B C S E P T L
N I A I I I I
N O S O M H A
I N I G B N G
G W W I N N Y