Messages from The Man in The Moon
by
Mather Walker
Among other credit due Francis Bacon, is the fact that when life gave
him a lemon, he made lemonade. Banished from his rightful title as
the son of Queen Elizabeth, heir to the throne of England, doomed to live
in the shadows, he created his own shadow kingdom. When he proclaimed
that he had taken all knowledge for his province, he also proclaimed, in
his enigmatic way, a new title for himself. This is clearly shown in
the symbolic title page of the De Augmentis:
The visible world is the world of the sun, but the intellectual world, of
which Bacon has proclaimed himself ruler, is shadowed, and is the world
of the moon. Bacon became the Moon Man, the man of the shadows.
In the frontispiece to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society there
Is a group of three people: William Brouncker, the first president on the
right, A bust of Charles II, the royal founder in the middle, and to the
left, beneath the wing of a prominent angel, holding a trumpet,
is Francis Bacon, and he is ENTIRELY IN THE SHADOW.
It should be noted also that Bacon was of the lineage of Selena. For it
must be remembered, that in the cult that sprang up around Elizabeth, she
was commonly referred to as Selena, Diana, or various other titles
signifying the moon.
Bacon's family coat of arms, which was used by Nicholas Bacon
had a boar with no special markings. But Bacon apparently had his
coat of arms changed according to a new design he made himself.
In Guillim's Heraldry, in the 1610 edition, there is a Coat of arms with
the same motto from the family coat of arms, but with two large figures
of Castor and Pollux, one on either side, with the same motto, and the
same boar at the top, but on the side of the boar is a crescent MOON.
The name of Diana was particularly significant to Bacon. Giordano Bruno
had spent two years in England, meeting and mingling with the Sidney
circle of which Bacon was a member (under the mask of Spenser). Bruno
(no doubt influenced by Bacon) chose for the image of his doctrine
the great chaste huntress DIANA. Under the mask of Spenser Bacon
weaves the same Diana into his Fairy Queen. In the preface he explains
that he gives her the name Of Gloriana, but SHADOWS her as Bel-Phoebe,
and again As Raleigh's Cynthia,-'Phoebe and Cynthia,' he says, "being
both names for Diana." In Henry IV, Act I, Scene 2, Falstaff says,"...let
us be Diana's foresters, GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE, minions of the
moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed,
as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose
countenance we steal." And the prince acquiesces, saying, "..us that are
the moon's men.." If we assume that Bacon as the son of Elizabeth, was
himself represented by the prince, this becomes particularly significant.
The character of Diana as a goddess was rather complex. As a patroness
of hunting, she resembled Pan, the god of hunters, and like him also
represented Nature, and man's ideas about Nature, or Philosophy. This
is significant. Bacon divided the invention of Arts and Sciences into
two parts:
1. Literate Experience
2. Novum Organum
He referred to Literate Experience as "the Hunt of Pan." The office
of Pan, he said, could not be more lively represented than by
making him the god of hunters. So the Arts and Science have their
particular end which they hunt after. For every natural action, every
motion and process, is no other than a hunt. The symbolic emblem
of this idea, "The Hunt of Pan" was used as a headpiece in Spencer's
Faerie Queen in 1610; in the King James Bible in 1611; in Bacon's
Novum Organum in 1620, and in the First Folio in 1623 at the
beginning of the catalogue of contents, and The Tempest:
Therefore, the central figure in the emblem is Pan, shown by the fact that
He was god of hunters, by the shaggy nature of his legs, and by the
fivefold headdress. According to Bacon the generations of Nature naturally
fell into Five divisions:
1. Celestial
2. Meteors
3. Earth and Sea
4. Elements
5. Species
So in the emblem the hounds of the chase are depicted as turned toward
Pan, the central figure, with their noses to the ground, i.e. hot on the
scent of Pan. The archers are also turned toward the central figure of
Pan, but their arrows are dipped low so they are actually directed about
half way between Pan and the clusters of grapes beneath him. This was
entirely In accordance with the logic of Literate Experience, of which
Bacon had Said:
'I pledge mankind a liquor strained from countless
Grapes, from grapes ripe and fully seasoned, collected
In clusters, and gathered, then squeezed in the press,
And finally purified and clarified in the vat.'
Here also are seen the rabbits, emblem of that vigilance necessary
to the Sons of Science (it was believed that rabbits slept with one
eye open), and here are seen the running vines of ivy since Bacon
said Science in its healthy state should be like running vines or
ivy, continually growing. The blossoms are shown with two directed
straight up, and two directed outward to the reader, since Bacon said
one beam of knowledge is directed upward toward God, and one toward
man. The two peacocks held by the seated figure may be a covert
allusion to Bacon. A prominent part of Bacon's coat of arms was the
large figures of Castor and Pollux. The name given to the constellation
of Castor and Pollux by the Arabians was The Peacock. The peacocks
may have had another, still more covert, allusion. Bacon had decided
to preserve the most notable of the knowledge which had survived
from the distant past. Discussing this knowledge he continually used
the metaphor of a flood which had submerged ancient knowledge. In
his allegory of the New Atlantis he said the only survivors when
the ancient Atlantis (ancient knowledge) was submerged, were the
birds. That is, allegorically, he represented what had survived from
this flood which submerged ancient knowledge as birds. In accordance
with this metaphor, the two resplendent birds, which are held by Pan,
may represent those notable examples of ancient knowledge which
Bacon preserved in his Plays.
The huntress Diana was the parallel feminine Symbol to Pan, for
she was The goddess of the Arts and Sciences. Frances Yates says
Diana was "a favorite mythological wrapping for the pursuit of
natural science."
In sculpture Diana was represented in both white and black
stone. In "The Lost Language of Symbolism" Harold Bayley
notes that there was nothing inappropriate about this use of
black; quite the contrary, for black denoted "the Divine Dark
Of Inscrutability, of Silence and Eternity." Black was essentially
a color symbolic of Wisdom, and the divine Sophia was
consistently depicted as Black. Milton says:
" Goddess, sage and holy,
Whose saintly visage is too bright,
To hit the sense of mortal sight;
And therefore to our weaker view,
O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdome's hue."
A statue of black Diana, known in mythology as Artemis or
Diana Dictynna, stood in ancient times near "Ambrysos in
Phocis." The first Shake-speare play, The Comedy of Errors,
is set at Ephesus, an ancient Greek city in West Asia Minor,
which was famous as the site of Artemis, Diana of Ephesus,
and there was also a statue of black Diana there. In Love's
Labour Lost, another of the earliest plays Bacon still shows
Himself occupied with the idea of Diana. In the conversation
between the two schoolmen, Holofernes and Nathaniel, and
the countryman Dull, Dull propounds a riddle to the learned pair:
"You are two bookmen, can you tell me by
your wit, What was a month old at Cain's
birth, that's not five weeks old as yet?"
and Holofernes replies:
"Dictinna, goodman Dull! Dictinna, goodman Dull!"
Dull exclaims, "What is Dictinna?" and gets the answer,
"A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the Moone!"
It is significant that, in The Tempest, the last of the Plays, the
idea is still in Bacon's mind, and the same allusion is expressed.
Gonzalo says:
"You are gentlemen of brave metal. You would
lift the moon out of her sphere if she would
continue in it five weeks without changing."
And a little further on Antonio says:
'The Man I' the moon's too slow.'
These are allusions planted in the Play to evoke specific associations,
just as Sebastian's remark:
" or that there were such men
Whose head stood in their breast."
Is an allusion intentionally inserted to evoke the association
of Sir Walter Raleigh, who, as I have shown in "Shake-speare's
Other Side of Midnight" brought the idea to England.
And we remember that Rosaline, of whom Berowne is
enamoured in the play has one very significant feature:
King says to Berowne:
"By heaven thy love is black as ebony."
The statue of Diana at Ephesus was made from ebony wood.
In As you like it, the enamoured Orlando, strolling in the
Forest of Arden by the light of the Moon pins verses to his
Rosalinde upon the trees:
"Hang there my verse, in witness of my loue,
And thou thrice crowned Queene of night suruey
With thy chaste eye, from thy pale spheare aboue
Thy Huntresse name, that my full life doth sway.
O Rosalind, these trees shall be my Bookes,
And in their barkes my thoughts Ile character,
That euerie eye, which in this Forrest lookes,
Shall see thy vertue witnest euery where."
Orlando addresses the Moon as the chaste thrice-crowned
Queen of Heaven, and says that her "Huntresse Name" (which
is DIANA), sways his full life. Significantly, where her name
should appear he puts Rosalind. In Hamlet's Notebook, William
O'Connor transposes Rosalinde into OR ELS DIAN. We will
return to Diana again in the first part of Henry IV, but in the
meantime there is more material to introduce.
As the head of the group of men who gathered around Him, who were a
part of his secret efforts to disseminate his ideas, and his knowledge,
Bacon became known as the Man in the Moon, the head of the men of
the shadows.
Who were these shadow men who were associated with Bacon in his
secret efforts? In "Shakespeare's Other Side of Midnight" I have given
evidence to support the claim that Bacon was associated under his
masks of Edmund Spenser and Christopher Marlowe with John Dee,
Philip Sidney and his Areopagus Group, and with Sir Walter Raleigh
and and his group, and that all three were associated with the
Rosicrucian phenomenon. Raleigh's group very definitely meets the
label Of Shadow Men. A great deal of ink has been expended in tying
the name of School of Night to this group. A well known, and mysterious
poem by a member of this group, George Chapman, is titled 'Shadow of
Night'. The Shadow Men, i.e. those who are hidden is the same idea as
the Invisible Men of the Rosicrucians.
Scholars of the Rosicrucian phenomenon have not advanced their
standards very far into that unknown country from whose bourne
no traveler ever returns enlightened. However, it is not really that
confusing if it is put in context. A careful reading of the Fama shows
it had two main thrusts: the reformation of religion,
and the reformation of knowledge.
The reformation of religion expressed in the document is
Militant Protestantism. The reformation of knowledge is The Advancement
of Learning. The authors of the document were people who were
crusading in secret to oppose tyranny over the human mind, and
in both the Fama, and the Confession, can clearly be seen the ideas
of Bacon and Dee.
The superpower of the day was Spain. Spain was allied
with Rome and the Pope. These were the forces of darkness
which threatened tyranny not only over the bodies, but the minds and
souls of humanity. Phillip II of Spain was one of those monsters who
result from one man having too much power, and believing he is right,
and anyone with opinions opposing his are wrong and evil. He did
horrible things like burning to death seven human beings on his birthday
as an act of faith (Auto de Fe). And the Roman Catholic Church both in
Rome and in Spain perpetrated the most atrocious and ungodly acts in
the name of religion.
Countless men and women were subjected to the most refined and
inhuman torture. The Misercorde, a slender dagger with a sharp blade,
was placed beside the instruments of torture. The victim was told that
this was for the purpose of cutting the cord of misery. That when the
agony became too great they should call out for it. The victims
entered the torture believing that release was only a quick stroke of
the dagger across their throat away. But when the extreme limits of
pain was reached and the victim began to scream, "Misercorde!
Misercorde!" The dagger was never used at all. This deception,
when it was realized, broke the will of the strongest. Among others
Galileo was made to renounce what he knew to be true on threat
of burning, and Bruno, the premiere philosopher and free thinker
of his day was burned alive, as were hundreds of others.
The Protestantism of England had a rather silly origin. King Henry
VIII had wearied of his sexual dalliances with Mary Bolyn, and
craved a few rolls in the hay with her sister Anne. But Anne had
a death wish. She would not consent unless he married her. He
couldn't marry her unless he divorced his wife, Catherine of Aragon,
and the Rome Catholic Church wouldn't endorse the divorce. Henry
broke with Rome, turned England into a Protestant nation, married
Anne Bolyn, and, eventually wearying of her, killed her. So strange
are the workings of fate that somewhere along the line, this lust which
had led to murder, gave birth to a bulwark against tyranny over the
human mind.
It was a rocky road that led to something good. England had
broken with Rome in the reign of Henry VIII, moved toward radical
Protestantism in the reign of his son Edward VI, reverted to
Catholicism under his daugher Mary, and then reverted back to
Protestantism again when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558.
Philip II of Spain had shared the crown of England with his wife
Mary Tudor, and was opposed to letting it slip back to Protestantism.
Increasing tensions in the Netherlands added yet another ingredient
to the problems facing statesmen and politicians. In England there
was a realization of how much the nation's commercial interests
depended on trade with the Low Country. There was talk of the
necessity of forming a general Protestant League to pull together the
diverse elements of the Reformation in a common cause of defense
against the Roman Catholic menace.
Philip Sidney was born into this climate. In the last stage of
His formal education, Sidney went to Strasbourg and established
a friendship with Johann Sturm. Sturm was well known in England.
He was an acquaintance of Lord Burghley and the Bacon family.
From Strasbourg Sidney went on to Vienna where he came under
the tutelage of a Protestant statesman, Hubert Languet. Languet
fostered in Sidney a loyalty to the concept of the Protestant League.
In 1577 the young Philip Sidney was sent on a mission to the
imperial court to convey to Rudolph II, the condolences of Queen
Elizabeth, on the death of the previous Emperor, his father, Maximilian II.
Sidney also visited other German Protestant Princes, particularly the
Calvinist rulers of the Palatinate, in order to explore the possibility of
a Protestant League in Europe. Sidney had already developed his
political and religious position, which was based on that of his uncle,
the Earl of Leicester, and of Francis Walsingham, whose daughter he
later married. He believed in a policy of militant Protestantism against
Spain, and found a kindred spirit at Heidelberg in the person of John
Casimir, brother of the then Elector Palatine.
Back in England the plant that blossomed more than two
generations later into Rosicrucianism began to take root. An event
occurred in the summer of 1582 which was later reflected in the Fama
of the Rosicrucians. The Fama listed brethren with the initials D, FB,
and R. The original Fama also ended with a large letter subscript:
SUB UMBRA ALARUM TUARUM JEHOVAH
This identifies Raleigh as brother 'R' because it points to an event
in the summer of 1582 with which Raleigh was involved. At that
time William the Silent of Orange was leader of the Protestant
forces in the Netherlands. A small group of Englishmen went to
Antwerp to meet with him. Queen Elizabeth herself rode out with
them as far as Canterbury. The group was made up of Walter
Raleigh, Lord Hunsdon, the Earl of Leicester, Fulke Greville,
Philip Sidney, and Edward Dyer. When the queen turned back
the group continued on, crossed the channel, and proceeded
to Antwerp where they met William of Orange. Raleigh was
detained there by William after the others had returned,
and entrusted with a special verbal message for the Queen:
SUB UMBRA ALARUM TUARUM PROTEGIMUR
That is, 'UNDER THE SHADOW OF YOUR WINGS WE ARE
PROTECTED.' William of Orange was sending both an appeal,
and an acknowledgement, to Queen Elizabeth of her support
of the Protestant cause. In view of the English connections,
and the Protestant activism of the Rosicrucian publications it is
evident the postscript of The Fame referred to that famous event
involving Sir Walter Raleigh and William of Orange. It both
referred to that famous message, and amended it to conform
to its source, the Psalms, where several variations of the phrase,
under the shadow of your wings Jehovah we are protected,
was to be found. Queen Elizabeth died in 1603. The Fama was
published in 1614. King James would never become involved with
anything even remotely connected with a martial cause. The Protestant
cause had indeed to look for its protection under the shadow of the
wings of Jehovah.
It is almost certain Francis Bacon was the hidden mind behind the
Rosicrucian phenomena. The Fairy Queen which Francis wrote under
his Spenser Mask combines for the first time those unique features
of chivalry, red cross, and advancement of learning which are the
hallmark of the Rosicrucians. The first Book of the Fairy Queen
narrates the adventures of the Red Cross Knight. This knight, along
with Una (the Monas, or one of John Dee), is proceeding along his way
when a sudden tempest arises. Seeking shelter from the Tempest, the
Red Cross Knight and Una enter, and become lost in, a labyrinthine like
wood (which the story tells us is Errors Den). This is paralleled in The
Tempest, where, following a tempest, the passengers, become lost and
undergo a labyrinthine like wandering about the island. When Red Cross
finally penetrates to the center of the wood and engages the Monster Error
in battle he discovers her to be a woman above the waist and a serpentine
monster below. This parallels Bacon's use of Scylla as a lively image of
scholastic philosophy who was a comely virgin in the upper parts, but was
made up of barking monsters in her lower parts. It is significant that
when Raleigh went to Guiana he named the river He sailed up, 'The Red
Cross River.' In addition, it is important to note, that as far back as
1590, Raleigh and his group were using Theodor de Bry, (the publisher by
whom so many Rosicrucian works were published) to publish their works.
Hariot's Report on the New Found Land of Virginia in 1590 was published
by De Bry.
A glance at the map shows the German Protestant states with which the
Rosicrucian phenomenon was associated were all located adjoining each
other: Palatinate, Wurttemburg, Hesse-Cassel, and Bohemia. Furthermore,
these are the German Protestant states where the English Protestants went
in exile during the reign of Bloody Mary. Bacon's family, Sidney, Dee,
and Raleigh and his group were associated with people in these German
Protestant states. In 1611, shortly before the publication of the
Rosicrucian documents, Elizabeth, the daughter of King James, married
Frederick V, Elector Palatine, and Francis Bacon played a large part
in the entertainment for their wedding.
Bacon is always the invisible man working behind the scenes.
But there is evidence that after he returned from France in 1579 he
was associated with John Dee, Thomas Philippes, and Philip Sidney.
All of these men had one thing in common. They either worked for, or
were associated with Francis Walsingham who ran the Elizabethan
Secret Service. Moreover, when Anthony Bacon went abroad a little
later, part of his time was spent gathering intelligence data, and filing
reports to Walsingham. So it is reasonable to assume that Francis
was also associated with Walsingham and with the Elizabethan Service.
This brings up another possible avenue of exploration for the student
of the Rosicrucians.
If the Rosicrucians were a branch of the Elizabethan Secret
Service, what form did this take? We have seen evidence that
Bacon was behind the Rosicrucians. It may be assumed that
he was a young man with a great many innovative ideas, as was
Ian Fleming during World War II. Bacon was also writing
plays at this time and was associated with the theatres and
the players. The players traveled widely on the continent and
could go everywhere unsuspected. There is evidence that the
players were among the original Rosicrucians. Ben Jonson, one of
the men with insider knowledge about the whole phenomenon says
outright that the players were Rosicrucians. In one of his masques
(The Fortunate Isles, 1625) Jonson presents a man who is seeking
the Rosicrucians, after some humorous banter, another character identifies
them for him, he says in the manner of one saying something everyone
should know, they are, 'the players, you fool!' Johann Valentin
Andreae in his Christian Mythology says of the Rosicrucians that
it is, 'an admirable Fraternity which plays comedies throughout
Europe.' Frances Yates suggests that detailed research into the
literature of the Rosicrucian furore in Germany might 'reveal a
connection between the activities of English actors and the spread
of 'Rosicrucian' ideas.'
Anthony Cooke, Francis Bacon's foster grandfather spent
the years during the reign of Mary Tudor in Strasbourg. While
there he became acquainted with Johann Sturm, and probably
with the family of Johann Valentin Andreae. Surely Bacon and
Andreae are associated through the Rosicrucian documents.
Another person with whom Andreae was certainly associated
was Prince August, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg. Letters
exist which Andreae wrote to Augustus. In a letter dated 1642 he
seems to infer Augustus was the German prince referred to in the
1619 'A Modell of a Christian Society' which describes a society
with similarities to the Rosicrucian society. He says:
'The head of the society is a German Prince,
a man most illustrious for his piety, learning and integrity,
who hath under him twelve Colleagues,
his privy Counsellors, every one eminent for some gift of God.'
The twelve colleagues of the German prince are specialists
in different branches of study, and recall the description in The
New Atlantis where the visitor is told, "we have twelve that sail
into foreign countries, under the names of other nations, (for
our own we conceal;) who bring us the books, and abstracts,
and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call
Merchants of Light." An article by T.D. Bokenham in Baconiana
claims says that Duke Augustus was in England at the coronation
of James I and was well known in English Court circles.
In 1624 a very remarkable book was published and printed at
Lunaeburg in Germany. The author of the book was believed to
be Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, however the symbolic pictures
ornamenting the title page have been viewed by many Baconians
as indicating that the book was associated with Bacon. Sir Edwin
Dunning-Lawrence says that at the end of the book was a very
handsome example of the light 'a' dark 'a' ornament (which is
conclusive evidence of Bacon's authorship). The title translates
as, The Cryptomenytices and Cryptography of Gustavus Selenus,
and in the dedicatory poems which were prefixed to the work we
are told that he is 'Homo Lunae', that is, THE MAN IN THE MOON.
In the preface Gustavus tells us he was 'born of Selenic lineage.'
And when he begins the preface by referring to 'this offspring
of mine' which, after a number of years has been cherished
and strengthened to the point where it can come into the world,
he sounds eerily like the author in the preface to Don Quixote,
who many recognize as Francis Bacon. We are told that Gustavus
is involved in SHADOW. But that Gustavus, now Selenus called,
uncovers things that time had long in SHADOW held. August Diana
is called upon to shed her rays upon the earth. Gustavus says,
'..I hid my secrets in SHADOW everywhere.'
Seeing all this, and recognizing the far flung pen of 'The Man in
The Moon', one is imbued with the hope that Francis is finally
going to release some information that may be helpful in throwing
light on the beginnings of the Rosicrucian phenomena, and in
unweaving that tangled web of enigma, which was published
just a year previously--The First Folio of 1623.
The first thing we note in the Cryptomenytices is that he describes
a mode of sending cryptographic messages which involves the
names of various angels. In 1659 a curious book by Meric
Casaubon was published with the title of ,'A True & Faithful Relation
of What passed for many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee and Some
Spirits.' Robert Hooke, a cryptographic expert, and a member of
the Royal Society, some half century later, gave his own opinion
in an address to the Royal Society. Detail is given on this in
Richard Deacon's book, "John Dee." Referring to Casaubon's
book, Hooke declared that:
"Whatever may seem rational to others to judge of the same
book, to me, I confess, it seems to be designed to comprehend
another meaning than that plainly legible in the words of it,
which possibly many others have read it, may have no suspicion
of: neither may they have ever seen, or considered the Cryptography
of Trithemius, or any other either on the like subjects."
The greater part of the book--especially all that which relates to
the Spirits and Apparations, together with names, speeches,
clothing, prayers, etc., are all cryptography, and...some parts also
of that which seems to be a Journal of his Voyages and Travels
into several parts of Germany are also cryptographical-that is,
under those feigned stories, he hath concealed relations of
quite another thing and that he [Dee] made use of this way
of absconding it that he might more securely escape discovery,
if he should fall under suspicion as to the true designs of his
travels, or that the name should fall into the hands of any spies
as such might betray him or his intentions."
Deacon says that, "Hooke also thought that , despite the quarrels
between Dee and Kelley, there was always a close, secret
arrangement which bound them together and which took precedence
over personal animosities." According to Deacon, 'Hooke thought that
strange alliance between two men so different in temperament and
principles, whose relations were constantly upset by deceit and
double-dealing, could only have been the result of a discipline
imposed on them by somebody higher up." That somebody, Hooke
thought, "was the head of the English Intelligence service.'
The track gets warmer still with the publication of a paper in 1910
by C.P. Bowditch. Bowditch found a simple book cipher in Cryptomanytices,
on page 351, Liber VI, Cap. 33. This example was based on a table
of figures set out to illustrate a method by which two friends who possess
the same editions of a given book, can communicate with each other.
The table in Cryptomenytices consisted of nineteen sets of three numbers.
Gustavus explained that the first number of each set referred to the page
number of of the book. The second number of each set referred to the
line number of that page, and the third number of each set referred to the
number of the letter in that particular line. So that a message could be
deciphered letter by letter by anyone in possission of the code. It was,
however, not quite as simple as that, for Gustavus added:
"you can countfrom left to right or from right to left on the lines
and you can skip lines and need not observe any order."
The table was as follows:
7.2.16 7.1.16 7.1.21 7.1.27 7.6.16 8.1.6 8.2.4
8.3.5 8.4.4 8.5.5 8.6.1 8.7.7 8.8.5 8.9.4
8.10.30 9.1.20 9.6.9 9.7.6 9.10.36
When giving an example such as this Gustavus invariably supplied a
reference to the book to which his example related. In this instance
the reference was not given.
Bowditch thought this was odd and the obvious reference which came to
mind was the First Folio. Examining a facsimile of this book, Bowditch
could find no satisfactory results on pages 7, 8 or 9 of the Comedies,
Histories, or Tragedies,-each of which had a separate series of page
numbers. He could also not find anything on Troilus and Cressida which only
had a page number on the first page. He then turned to the eighth unnumbered
page in the Folio which was "The address to the Great Variety of Readers."
He applied the section relating to page 8 from the table and got the
following result:
Letter
Paragraph Line Letter Direction of Reading Found
2 1 6 L. to R. from top B
2 2 4 " " " " A
1 3 5 " " " " C
1 4 4 " " " " O
1 5 5 R. to L. from bottom N
1 6 1 " " " " E
2 7 7 " " " " A
2 8 5 " " " " O
1 9 4 L. to R. from top I
2 10 30 " " " " A
It should be noted that in Latin works Bacon's name was often printed
as BACONE. The last four letters of this message are very relevant.
On the first full page of text in the first play (The Tempest) in the First
Folio is the following message:
"SIT THE DIAL AT NBW, F. BACON, TOBEY" and this message
has the letters "AO" at one end, and "AI" at the other:
A Art ignorant of what thou art. naught knowing
O Of whence I am: nor that I am more better
T Then Prospero, Mafter of a full poore cell,
A And thy no greater Father.
Mira. More to know
D Did neuer medle with my thoughts.
Pros. 'Tis time
I I fshould informe thee farther: Lend thy hand
A And plucke my Magick garment from me: So,
L Lye there my Art: wipe thou thine eyes, haue comfort,
THE The direfull fpectacle of the wracke which touch'd
T The very vertue of compaffion in thee:
I I haue with fuch prouifion in mine ART
S So fafely ordered, that there is no foule
N No not fo much perdition as an hayre
B Betid to any creature in the veffell
W Which thou heardft cry, which thou faw'st sinke: Sit
F For thou muft now know farther. downe,
Mira. You haue often
B Begun to tell me what I am, but ftopt
A And left me to a booteleffe inquisition,
CON Concluding, ftay, not yet.
Prof. The howr's now come
T The very minute byds thee ope thine eare,
OBEY Obey, and be attentiue. Canft thou remember
A A time before we came vnto this cell?
I I doe not thinke thou canft, for then thou wast not
The "AI" in the cipher reads "IA" which is an important agreement
since logic of the message indicates "AO" should be read going down,
and "AI" from the end of the page up making it "IA". As the evidence
develops Bacon has incorporated his discovery device in the Play,
(a miniature model of the great globe, on which the sailing ship of
discovery ventures forth) as an intellectual compass. So that, in
the operation of the compass at the 32nd speech it has to be set
to NBW, but, at the same time has an opposing setting of WBN.
For more on this see: "The Secret of The Shakespeare Plays."
To show the ingenuity of Bacon it is necessary to bear in mind that,
in the Plays, he had fashioned an analogue model in miniature of the
Great Globe, and he wanted to convey this information, through allegory,
metaphor, or allusion to the viewer, or reader at the earliest possible
time. He does this in the very first Play, "The Comedy of Error" in the
most ingenious and hilarious fashion imaginable. The word "compass"
is mentioned twice in the play, before we come to the point where Dromio
of Syracuse says there is a certain women who has put a claim on him.
The dialogue proceeds as follows:
Antipholus of Syracuse: Then she bears some breath?
Dromio of Syracuse: No longer from head to foot then from hip
to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.
Antipholus of Syracuse: In what part of her body stands Ireland?
Dromio of Syracuse: Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs.
Antipholus of Syracuse: Where Scotland?
Dromio of Syracuse: I found it out by the barrenness, hard in the
palm of the hand.
Antipholus of Syracuse: Where France?
Dromio of Syracuse : In her forehead, arm'd and reverted, making
war against her heir.
Antipholus of Syracuse: Where England?
Dromio of Syracuse: I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no
whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt
rheum that ran between France and it.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Where Spain?
Dromio of Syracuse : Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in her breath.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Where America, the Indies?
Dromio of Syracuse: O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished
with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the
hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast
at her nose.
Antipholus of Syracuse : Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
Dromio of Syracuse: O, sir, I did not look so low.
The next interesting point in the Plays which may have a correlation
with information in Cryptomenytices is in Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3. But
first we note Henry IV, Part I, Act 1, Scene 1 (on page 46 of the Histories)
begins on the first page with what could be an intentional message "FB AT":
F For our aduantage on the bitter Croffe.
B But this our purpofe is a tweluemonth old,
A And bootleffe 'tis to tell you we will go:
T Therefore we meete not now. Then let me heare
This seems as if it could be random, although that conclusion is offset
somewhat by three lines, seven lines further down which spell out LAW:
L Leading the men of Herefordfhire to fight
A Againft the irregular and wilde Glendower,
W Was by the rude hands of that Welfhman taken,
FB AT LAW seems less likely to have been an accident. This
impression is heighten when we find near the beginning of the next
page another message: "FBACO AT" spelled out in reverse order.
T The creft of Youth againft your dignity.
King. But I haue fent for him to anfwer this:
A And for this cause a while we muft neglect
O Our holy purpofe to Ierufalem.
C Cofin, on Wednefday next, our Councell we will hold
A At Windfor, and fo informe the Lords:
B But come your felfe with fpeed to vs againe,
F For more is to be faid, and to be done
Then near the bottom of the same page, Henry IV, Act I, Scene 2,
we find Falstaff saying:
"...let us be Diana's foresters, GENTLEMEN OF THE SHADE,
minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good
government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and
chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal."
And the prince says:
"...us that are the moon's men.."
Then in Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3, Scene 1, (on page 64 which is the
reverse of 46 with which the page began) we find a very curious
assortment of numbers:
(Column one)
12 (some twelve dayes hence)
7 (seven times a week)
1/4 (once in a quarter of an hour)
3 or 4 (three or four times)
(in good compass now I live out of order, out of compass)
(out of all compass out of reasonable compass)
1000 (saved me a thousand markes)
32 (this two and thirtie yeeres)
12 (I bought you a dozen of shirts)
8 (of eight shilling an fill)
24 (four and twentie pounds)
40 (worth fortie Marke)
2 and 2 (yea, two and two, Newgate fashion)
3 or 4 (three or four bonds)
40 (of fortie pound apeece)
8 (a trifle, some eight-penny matter)
Both the unusual array of numbers, and the stress on COMPASS, two
two times in two lines seems significant. The "yea, two and two, Newgate
fashion" adds to this, and the 32, the number of directions in a compass.
Plus the odd pairing of numbers, that "2 and 2 of various numbers.":
12
3 or 4
12
8
40
3 or 4
40
8
There are, in fact, three or four of these pairings. Three if you leave
out the pair of 3 or 4's; four if you include them. All in Act 3 of
Henry IV.
This is in the 3rd Act of Henry IV, and if you look in the 3rd volume of
Cryptomenytices, there is a passages which says:
"The writer fixes on his writing-table, by means of a PAIR OF COMPASSES,
twenty-five points, separated one from another by equal distances. At
the first point he adds nothing; at the other points he places twenty
-four letters."
The author then proceeds to describe this mode of cryptography.
The compass used in Cryptomenytices is not a mariners compass, but a
drawing compass. If you refer back to Henry IV, it seems the use of both
compasses could be referred to, "In good compass [a mariners compass?]
now I live out of order, out of compass [a drawing compass?].
The author of Cryptomenytices has no intention of making things easy
for the reader. He says, concerning the various examples he gives,
"If you wish you may dig them out there. For I have not wished to divulge
them without some effort on your part." On the other hand certain examples
are tantalizingly reminiscent of those numbers on page 64 in the First
Folio Histories. At one place he says,"...each one consisting of eight, or,
if you please, of twelve..." and then a little further down the page he
says,
"Let us take a secret and, if possible, restrict the number of its letters
to some multiple of the number eight; e.g. thirty-two..".
At still another place he says,
"outside of which table valid letters, THREE or FOUR in number, are
TWICE written."
Cryptomenytices certainly merits further study, because Gustavus still
walks in shadow.
On April Fools day 1626, so the story goes, Francis Bacon was out
for a spin in his carriage when he was suddenly moved by one of
those irresistible impulses great men sometimes get to stuff dead
chickens with snow. He wondered if freezing could preserve dead
flesh. Never mind that his writings show he already knew this. His
Lordship (this April Fools story says) caught a chill and hurried to the
nearby residence of Lord Arundel, who fortunately was away at the time,
just in case any deception was in the works. Also Henry Percy (that
"bloody Percy" of the letters from Bacon's mother, who had been with
Bacon from the earliest records) had suddenly up and quit not long
before, and went to work for someone else. This too proved rather
convenient. Because Francis was acting rather odd. He had always
been very careful of his health before, but now he not only allowed
himself to get chilled, he also allowed himself to be placed in a "damp"
bed. And he died not long afterward. Not only did he die, but two
of his closest friends (John Davies and Lancelot Andrewes) were
stricken with sudden illnesses and died soon afterwards also. And
two others (George Herbert and Thomas Bushell) dropped out of sight
for a period of exactly three years soon after Bacon's "death".
Not only this, but soon after Bacon's "death" a little book was
published with the title Manes Verulamiani, that is, The Verulamian
SHADES. Someone was keeping the flame from the GENTLEMEN
OF THE SHADE going. Oddly enough, in view of the importance
of the compass and the number 32 in his Plays, someone [someone?]
had called together exactly 32 [exactly 32?] well known scholars from
somewhere [somewhere?] and produced a little book of Latin verse
containing exactly 32 elegies to Bacon, and the 32nd elegy contained
a phrase giving the closest possible approximation that could be given
in Latin (since the language did not contain the word compass) to convey
the word compass. For anyone who believes this is all an accident I
have some ocean front property in Arizona they can get at a very
reasonable price.
Messages for Mather Walker
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