A 'BACON' CIPHER ?
A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF A 'DISCOVERED' CIPHER
An acrostic is the formation of a word, name or phrase that has been
generated, usually, from the first letters of each line in a poem or similar
work. It can, of course, be generated instead from the final letters.
A Caesar Cipher involves writing out the alphabet in a circle and then repeating
the alphabet on a larger circle capable of rotating. Letters in a sentence can
then be exchanged for letters on the larger circle, after it has been rotated
clockwise (say) for any number of letter places between zero and twenty-six.
A gentleman much devoted to proving that Francis Bacon wrote the works of
Shakespeare has discovered that the final five letters of five successive words
taken from the dedication at the front of Shake-Speare's Sonnets [ . . . Of
These Insving Sonnets Mr . . . .], if applied to a Caesar Cipher, produce the
word 'bacon'. It is true, they do. But, then, so do the following sentences.
(1) One never plays badly after a good lesson. (2) Tantrums sometimes undermine good friendships. (3) Will you drive this car out of the way please? (4) He was playing golf with eight clubs. (5) Ask if the dog is for sale.
In less than ten minutes one can easily find a number of everyday sentences that produce an acrostic for 'bacon' generated by a Caesar Cipher. There is nothing remotely remarkable in this, it is simply coincidence.
The gentleman concerned with proving Bacon's authorship appears to have realized the weakness of this orphan word set amidst a jumble of otherwise meaningless letters, and has sought to consolidate his 'discovery'. Since nothing intelligible can be discerned by using the same method to the words on either side of the 'bacon' phrase, he has turned back a page to consider the publisher's sales advertisement. Once again, he has drawn blank. However, for reasons better known to himself, he has ignored the name and address of the bookseller, and substituted the name of another London publisher and bookseller, William Aspley. In 1600, Aspley partnered Andrew Wise and published a Quarto edition of Much Ado About Nothing and 2 Henry IV. In 1623, Aspley became a member of the syndicate that published the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected plays, and he was later to be involved in the publication of the Second Folio in 1632. But The Encyclopedia of Shakespeare makes no mention of any part he played in the publication of the Sonnets. (Subsequent correspondence with a member of the Bacon group has since argued that Apsley did play some minor part in producing an edition of the Sonnets).
Nevertheless, having made the substitution, while at the same time incorporating numerical values for the numbers 1, 6 and 9, taken from the date 1609, this would-be decipherer is ready to display the result of his labours.
o o n y p i r c y p p h r s b e k a a n b a c o n
In an attempt to rationalize this for intelligent consumption, he breaks it up into the following groups of letters:
o o n y p i r c y p p h r s b e k a a n b a c o n .
We are then asked to believe that the letters 'O O' are two zeros; that nypir is the name of the Scottish mathematician, john Napier, whose major work involved trigonometry and logarithmic calculations, (the two zeros are supposedly meant to signal the name of this mathematician); that cypphrs is a phonetic rendering of Ciphers; that bekaan is the phonetic name for Bacon, and that this has been confirmed by the correct spelling of the name that follows.