"HE Re."

But Knight inserts a period between "H E" and "Re," thus:

"H E. Re.";

and he also places another period after the "Re," so that the word stands:

"H E. Re."

The presence of a period in the middle of a word must have seemed to Steevens and Malone so extraordinary, so outre, so unheard-of, that they concluded it was a defect in the stone, or an accident caused by the ignorance of the stone-mason, and therefore did not copy it. They recognized "the uncouth mixture of large and small letters," but they could not believe that the writer of any inscription could purposely divide the word here into "he" and "re," separated by a period. But we shall see hereafter that the insertion of this period was not only an intentional part of the original inscription, but that it was necessary to the working out of the cryptic message contained in it.

It will be observed that the stone-mason of Stratford, when he carved the inscription on the present gravestone, did not adhere to the original, either in the form or the arrangement of the letters. He, however, spelled friend in the first line "FREND," thereby confirming the version of Steevens and Malone in that particular. And when he came to the word “H E. Re." he either observed the period, or noticed a widening or separation between the letters E and R, and supposing that something was missing, he inserted an A in the place of the

period, and carved the word thus, "HE ARE." He also changed the form of the compound letter T-E, standing for "the" into T-IE; and when he came to "T-E E

Man," in the third line, he altered it into "Y MAN." He also punctuated it differently from the original, the first punctuation being an important matter to the working out of the cipher, as will be seen hereafter. In Steevens' and Malone's copies there are no punctuation marks, and in Knight's none but a period at the end of the second line, and another at the end of the fourth line, besides that mysterious period in the middle of the word "HE.Re."

Knight also differs from Malone in omitting the dash between "o" and "A" in "encloased;" which Malone gives, as I have shown, thus: "Enclo-Ased." We shall see hereafter that that dash is an important detail.

CHAPTER V.

Is There a Cipher in the Inscription?

Having demonstrated (1) that there was a bi-literal inscription on the original grave-stone; (2) that it dated back to the time of Shakspere's burial; (3) that tradition ascribed it to Shakspere himself; and having shown (4) what the inscription actually was; we come now to another inquiry: (5) are there any evidences that the original bi-literial epitaph contained a cipher?

Knight

It is, in itself, a singular inscription. It does not contain the poet's name, or any reference to him. says, (Biography, p. 542):

"It is very remarkable, we think, that this plain freestone does not bear the name of Shakspere-has nothing to establish the fact that the stone originally belonged to the grave. We apprehend that during the period that elapsed between his death and the setting-up of the monument, a stone was temporarily placed over the grave; and that the warning not to touch the bones was the stone-mason's invention, to secure their reverence till a fitting monument should be prepared, if the stone were not ready in his yard to serve for any other grave." It would, however, appear reasonable to suppose that, if any considerable interval of time elapsed between

Shakspere's burial and the erection of his monument, any stone placed over his grave, to identify it, would, at least, have contained his name. A grave-stone without a name would be a very insufficient means to identify the mortal remains of any one.

No stone of a similar character, contemporaneous with or anterior to the time of Shakspere, has ever been found. Halliwell-Phillips refers to one mentioned in Stowe's Survey of London, with the same verses, dated eightyfour years after Shakspere's death, to wit, in 1700 (see Outlines, page 306); and he called upon the curious in such matters to make inquiry and ascertain and report to him whether any stone, with the same inscription, prior to, or contemporary with Shakspere, had been found. No. such information, so far as I am informed, was ever forthcoming; and this is a sufficient answer to Knight's suggestion that the stone-mason had the stone ready for any grave.

Neither is it probable that any village stone-mason composed the lines of the epitaph, for although it falls far below the genius of the author of Hamlet or Lear, it is nevertheless complete, as a metrical composition, in rhythm and rhyme, and it expresses what it has to say tersely and strongly. Any one who has examined the ancient epitaphs in English country church-yards will not be ready to accept the theory that the stonemason of Stratford was the author of these lines.

Neither is any such belief consonant with the traditions of Stratford, that the lines were written by Shakspere himself; and that he wrote them for his tombstone, because he feared that his bones might be taken up, at some future time, and thrown into the dreadful charnal house,

of which he had a great horror. And if the curse had been the work of the stone-mason, would its terrors have prevented the wife and daughters of Shakspere from being buried in the same grave with him?

Now let us consider whether the inscription, as it stood on the original grave-stone, gave any evidences of containing a cipher.

In the first place, I do not think any other such extraordinary combination of large and small capitals can be found anywhere else in the world.

Take those two words, in the first line:

"Jesus SAKE."

If this had been reversed,-if it had been:

"JESUS sake,"

we could suppose that the stone-cutter intended to express, in this way, his reverence for the sacred name of our Lord. But why should he carve the name of the Saviour in small letters and the unimportant word "sake" in large letters? Surely the emphasis is on "Jesus," not on "sake."

Then observe that word

"Enclo-Ased."

Can any one explain why a large capital letter should be thrust into the middle of such a word? Is there any parallel for it in the world?

And why insert not only the large letter A in the