The word

as they stand together in the word "Greene." PLAYES comes from the end of the second line, starting from that subdivision formed by the two periods at the end and in the middle of the word "HE.Re.", and bending back, or overflowing, upon the end of the third line. And from the same points of departure, and going over the same ground, and using the same letters, (they being some of those capable of being used from right to left or from left to right,) we have the word MARLOWE.

This seems to have exhausted the upper two lines from the starting points we have used; and we come to the third and fourth lines. These are simpler and plainer in construction. There is nothing like the "Enclo-Ased" or the "HE.Re." in them; and there being therefore fewer starting points there is less of the cipher. We find therefore that the lower left-hand corner contains the word FRANCIS; while the lower right-hand corner

T contains the word BACON; and a single sign “(Y)" covers, very curiously, the word WROTE.

It may be asked whether these words are all that are contained under the cover of the inscription on the tombstone? We do not think they are. An alteration of a point of departure might produce an entirely new set of cipher symbols. We seem to perceive evidences of much more than we have worked out:-including a claim to the authorship of a great Spanish work, which has hitherto not been in anywise associated with the name of Francis Bacon.

Neither should we be surprised if there were anagrams, depending upon arithmetical relationships, between the letters themselves, and not based on a bi-literal cipher.

In this way we account for the fact that the first word of the third line of the inscription is "Blese" instead of "Blest." There can be no accidental errors in such a rare and curious piece of work as this is; and the substitution therefore of an e for a t has a meaning and a purpose; just as the spelling of "Frend" for "Friend” in the first line was necessary for the working out of the bi-literal cipher.

He

Mr. Isaac Hull Platt, of Lakewood, New Jersey, has recently published an interesting essay, entitled:-"Are the Shakespeare Plays signed by Francis Bacon?" attempts to show that that remarkable word, which appears in Love's Labor Lost, (IV.I):-"honorificabilitudinitatitus," is an enlargement or modification of the word "Honorificabilitudino," which occurs in the Northumberland manuscript, in connection with the words "Francis Bacon" and "William Shakespeare;" and he claims that the latter form contains the anagram:-“Initia hi ludi Fr. Bacono":-"these plays (are) in the inception, Francis Bacon's.” And in this connection he calls attention to the following passage in the same Act and scene of "Love's Labour's Lost":

"Moth. Peace! the peal begins. Arm.

Monsieur, are you lettered?

Moth. Yes, yes, he teaches boys the horn book. What is a b spelt backward, with the horn on his head?

Hol.

Ba, pueritia, with a horn added."

Mr. Platt thinks he finds in this "ba with a horn," ba cornu, which, he says, will pass for a pun on the word "Bacon."

All the for

It was an age of ciphers and anagrams. eign correspondence of states was carried on in the former, and even astronomers did not disdain to use the latter. Galileo, it will be remembered, put forth some of his wonderful telescopic discoveries in anagrams, (to forestall those who might attempt to steal his honors,) until he was ready to make full announcement of them, in their proved details.