of the Cypher, viz.: that there are twenty-two new
     plays in the Folio. The Tempest, with Timon of Athens and
     Henry VIII., seems to be largely concerned with the story of
     Bacon's fall from his high offices in 1621, and Emile
     Montégut, writing in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" of August,
     1865, says that the Tempest is evidently the author's
     literary testament.

Stratford, to which Shakespeare was sent in 1597, was at that period much farther from London for all practical purposes than Canada is to-day, and Shakespeare did not go there for week ends, but he permanently resided there, only very occasionally visiting London, when he lodged at Silver Street with a hairdresser named Mountjoy.

It is exceedingly important and informing to remember that Shakespeare's name never appeared upon any play until he had been permanently sent away from London, and that his wealth was simply the money—£1,000—given to him in order to induce him to incur the risk entailed by allowing his name to appear upon the plays. Such risk was by no means inconsiderable, because Queen Elizabeth was determined to punish the author of Richard the Second, a play which greatly incensed her; she is reported to have said, "Seest thou not that I am Richard the Second?" There is no evidence that Shakespeare ever earned so much as ten shillings in any one week while he lived in London.

At Stratford, Shakespeare sold corn, malt, etc., and lent small sums of money, and indeed, was nothing more than a petty tradesman, a fact of which we are quite clearly informed in "The Great Assises holden at Parnassus," printed in 1645, where Bacon is put as "Chancellor of Parnassus," i.e., greatest of the world's poets, and Shakespeare appears as "the writer of weekly accounts." This means that the only literature for which Shakespeare was responsible consisted of his small tradesman's accounts sent out weekly by his clerk; because, as will be shewn presently, Shakespeare was totally unable to write a single letter of his own name.

Let us now return to the Folio of Shakespeare's plays, published in 1623. On the title page appears a large half-length figure drawn by Martin Droeshout, which is known as the Authentic (i.e., the authorised) portrait of Shakespeare. Martin Droeshout, I should perhaps mention, is scarcely likely to have ever seen Shakespeare, as he was only 15 years of age when Shakespeare died. On the cover of this pamphlet will be found a reduced facsimile of the title page of the Folio of 1623. It is almost inconceivable that people with eyes to see should have looked at this so-called portrait for 287 years without perceiving that it consists of a ridiculous, "putty-faced mask," fixed upon a stuffed dummy clothed in a trick coat. *

The "Tailor and Cutter" newspaper, in its issue of 9th March, 1911, stated that the figure, put for Shakespeare, in the 1623 Folio, was undoubtedly clothed in an impossible coat composed of the back and the front of the same left arm. And in the following April the "Gentleman's Tailor Magazine," under the heading of a "Problem for the Trade," prints the two halves of the coat put tailor fashion, shoulder to shoulder, as shewn here on page 2, and says:—

"It is passing strange that something like three centuries should have been allowed to elapse before the tailor's handiwork should have been appealed to in this particular manner.

"The special point is that in what is known as the authentic portrait of William Shakespeare, which appears in the Celebrated first Folio edition, published in 1623, a remarkable sartorial puzzle is apparent.

"The tunic, coat, or whatever the garment may have been called at the time, is so strangely illustrated that the right-hand side of the forepart is obviously the left-hand side of the back part; and so gives a harlequin appearance to the figure, which it is not unnatural to assume was intentional, and done with express object and purpose.

"Anyhow, it is pretty safe to say that if a Referendum of the trade was taken on the question whether the two illustrations shown above [exactly as our illustration on page 2] represent the foreparts of the same garment, the polling would give an unanimous vote in the negative."

Facing the title page of the 1623 first Folio of the plays, on which the stuffed and masked dummy appears, is the following description (of which I give a photo-facsimile), which, as it is signed B. I., is usually ascribed to Ben Jonson:—

To the Reader.

This Figure, that thou here seest pur,

It was for gentle Shackspeare cut;

Wherein the Grauer had a strife

with Nature, to out-doo the life:

O, could he but haue drawne his wit

As well in brasse, as he hath hit

His face, the Print would then surpasse

All, that was cuer writ in brasse.

But, since he cannot, Reader, lookc

Not on his Picture, but his Booke.

B.I.=

Original

If my readers will count all the letters in the above, including the four v's, which are used instead of the two w's, they will find that there are 287 letters, a masonic number often repeated throughout the Folio. My book, "Bacon is Shakespeare," was published in 1910 (i.e., 287 years after 1623), and tells for the first time the true meaning of these lines.

B. I. never calls the ridiculous dummy a portrait, but describes it as "the Figure," "put for" (i.e., instead of), and as "the Print," and as "his Picture," and he distinctly tells us to look not at his (ridiculous) Picture, but (only) at his Booke.

It has always been a puzzle to students who read these verses why B. I. lavished such extravagant praise upon what looks so stiff and wooden a figure, about which Gainsborough, writing in 1768, says: "Damn the original picture of him... for I think a stupider face I never beheld except D... k's... it is impossible that such a mind and ray of heaven, could shine with such a face and pair of eyes."

To those capable of properly reading the lines, B. I. clearly tells the whole story. He says, "The Graver had a strife with Nature to out-doo the life." In the New English Dictionary, edited by Sir James Murray, we find more than six hundred words beginning with "out." Every one of these, with scarcely an exception, must, in order to be fully understood, be read reversed; outfit is fit out, outfall is fall out, outburst is burst out, etc. Outlaw does not mean outside the law, but lawed out by some legal process. "Out-doo" therefore must here mean "do out," and was continually used for hundreds of years in that sense. Thus in the "Cursor Mundi," written in the Thirteenth Century, we read that Adam was "out-done" [of Paradise]. In 1603 Drayton published his "Barons' Wars," and in Book V. s. li. we read,

For he his foe not able to withstand,

Was ta'en in battle and his eyes out-done.

B. I. therefore tells us that the Graver has done out the life, that is, covered it up and masked it. The Graver has done this so cleverly that for 287 years (i.e.,