| Cryptographic Shakespeare |
| Cryptographic Shakespeare |
From Baconiana
Custom reconciles us to everything.
--Edmund Burke
Chapter 4
Most of the quotations in this chapter are selected and condensed from the last 30 years of the English
"Baconiana," the Journal of the Francis Bacon Society. The members have recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of
its founding. My thanks to them and to their former Chairman, the late Noel Fermor, and to their new Chairman,
Thomas "Bokey" Bokenham, for granting to me the right to reprint, under the copyright of that Journal, the following
quotations in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has not his
equal to show... The Egyptian verdict of the Shakespeare societies comes to mind that he was a jovial actor and
manager. I cannot marry this fact to his verse" [@ 420].
John Greenleaf Whittier said, "Whether Bacon wrote the wonderful plays or not, I am quite sure the man
Shakspere neither did nor could."
James M. Barrie put it more whimsically: "I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if
he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his lifetime."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, "Ask your own hearts, ask your own common sense, to conceive the possibility of
the author of the Plays being the anomalous, the wild, the irregular genius of our daily criticism. What! are we to
have miracles in sport? Does God choose idiots by whom to convey divine truths to man?"
The baptismal register describes him as Shakspere; the marriage bond as Shagspere; the burial record as
Shakspere; his father was generally given as Shaxper; an ex-master of the grammar school wrote of him as Shaxbere;
his fellow-townsman Quiney as Shackspere; and his "fellow-countryman" Hurley as Shaxper. It will be noted that in
these several forms, the pronunciation of the first syllable is Shax, and not Shake as in the form used in the Plays.
This varied spelling of the one name indicates that, the supposed author being unable to write or spell his name, the
several scribes involved were dependent on their own interpretation of the pronunciation as they heard it.
It has been argued that there is no significance in this varied spelling, because the spelling of names and even
ordinary words was not then fixed. If that be so, then it must be of considerable significance that throughout
forty-two separate publications of the Shakespeare Works made over a period of eighteen years up to Will
Shakspere's death, only one form of name was used consistently, and that one a new one--Shakespeare [@].
Alfred Dodd shows that none of the editors and commentators, or biographers of Shakespeare from 1733, Lewis,
Theobald, Dr. Warburton, Dr. Farmer, Edward Capell, Thomas Tyrwhitt, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Messrs. Bell,
Etherington, Masson, Reed, Colman or Richardson so much as refer to the 1609 Quarto and many of them do not
mention the Sonnets at all... [@].
...Ben Jonson's opinion of Bacon's quality as a talker: "His language (when he could spare a jest) was nobly
censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily; or suffered less emptiness, less idleness,
in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look
aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion.
No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an
end [@].
The abundance of legal terms displayed almost ostentatiously in the plays and sonnets has long attracted notice. It
is not only the quantity, but the quality of these instances which is striking. Ben Jonson uses legal jargon in his own
plays, but he uses it in buffoonery and satire. The author of Shakespeare, in addition to satire, often displays a legal
profundity which has been noticed by many eminent lawyers - among them Lord Chief Justice Campbell, who wrote
as follows: "To Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he propounds it, there neither be demurrer, nor bill of exceptions, nor
writ of error" [@].
As a young man Bacon was upbraided by his mother, Lady Anne, for "mumming and masking and sinfully
revelling" (Lambeth MSS 650, 222). He was the accepted Master of Ceremonies at the Gray's Inn revels. He was the
author or contriver of the following masques and devices; in 1589, The Misfortunes of Arthur , in 1592 A Conference
of Pleasure , in 1594 The Masque of the Order of the Helmet , in 1595 The Philautia Device and The Device of the
Indian Prince , in 1612 The Marriage of the Rhine and the Thames , and in 1613 The Masque of Floweres ... In his
essays Of Masques and Triumphs , Bacon reveals his interest in acting, mime, alterations of scenes, coloured and
varied lights, etc. In The Advancement of Learning (De Augmentis VII, 4) he commends playacting as a useful form
of personal discipline.
In his younger days at Gray's Inn Francis Bacon was the moving spirit of the "Order of the Helmet," an invisible
Knighthood dedicated to Pallas Athene--the Shaker-of-the-Spear. In the Gesta Grayorum this Order is said to be
"safely guarded by the Helmet of the great Goddess Pallas," and one of its Articles [most of which were adopted in a
spirit of satire] is as follows:
"Item, Every Knight of this Order shall endeavour to add Conference and Experience by Reading; and therefore
shall not only read and peruse Guiza , the French Academy , Galiatto the Courtier, Plutarch , the Arcadia , and the
Neoterical Writers from time to time; but also frequent the Theatre, and such like places of Experience and resort to
the better sort of Ordinaries for Conference." (From Gesta Grayorum , London 1688.)
That Francis Bacon was a restless, tireless imaginative genius is a well-known fact. Aubrey tells us that he was "a
good poet but concealed ." Sir Tobie Matthew writes, "The most prodigious wit that I ever knew, of my nation and
this side the sea, is of your lordship's name, though he be known by another." In a letter to Sir John Davies, Bacon
ends by beseeching him to "be good to concealed poets ." In his draft will, Bacon bequeaths his name and memory to
foreign nations and to his own countrymen "after some time be passed over."
About the year 1620 Ben Jonson became one of Bacon's "good pens." In Discoveries (1641) he gives Bacon the
highest praise, and describes his writings in these peculiar words ... "He who hath filled up all numbers and
performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred to insolent Greece and haughty Rome ... so that
he may be named as the mark and acme of our language.
Bacon is here compared to Homer and Virgil in the same words that Jonson used about the author of the
Shakespeare Folio in 1623... "Leave thee alone for the comparison/Of all that insolent Greece and haughty Rome
/Sent forth... "
Let it not trouble us that the Bard may have been one of England's greatest lawyers. Is there not (as O'Connor
pointed out) a vast difference in style between "A lawyer's farewell to his Muse" and the same Sir William
Blackstone's Commentaries ? Or between Coleridge's Aids to Reflection and the unearthly "Kubla Khan"? Can the
prose of Shelley ever rise to the wild loveliness of "The Ode to the West Wind"? [@].
It is hard to find in these days [1589] of noblemen or gentlemen any good mathematician, or excellent musician, or
notable philosopher, or else a cunning poet. I know very many notable gentlemen in the Court that have written
commendably and suppressed it again, or suffered it to be published without their own names to it, as if it were a
discredit for a gentleman to seem learned, and to show himself amorous of any good art. The scorn and ordinary
disgrace offered unto poets in these days is cause why few gentlemen do delight in the art [@].
On Bacon's 60th birthday, Ben Jonson wrote an epigram for him which begins:
Haile happie Genius of this antient pile
How comes it all things so about thee smile:
The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst,
Thou stand'st as if some Mysterie thou did'st! [@].
Bacon...was the prime mover--"most noble factor"--of the Virginia Company [Chesapeake Bay and Roanoke
Island] from the beginning, and is acknowledged as such by William Strachey, the first Secretary of the Colony, in his
History of Travaile into Virginia Britannia . The first Bermudan coinage, known as the hog-money, carried Bacon's
crest on one side and the picture of a ship under full sail, probably the Sea Venture , on the other. Three centuries
later his head appeared on the Newfoundland tercentenary stamp of 1910, with the caption "Guiding Spirit of the
Colonization Scheme." Thomas Jefferson carried Bacon's portrait with him everywhere.
The Virginia Company, with Bacon as its guiding star, included the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, the two
noble brothers to whom the first Shakespeare Folio is dedicated. William Strachey's narrative of Virginia is actually
dedicated to Bacon... [@].
Sixteenth century Italian cryptography reached its climax in the works of Giovanni Baptista della Porta whose
system, published in Naples in 1565, was efficient on all counts. His table consisted of thirteen key letters,
accompanied by an alphabet which changed in its lower line one place to the right for every pair of capitals:
A B a b c d e f g h i j k l m
n o p q r s t u v w x y z
C D a b c d e f g h i j k l m
z n o p q r s t u v w x y
E F a b c d e f g h i j k l m
y z n o p q r s t u v w x
(and so on)
Della Porta's system was quite simple. Supposing that we wanted to encipher the letter e by using the key letter F,
we merely have to look along the alphabet which F controls to discover that the letter p lies directly beneath the e ; p
then is the cipher letter...
Cryptography made its first impact in England during the reign of Henry VIII and became an effective arm of
statecraft under Queen Elizabeth. The man chiefly responsible for this was Sir Francis Walsingham, who organised a
secret service, which at one time employed 53 agents on the Continent. One of his most accomplished assistants was
Anthony Bacon--the brother of Francis--but the best of his cryptanalysts was Thomas Phelippes, a widely-travelled
educated man, who was capable of solving ciphers in five languages.
Walsingham opened a secret cipher school in London and all of his agents had to take a course in cryptography
before they were entrusted with service abroad. Of course, Walsingham's Secret Service was not solely concerned
with foreign affairs, but was designed to protect the Queen from treasonable activities on her own doorstep as well.
Naturally enough, its devious and subtle machinations aroused deep mistrust among honest Englishmen, who loved
freedom of speech and hated "the corridors of darkness." Elizabeth's England was almost a totalitarian state...
...history shows that cryptography was one of Elizabeth's most valuable political assets. It was the decipherment
of a secret message to Anthony Babington, that sent Mary, Queen of Scots, to the block. Having obtained this
evidence, Walsingham sent his agent Gifford back to Fotheringay Castle to intercept and copy more of Mary's secret
messages, with the result that all of the conspirators to depose Elizabeth, including Mary herself, were finally
arrested. Walsingham later claimed that his agents had found the keys to about 50 different ciphers in Mary's
apartments.
Secret writing became a preoccupation of the English. A doctor called Timothy Bright wrote the first book on
shorthand which was published in 1588 under the title, The Arte of Shorte, Swifte and Secret Writing ...
The reasons for writing in cipher were many and varied. The Duke of Monmouth used cipher in order to
de-throne King James II; Samuel Pepys wrote his Diary in cipher for an entirely different motive.
As a general rule, the use of cipher in the arts was related to the author's position in society. Innumerable
sixteenth and seventeenth century books were either written anonymously, or signed with initials or a bogus name;
some of them were secretly acknowledged...
And yet on this subject, Shakespearean commentators and professors seem to have little knowledge, and are
strangely reluctant to accept the possibility that there is a cipher in the plays of Shakespeare.
...there is a history published anonymously in 1616 which can be shown to contain a simple and by definition a
technically perfect cipher... Rerum Anglicorum Henrico VIII, Eduardo VI et Maria Regnantibus Annales . Both the
first and second editions of this work carry no author's name, a not unusual thing in those days where the writing of
histories was concerned. The risk of offending powerful factions with dire consequences to the author was far too
great.
The author of this particular work, however, did decide to risk enciphering his name and identity in the two
editions which appeared during his lifetime.
After his death, a relative decided to publish an English translation, naming Bishop Francis Godwin as the original
author.
His cipher was the delightfully simple one mentioned earlier and certainly effective enough to escape detection
during his lifetime, with as far as is known, just one exception--the original owner of a second edition, 1628. This
person detected it and inscribed his decipherment on the fly leaf of the book, along with a description of the exact
method used to encipher the message which runs as follows:
I Franciscus Godwinus Landavensis Episcopus Hoc Conscripsit
The letters appear in the above order as the initial capital letters of each chapter... In view of this piece of authentic
evidence that cipher did in fact exist in these early printed books, no one can say that it is unreasonable to think that,
if one book printed in 1616 contained cipher, it would be perfectly feasible for another published seven years later,
also to contain cipher. This point is made to demonstrate to the sceptics that cipher in these 17th century books is a
proven fact, and the probability of other contemporary books, particularly where histories are concerned, containing
coded messages, is very real and certainly worthy of serious scientific study...
Another aspect which must be realized is that normal cipher communication between two persons, each of whom
naturally possess the key, has the inherent principle of avoidance of discovery, whereas the individual who finds it
necessary to encipher a message in a printed book shows that he hopes that at some future date someone will
discover his intentions. Of course, the fact that he has gone to the trouble of enciphering a message means that he
does not desire the discovery to take place too soon--logically one presumes, not in his lifetime. For that very reason
he would naturally not make use of any known cipher principle, hence the almost certain use of a completely new
method--in other words, he has to invent one of his own and to attain his object, he has to negotiate three important
and very tricky hurdles, apart from the encipherment of his message:
(a) he must hint somehow at the presence of his cipher--if possible obscurely, but not too obscurely, otherwise the
whole object of the exercise would be in vain.
(b) he has to show its whereabouts.
(c) he must indicate as unambiguously as possible, and this is the really difficult part, the correct key to unlock his
coded message.
For these reasons, it is obvious that all normal principles of decipherment are turned upside down and are, for the
most part, entirely useless. So any would-be decipherer has from necessity to start from scratch and make liberal use
of trial and error, guesswork and intuition. Once he has discovered the key or rule, he must rigidly, without
variation, stick to the rule, because it is a known fact that critics of cipher invariably search for the tiniest flaw, and if
they find one, they are nearly always wont to condemn the whole [@].
Most of the young nobility of those days traveled in Europe, and it is known that the Earl of Oxford did so. Ben
Jonson got as far as the Low Countries, "trailing a pike" as a soldier, and later went on foot to Scotland. Bacon's
sojourn in France, and at the Court of Navarre as a young man, is well known. His English biographers from his
chaplain William Rawley to James Spedding make no mention of this. But Bacon's first biography was not published
in English in 1657, but 26 years earlier in French. In the "Discours de las Vie" which was prefixed to the Histoire
Naturelle in 1631, Bacon's early travels in Spain and Italy are confirmed. And in the body of the same book we learn,
what seems to have passed unnoticed by all English biographers, that Bacon visited Scotland on one occasion at least
[@].
Restoration work carried out on the ruins of Sir Nicholas Bacon's house at Gorhambury [a mile or two from St.
Albans] under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Works and Monuments, has now [1969] reached an
advanced stage.Defoliation of the brick, stone, iron and the little timber remaining, and exploration at ground level,
has proved to be a lengthy process, but the patient care of the restorers has not gone unrewarded.
Perhaps the most interesting revelations to date have been the coat-of-arms with a Garter surround and the motto
Dieu et mon droit above, and the inscription below the window space, all on the north-east corner tower of the
existing structure. The inscription is in Latin and the translation reads:
WHEN NICHOLAS BACON BROUGHT THESE BUILDING TO COMPLETION TWO LUSTRAS OF
ELIZABETH'S REIGN HAD PASSED: HE HAD BEEN KNIGHTED AND MADE KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL.
MAY ALL GLORY BE ASCRIBED TO GOD ALONE.
For this information and other valuable assistance we are indebted to Mrs. King, the late Lord Verulam's private
secretary, who asks us to note that a "lustrum" was the term for a period of five years.
[I visited Old Gorhambury in 1965. Amid the ruins I could still read this, of the Latin inscription:
HAEC CUM PERFECIT NICOLAUS TECTA BACONUS ELIZABETH REGNI LUSTRA FUERIT DUO FACTUS
EQUES MAGNI CUSTOS FUIT IPSA SIGILLI GLORIA SIT SOLI TOTA TRIBUTAT DEO.
My own Latin dictionary (An Elementary Latin Dictionary , Charlton T. Lewis, Harper, 1898, 952 pages) gives
"five years" as a second choice; first choice for lustrum defines it differently, as: a slough, a den of beasts, a
wilderness, a house of ill-repute, debauchery. None of these terms may apply to Elizabeth's first ten year's reign; but
who can be sure of any such 16th century ambiguity--even though carved in stone by a future Lord Keeper, the
father of Francis, Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had a lusty sense of humor.]
Unfortunately, frosts have broken down much of the stonework, necessitating urgent repairs to the walls still
standing and it is sad to recall that only ground-level brickwork remains to remind us of the Long Gallery wing,
upon which the gilded figure of Henry VIII stood not so long ago. Pieces of the torso lay nearby until recently.
Some years ago, too, an underground passage was revealed on the opposite side of the modern road to the
north-east of the ruins, but it has not been determined, it seems, whether its direction was towards the main house,
now vanished, or the nearby Temple Cottage. Temple Cottage was once thought to have been one of Bacon's
summerhouses, but the structure indicates the late 18th century, and the Doric columns are not Tudor. Four classical
figures adorning its roof may date from the Tudor house, but this is conjecture.
Opposite the gates to Gorhambury Park, on the Hemel Hempstead road, stands St. Michaels Church. This is one
of three parish churches in St. Albans, built by the Saxon Abbot Ulsinus, A.D. 948, the others being St. Peter's and St.
Stephen's. St. Michaels is well known for the Monument to Francis Bacon, although there appears to be no evidence
that he was buried in the vault beneath.
In front of the chancel, and near the Monument, is the gravestone of his secretary, Sir Thomas Meautys, who
erected the statue to his master's memory. The lettering on Sir Thomas' tombstone has long been obliterated, when,
how, or by whom is not known; but the inscription was re-cut in 1955 on the instructions of the late Lord Verulam,
from information received from the Keeper of the Printed Books at the Bodleian Library. Apparently, in 1657, eight
years after Meautys' death, Elias Ashmole (the famous antiquarian and Rosicrucian, after whom the Ashmolean
Museum in Oxford is named) visited St. Michael' Church. In his notebook, still preserved in the Bodleian Library
(MS. Ashmole 784, Folio 8v) he had--fortunately for posterity--recorded the inscription on this tombstone, which was
later to be mysteriously chiseled out.
HERE LYETH THE BODY OF S:R.
THOMAS MEAVTYS K.T & ONE
OF THE CLARKES OF HIS LATE
MA:TS MOST HON.LL PRIVIE
COVNCELL. AN. DNI. 1649
The present [now deceased] Earl of Verulam is a descendant of Sir Harbottle Grimston, who purchased
Gorhambury in 1652 [Francis Bacon had no descendants]. Sir Harbottle was Speaker of the Commons under King
Charles II, who granted the St. Albans Charter. The monument to Bacon, with its curious inscription beginning with
the words isic sedebat ["thus he sat," instead of the customary hic jacet , "here lies"] and the Meautys grave, are not
the only points of interest in the Church...
Gorhambury derives its name from Abbot Geoffrey de Gorham, elected in 1119, and a successor of the first
Norman abbot, Paul de Caen, who acceded soon after the Saxon monastery was demolished. The monastery
foundations can still be seen by St. Albans Abbey. Circa 1130 the first mansion was built by a relative of Geoffrey de
Gorham in the Park, on the eastern slope of the hill, leading to the present seat of Lord Verulam, head of the
Grimston family. In 1155 Nicholas Breakspear, an alumnus of St. Albans School, was enthroned as Pope Adrian IV,
the only Englishman to hold this office. Adrian IV, who died in 1159, was said to be too pious for the cardinals and
was the son of an Abbey tenant.
In 1561, when Sir Nicholas Bacon acquired Gorhambury, he pulled down Geoffrey de Gorham's house and built
the Tudor mansion mentioned earlier in these pnotes. Later Sir Francis built a new mansion named Verulam House
[called by him "Verulamium"] a half a mile away but of this, alas, only foundation-traces remain, whereas parts of
the ruins of Sir Nicholas' house still stand. The present Gorhambury, designed by Sir Robert Taylor, was finished in
1784, and still contains many pictures and books belonging originally to Francis Bacon...
Francis Bacon's interest in St. Albans associations was intense and his very title, Viscount St. Alban,
commemorated the Roman martyred on the spot where the Abbey now stands. As has been mentioned before, on
assuming this title he observed: "Now it may be truly said that I wear the habit of St. Alban" [@].
We are sometimes asked why Bacon wrote under noms de plume , as though the very question revealed the
absurdity of such an idea. Yet once again the practice is by no means unique, either in his times, before, or since.
Examples are numerous, and the following are generally accepted.
Robert Burton wrote as Democritus Junior, Sir Walter Scott anonymously, Rev. C. L. Dodgson as Lewis Carroll,
Jean Francois Marie Arouet as Voltaire, Samuel Langhorne Clemens as Mark Twain. Again, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
wrote under the pseudonym of Moliere, Richard Harris Barham as Thomas Ingoldsby, Amandine Lucile Dudevant
as George Sand. The three Bronte sisters, James Bridie and George Eliot used noms de plume . Books even have
been written on the subject, such as The Bibliographical History of Anonyms and Pseudonyms , by A. Taylor and F.
J. Mosher (1951). Voltaire is reported to have used 137 and Benjamin Franklin 57 pseudonyms [@].
In Archbishop Tenison's Baconiana or Certain Genuine Remains of Sr. Francis Bacon (1679), on p. 79, we read:
"And those who have true skill in the Works of the Lord Verulam, like great Masters in Painting, can tell by the
Design, the Strength, the way of Colouring, whether he was the Author of this or the other Piece, though his Name
be not to it." This is clear evidence that Bacon wrote anonymously or under a pseudonym...
In Memoriae Honoratissimi Domini Francisci, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani Sacrum (London,
1626) thirty-two of Bacon's friends and admirers honoured him with panegyrics after his death. Frequent reference is
made to him as a muse, as well as a philosopher. Some relevant quotations (translated into English) are given below.
They are taken from Manes Verulamiani , edited by W. G. C. Gundry (1950).
"...a muse more rare than the nine Muses. ...nor did he with workmanship of fussy meddlers patch, but he
renovated her walking lowly in the shoes of Comedy. After that more elaborately he rises on the loftier tragic buskin
... the golden stream of eloquence, the precious gem of concealed literature... How has it happened to us, the
disciples of the Muses, that Apollo, the leader of our Choir, should die? ... Why should I mention each separate
work, a number of which of high repute remain? A portion lies buried. ...ah! the tenth Muse and the glory of the
Choir has perished. Ah! never before has Apollo himself been truly unhappy! Whence will there be another to love
him so? Ah! he is no longer going to have the full memory; and unavoidable is it now for Apollo to be content with
nine Muses. ...he enriched the ages with countless books. ... You have filled the world with your writings... Phoebus
withheld his healing hand from his rival, because he feared his becoming King of the Muses. ... They begot the infant
Muses, he adult... But my song can bring you no praises, a singer yourself you chant your own praises thereby..."
In his Apologie in Certaine Imputations concerning the Late Earle of Essex , Bacon wrote:
"About the same time I remember an answer of mine in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord's cause,
which though it grew from me, went after about in other's names. For her Majesty being mightily incensed with that
book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story of the first year of King Henry the fourth, thinking it a
seditious prelude to put into the people's heads boldness and faction, said she had good opinion that there was
treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within case of treason: whereto I
answered: for treason surely I found none, but for felony [plagiarism] very many." (Spedding, The Letters and the
Life of Francis Bacon ).
There is also the enigmatic phrase in Bacon's Prayer or Psalm: "I have (though in a despised weed) procured the
good of all men." The "despised weed" cannot refer to Bacon's scientific writings or to his legal work: it could refer to
his possible role as a playwright [@].
The Shakespeare Monument in Stratford Church: Most Baconians are agreed that this famous monument, which
was erected sometime between 1616 and 1623, was subject to some radical alterations when it was repaired in
1748/9...Certainly the face, if not the entire bust, was changed and the two little figures above are very different
from those engraved in Sir William Dugdale's Warwickshire of 1656. [Recent research has shown that this book had
been typeset and engraved twenty years earlier; the long delay in printing was caused by civil unrest under Charles I
and then by Cromwell's rebellion.] The present figures are carved from an entirely different stone from the rest of
the monument and, as a matter of fact, they and the present bust can be lifted down when it is necessary to give
them a face lift...
It was Francis Bacon who, as a judge, was known for his wisdom and eloquence, as was Nestor, King of Pylos.
Bacon, like Socrates, was a genius and a great philosopher and like Virgilius Maro, or Virgil as most of us know him,
was a poet lamented by all who knew his real worth, as seen in the Latin tributes printed after his death and known
as the Manes Verulamiani . It was one of these poems which stated that Bacon would reside in Olympus, as given on
this Monument. In a subsequent work on poetry Bacon was named as "The Chancellor of Parnassus."
Custom reconciles us to everything.
--Edmund Burke
Chapter 4
Most of the quotations in this chapter are selected and condensed from the last 30 years of the English
"Baconiana," the Journal of the Francis Bacon Society. The members have recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of
its founding. My thanks to them and to their former Chairman, the late Noel Fermor, and to their new Chairman,
Thomas "Bokey" Bokenham, for granting to me the right to reprint, under the copyright of that Journal, the following
quotations in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has not his
equal to show... The Egyptian verdict of the Shakespeare societies comes to mind that he was a jovial actor and
manager. I cannot marry this fact to his verse" [@ 420].
John Greenleaf Whittier said, "Whether Bacon wrote the wonderful plays or not, I am quite sure the man
Shakspere neither did nor could."
James M. Barrie put it more whimsically: "I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if
he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his lifetime."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, "Ask your own hearts, ask your own common sense, to conceive the possibility of
the author of the Plays being the anomalous, the wild, the irregular genius of our daily criticism. What! are we to
have miracles in sport? Does God choose idiots by whom to convey divine truths to man?"
The baptismal register describes him as Shakspere; the marriage bond as Shagspere; the burial record as
Shakspere; his father was generally given as Shaxper; an ex-master of the grammar school wrote of him as Shaxbere;
his fellow-townsman Quiney as Shackspere; and his "fellow-countryman" Hurley as Shaxper. It will be noted that in
these several forms, the pronunciation of the first syllable is Shax, and not Shake as in the form used in the Plays.
This varied spelling of the one name indicates that, the supposed author being unable to write or spell his name, the
several scribes involved were dependent on their own interpretation of the pronunciation as they heard it.
It has been argued that there is no significance in this varied spelling, because the spelling of names and even
ordinary words was not then fixed. If that be so, then it must be of considerable significance that throughout
forty-two separate publications of the Shakespeare Works made over a period of eighteen years up to Will
Shakspere's death, only one form of name was used consistently, and that one a new one--Shakespeare [@].
Alfred Dodd shows that none of the editors and commentators, or biographers of Shakespeare from 1733, Lewis,
Theobald, Dr. Warburton, Dr. Farmer, Edward Capell, Thomas Tyrwhitt, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Messrs. Bell,
Etherington, Masson, Reed, Colman or Richardson so much as refer to the 1609 Quarto and many of them do not
mention the Sonnets at all... [@].
...Ben Jonson's opinion of Bacon's quality as a talker: "His language (when he could spare a jest) was nobly
censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily; or suffered less emptiness, less idleness,
in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or look
aside from him without loss. He commanded where he spoke and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion.
No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an
end [@].
The abundance of legal terms displayed almost ostentatiously in the plays and sonnets has long attracted notice. It
is not only the quantity, but the quality of these instances which is striking. Ben Jonson uses legal jargon in his own
plays, but he uses it in buffoonery and satire. The author of Shakespeare, in addition to satire, often displays a legal
profundity which has been noticed by many eminent lawyers - among them Lord Chief Justice Campbell, who wrote
as follows: "To Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he propounds it, there neither be demurrer, nor bill of exceptions, nor
writ of error" [@].
As a young man Bacon was upbraided by his mother, Lady Anne, for "mumming and masking and sinfully
revelling" (Lambeth MSS 650, 222). He was the accepted Master of Ceremonies at the Gray's Inn revels. He was the
author or contriver of the following masques and devices; in 1589, The Misfortunes of Arthur , in 1592 A Conference
of Pleasure , in 1594 The Masque of the Order of the Helmet , in 1595 The Philautia Device and The Device of the
Indian Prince , in 1612 The Marriage of the Rhine and the Thames , and in 1613 The Masque of Floweres ... In his
essays Of Masques and Triumphs , Bacon reveals his interest in acting, mime, alterations of scenes, coloured and
varied lights, etc. In The Advancement of Learning (De Augmentis VII, 4) he commends playacting as a useful form
of personal discipline.
In his younger days at Gray's Inn Francis Bacon was the moving spirit of the "Order of the Helmet," an invisible
Knighthood dedicated to Pallas Athene--the Shaker-of-the-Spear. In the Gesta Grayorum this Order is said to be
"safely guarded by the Helmet of the great Goddess Pallas," and one of its Articles [most of which were adopted in a
spirit of satire] is as follows:
"Item, Every Knight of this Order shall endeavour to add Conference and Experience by Reading; and therefore
shall not only read and peruse Guiza , the French Academy , Galiatto the Courtier, Plutarch , the Arcadia , and the
Neoterical Writers from time to time; but also frequent the Theatre, and such like places of Experience and resort to
the better sort of Ordinaries for Conference." (From Gesta Grayorum , London 1688.)
That Francis Bacon was a restless, tireless imaginative genius is a well-known fact. Aubrey tells us that he was "a
good poet but concealed ." Sir Tobie Matthew writes, "The most prodigious wit that I ever knew, of my nation and
this side the sea, is of your lordship's name, though he be known by another." In a letter to Sir John Davies, Bacon
ends by beseeching him to "be good to concealed poets ." In his draft will, Bacon bequeaths his name and memory to
foreign nations and to his own countrymen "after some time be passed over."
About the year 1620 Ben Jonson became one of Bacon's "good pens." In Discoveries (1641) he gives Bacon the
highest praise, and describes his writings in these peculiar words ... "He who hath filled up all numbers and
performed that in our tongue which may be compared or preferred to insolent Greece and haughty Rome ... so that
he may be named as the mark and acme of our language.
Bacon is here compared to Homer and Virgil in the same words that Jonson used about the author of the
Shakespeare Folio in 1623... "Leave thee alone for the comparison/Of all that insolent Greece and haughty Rome
/Sent forth... "
Let it not trouble us that the Bard may have been one of England's greatest lawyers. Is there not (as O'Connor
pointed out) a vast difference in style between "A lawyer's farewell to his Muse" and the same Sir William
Blackstone's Commentaries ? Or between Coleridge's Aids to Reflection and the unearthly "Kubla Khan"? Can the
prose of Shelley ever rise to the wild loveliness of "The Ode to the West Wind"? [@].
It is hard to find in these days [1589] of noblemen or gentlemen any good mathematician, or excellent musician, or
notable philosopher, or else a cunning poet. I know very many notable gentlemen in the Court that have written
commendably and suppressed it again, or suffered it to be published without their own names to it, as if it were a
discredit for a gentleman to seem learned, and to show himself amorous of any good art. The scorn and ordinary
disgrace offered unto poets in these days is cause why few gentlemen do delight in the art [@].
On Bacon's 60th birthday, Ben Jonson wrote an epigram for him which begins:
Haile happie Genius of this antient pile
How comes it all things so about thee smile:
The fire, the wine, the men! and in the midst,
Thou stand'st as if some Mysterie thou did'st! [@].
Bacon...was the prime mover--"most noble factor"--of the Virginia Company [Chesapeake Bay and Roanoke
Island] from the beginning, and is acknowledged as such by William Strachey, the first Secretary of the Colony, in his
History of Travaile into Virginia Britannia . The first Bermudan coinage, known as the hog-money, carried Bacon's
crest on one side and the picture of a ship under full sail, probably the Sea Venture , on the other. Three centuries
later his head appeared on the Newfoundland tercentenary stamp of 1910, with the caption "Guiding Spirit of the
Colonization Scheme." Thomas Jefferson carried Bacon's portrait with him everywhere.
The Virginia Company, with Bacon as its guiding star, included the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, the two
noble brothers to whom the first Shakespeare Folio is dedicated. William Strachey's narrative of Virginia is actually
dedicated to Bacon... [@].
Sixteenth century Italian cryptography reached its climax in the works of Giovanni Baptista della Porta whose
system, published in Naples in 1565, was efficient on all counts. His table consisted of thirteen key letters,
accompanied by an alphabet which changed in its lower line one place to the right for every pair of capitals:
A B a b c d e f g h i j k l m
n o p q r s t u v w x y z
C D a b c d e f g h i j k l m
z n o p q r s t u v w x y
E F a b c d e f g h i j k l m
y z n o p q r s t u v w x
(and so on)
Della Porta's system was quite simple. Supposing that we wanted to encipher the letter e by using the key letter F,
we merely have to look along the alphabet which F controls to discover that the letter p lies directly beneath the e ; p
then is the cipher letter...
Cryptography made its first impact in England during the reign of Henry VIII and became an effective arm of
statecraft under Queen Elizabeth. The man chiefly responsible for this was Sir Francis Walsingham, who organised a
secret service, which at one time employed 53 agents on the Continent. One of his most accomplished assistants was
Anthony Bacon--the brother of Francis--but the best of his cryptanalysts was Thomas Phelippes, a widely-travelled
educated man, who was capable of solving ciphers in five languages.
Walsingham opened a secret cipher school in London and all of his agents had to take a course in cryptography
before they were entrusted with service abroad. Of course, Walsingham's Secret Service was not solely concerned
with foreign affairs, but was designed to protect the Queen from treasonable activities on her own doorstep as well.
Naturally enough, its devious and subtle machinations aroused deep mistrust among honest Englishmen, who loved
freedom of speech and hated "the corridors of darkness." Elizabeth's England was almost a totalitarian state...
...history shows that cryptography was one of Elizabeth's most valuable political assets. It was the decipherment
of a secret message to Anthony Babington, that sent Mary, Queen of Scots, to the block. Having obtained this
evidence, Walsingham sent his agent Gifford back to Fotheringay Castle to intercept and copy more of Mary's secret
messages, with the result that all of the conspirators to depose Elizabeth, including Mary herself, were finally
arrested. Walsingham later claimed that his agents had found the keys to about 50 different ciphers in Mary's
apartments.
Secret writing became a preoccupation of the English. A doctor called Timothy Bright wrote the first book on
shorthand which was published in 1588 under the title, The Arte of Shorte, Swifte and Secret Writing ...
The reasons for writing in cipher were many and varied. The Duke of Monmouth used cipher in order to
de-throne King James II; Samuel Pepys wrote his Diary in cipher for an entirely different motive.
As a general rule, the use of cipher in the arts was related to the author's position in society. Innumerable
sixteenth and seventeenth century books were either written anonymously, or signed with initials or a bogus name;
some of them were secretly acknowledged...
And yet on this subject, Shakespearean commentators and professors seem to have little knowledge, and are
strangely reluctant to accept the possibility that there is a cipher in the plays of Shakespeare.
...there is a history published anonymously in 1616 which can be shown to contain a simple and by definition a
technically perfect cipher... Rerum Anglicorum Henrico VIII, Eduardo VI et Maria Regnantibus Annales . Both the
first and second editions of this work carry no author's name, a not unusual thing in those days where the writing of
histories was concerned. The risk of offending powerful factions with dire consequences to the author was far too
great.
The author of this particular work, however, did decide to risk enciphering his name and identity in the two
editions which appeared during his lifetime.
After his death, a relative decided to publish an English translation, naming Bishop Francis Godwin as the original
author.
His cipher was the delightfully simple one mentioned earlier and certainly effective enough to escape detection
during his lifetime, with as far as is known, just one exception--the original owner of a second edition, 1628. This
person detected it and inscribed his decipherment on the fly leaf of the book, along with a description of the exact
method used to encipher the message which runs as follows:
I Franciscus Godwinus Landavensis Episcopus Hoc Conscripsit
The letters appear in the above order as the initial capital letters of each chapter... In view of this piece of authentic
evidence that cipher did in fact exist in these early printed books, no one can say that it is unreasonable to think that,
if one book printed in 1616 contained cipher, it would be perfectly feasible for another published seven years later,
also to contain cipher. This point is made to demonstrate to the sceptics that cipher in these 17th century books is a
proven fact, and the probability of other contemporary books, particularly where histories are concerned, containing
coded messages, is very real and certainly worthy of serious scientific study...
Another aspect which must be realized is that normal cipher communication between two persons, each of whom
naturally possess the key, has the inherent principle of avoidance of discovery, whereas the individual who finds it
necessary to encipher a message in a printed book shows that he hopes that at some future date someone will
discover his intentions. Of course, the fact that he has gone to the trouble of enciphering a message means that he
does not desire the discovery to take place too soon--logically one presumes, not in his lifetime. For that very reason
he would naturally not make use of any known cipher principle, hence the almost certain use of a completely new
method--in other words, he has to invent one of his own and to attain his object, he has to negotiate three important
and very tricky hurdles, apart from the encipherment of his message:
(a) he must hint somehow at the presence of his cipher--if possible obscurely, but not too obscurely, otherwise the
whole object of the exercise would be in vain.
(b) he has to show its whereabouts.
(c) he must indicate as unambiguously as possible, and this is the really difficult part, the correct key to unlock his
coded message.
For these reasons, it is obvious that all normal principles of decipherment are turned upside down and are, for the
most part, entirely useless. So any would-be decipherer has from necessity to start from scratch and make liberal use
of trial and error, guesswork and intuition. Once he has discovered the key or rule, he must rigidly, without
variation, stick to the rule, because it is a known fact that critics of cipher invariably search for the tiniest flaw, and if
they find one, they are nearly always wont to condemn the whole [@].
Most of the young nobility of those days traveled in Europe, and it is known that the Earl of Oxford did so. Ben
Jonson got as far as the Low Countries, "trailing a pike" as a soldier, and later went on foot to Scotland. Bacon's
sojourn in France, and at the Court of Navarre as a young man, is well known. His English biographers from his
chaplain William Rawley to James Spedding make no mention of this. But Bacon's first biography was not published
in English in 1657, but 26 years earlier in French. In the "Discours de las Vie" which was prefixed to the Histoire
Naturelle in 1631, Bacon's early travels in Spain and Italy are confirmed. And in the body of the same book we learn,
what seems to have passed unnoticed by all English biographers, that Bacon visited Scotland on one occasion at least
[@].
Restoration work carried out on the ruins of Sir Nicholas Bacon's house at Gorhambury [a mile or two from St.
Albans] under the supervision of the Ministry of Public Works and Monuments, has now [1969] reached an
advanced stage.Defoliation of the brick, stone, iron and the little timber remaining, and exploration at ground level,
has proved to be a lengthy process, but the patient care of the restorers has not gone unrewarded.
Perhaps the most interesting revelations to date have been the coat-of-arms with a Garter surround and the motto
Dieu et mon droit above, and the inscription below the window space, all on the north-east corner tower of the
existing structure. The inscription is in Latin and the translation reads:
WHEN NICHOLAS BACON BROUGHT THESE BUILDING TO COMPLETION TWO LUSTRAS OF
ELIZABETH'S REIGN HAD PASSED: HE HAD BEEN KNIGHTED AND MADE KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL.
MAY ALL GLORY BE ASCRIBED TO GOD ALONE.
For this information and other valuable assistance we are indebted to Mrs. King, the late Lord Verulam's private
secretary, who asks us to note that a "lustrum" was the term for a period of five years.
[I visited Old Gorhambury in 1965. Amid the ruins I could still read this, of the Latin inscription:
HAEC CUM PERFECIT NICOLAUS TECTA BACONUS ELIZABETH REGNI LUSTRA FUERIT DUO FACTUS
EQUES MAGNI CUSTOS FUIT IPSA SIGILLI GLORIA SIT SOLI TOTA TRIBUTAT DEO.
My own Latin dictionary (An Elementary Latin Dictionary , Charlton T. Lewis, Harper, 1898, 952 pages) gives
"five years" as a second choice; first choice for lustrum defines it differently, as: a slough, a den of beasts, a
wilderness, a house of ill-repute, debauchery. None of these terms may apply to Elizabeth's first ten year's reign; but
who can be sure of any such 16th century ambiguity--even though carved in stone by a future Lord Keeper, the
father of Francis, Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had a lusty sense of humor.]
Unfortunately, frosts have broken down much of the stonework, necessitating urgent repairs to the walls still
standing and it is sad to recall that only ground-level brickwork remains to remind us of the Long Gallery wing,
upon which the gilded figure of Henry VIII stood not so long ago. Pieces of the torso lay nearby until recently.
Some years ago, too, an underground passage was revealed on the opposite side of the modern road to the
north-east of the ruins, but it has not been determined, it seems, whether its direction was towards the main house,
now vanished, or the nearby Temple Cottage. Temple Cottage was once thought to have been one of Bacon's
summerhouses, but the structure indicates the late 18th century, and the Doric columns are not Tudor. Four classical
figures adorning its roof may date from the Tudor house, but this is conjecture.
Opposite the gates to Gorhambury Park, on the Hemel Hempstead road, stands St. Michaels Church. This is one
of three parish churches in St. Albans, built by the Saxon Abbot Ulsinus, A.D. 948, the others being St. Peter's and St.
Stephen's. St. Michaels is well known for the Monument to Francis Bacon, although there appears to be no evidence
that he was buried in the vault beneath.
In front of the chancel, and near the Monument, is the gravestone of his secretary, Sir Thomas Meautys, who
erected the statue to his master's memory. The lettering on Sir Thomas' tombstone has long been obliterated, when,
how, or by whom is not known; but the inscription was re-cut in 1955 on the instructions of the late Lord Verulam,
from information received from the Keeper of the Printed Books at the Bodleian Library. Apparently, in 1657, eight
years after Meautys' death, Elias Ashmole (the famous antiquarian and Rosicrucian, after whom the Ashmolean
Museum in Oxford is named) visited St. Michael' Church. In his notebook, still preserved in the Bodleian Library
(MS. Ashmole 784, Folio 8v) he had--fortunately for posterity--recorded the inscription on this tombstone, which was
later to be mysteriously chiseled out.
HERE LYETH THE BODY OF S:R.
THOMAS MEAVTYS K.T & ONE
OF THE CLARKES OF HIS LATE
MA:TS MOST HON.LL PRIVIE
COVNCELL. AN. DNI. 1649
The present [now deceased] Earl of Verulam is a descendant of Sir Harbottle Grimston, who purchased
Gorhambury in 1652 [Francis Bacon had no descendants]. Sir Harbottle was Speaker of the Commons under King
Charles II, who granted the St. Albans Charter. The monument to Bacon, with its curious inscription beginning with
the words isic sedebat ["thus he sat," instead of the customary hic jacet , "here lies"] and the Meautys grave, are not
the only points of interest in the Church...
Gorhambury derives its name from Abbot Geoffrey de Gorham, elected in 1119, and a successor of the first
Norman abbot, Paul de Caen, who acceded soon after the Saxon monastery was demolished. The monastery
foundations can still be seen by St. Albans Abbey. Circa 1130 the first mansion was built by a relative of Geoffrey de
Gorham in the Park, on the eastern slope of the hill, leading to the present seat of Lord Verulam, head of the
Grimston family. In 1155 Nicholas Breakspear, an alumnus of St. Albans School, was enthroned as Pope Adrian IV,
the only Englishman to hold this office. Adrian IV, who died in 1159, was said to be too pious for the cardinals and
was the son of an Abbey tenant.
In 1561, when Sir Nicholas Bacon acquired Gorhambury, he pulled down Geoffrey de Gorham's house and built
the Tudor mansion mentioned earlier in these pnotes. Later Sir Francis built a new mansion named Verulam House
[called by him "Verulamium"] a half a mile away but of this, alas, only foundation-traces remain, whereas parts of
the ruins of Sir Nicholas' house still stand. The present Gorhambury, designed by Sir Robert Taylor, was finished in
1784, and still contains many pictures and books belonging originally to Francis Bacon...
Francis Bacon's interest in St. Albans associations was intense and his very title, Viscount St. Alban,
commemorated the Roman martyred on the spot where the Abbey now stands. As has been mentioned before, on
assuming this title he observed: "Now it may be truly said that I wear the habit of St. Alban" [@].
We are sometimes asked why Bacon wrote under noms de plume , as though the very question revealed the
absurdity of such an idea. Yet once again the practice is by no means unique, either in his times, before, or since.
Examples are numerous, and the following are generally accepted.
Robert Burton wrote as Democritus Junior, Sir Walter Scott anonymously, Rev. C. L. Dodgson as Lewis Carroll,
Jean Francois Marie Arouet as Voltaire, Samuel Langhorne Clemens as Mark Twain. Again, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
wrote under the pseudonym of Moliere, Richard Harris Barham as Thomas Ingoldsby, Amandine Lucile Dudevant
as George Sand. The three Bronte sisters, James Bridie and George Eliot used noms de plume . Books even have
been written on the subject, such as The Bibliographical History of Anonyms and Pseudonyms , by A. Taylor and F.
J. Mosher (1951). Voltaire is reported to have used 137 and Benjamin Franklin 57 pseudonyms [@].
In Archbishop Tenison's Baconiana or Certain Genuine Remains of Sr. Francis Bacon (1679), on p. 79, we read:
"And those who have true skill in the Works of the Lord Verulam, like great Masters in Painting, can tell by the
Design, the Strength, the way of Colouring, whether he was the Author of this or the other Piece, though his Name
be not to it." This is clear evidence that Bacon wrote anonymously or under a pseudonym...
In Memoriae Honoratissimi Domini Francisci, Baronis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani Sacrum (London,
1626) thirty-two of Bacon's friends and admirers honoured him with panegyrics after his death. Frequent reference is
made to him as a muse, as well as a philosopher. Some relevant quotations (translated into English) are given below.
They are taken from Manes Verulamiani , edited by W. G. C. Gundry (1950).
"...a muse more rare than the nine Muses. ...nor did he with workmanship of fussy meddlers patch, but he
renovated her walking lowly in the shoes of Comedy. After that more elaborately he rises on the loftier tragic buskin
... the golden stream of eloquence, the precious gem of concealed literature... How has it happened to us, the
disciples of the Muses, that Apollo, the leader of our Choir, should die? ... Why should I mention each separate
work, a number of which of high repute remain? A portion lies buried. ...ah! the tenth Muse and the glory of the
Choir has perished. Ah! never before has Apollo himself been truly unhappy! Whence will there be another to love
him so? Ah! he is no longer going to have the full memory; and unavoidable is it now for Apollo to be content with
nine Muses. ...he enriched the ages with countless books. ... You have filled the world with your writings... Phoebus
withheld his healing hand from his rival, because he feared his becoming King of the Muses. ... They begot the infant
Muses, he adult... But my song can bring you no praises, a singer yourself you chant your own praises thereby..."
In his Apologie in Certaine Imputations concerning the Late Earle of Essex , Bacon wrote:
"About the same time I remember an answer of mine in a matter which had some affinity with my Lord's cause,
which though it grew from me, went after about in other's names. For her Majesty being mightily incensed with that
book which was dedicated to my Lord of Essex, being a story of the first year of King Henry the fourth, thinking it a
seditious prelude to put into the people's heads boldness and faction, said she had good opinion that there was
treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawn within case of treason: whereto I
answered: for treason surely I found none, but for felony [plagiarism] very many." (Spedding, The Letters and the
Life of Francis Bacon ).
There is also the enigmatic phrase in Bacon's Prayer or Psalm: "I have (though in a despised weed) procured the
good of all men." The "despised weed" cannot refer to Bacon's scientific writings or to his legal work: it could refer to
his possible role as a playwright [@].
The Shakespeare Monument in Stratford Church: Most Baconians are agreed that this famous monument, which
was erected sometime between 1616 and 1623, was subject to some radical alterations when it was repaired in
1748/9...Certainly the face, if not the entire bust, was changed and the two little figures above are very different
from those engraved in Sir William Dugdale's Warwickshire of 1656. [Recent research has shown that this book had
been typeset and engraved twenty years earlier; the long delay in printing was caused by civil unrest under Charles I
and then by Cromwell's rebellion.] The present figures are carved from an entirely different stone from the rest of
the monument and, as a matter of fact, they and the present bust can be lifted down when it is necessary to give
them a face lift...
It was Francis Bacon who, as a judge, was known for his wisdom and eloquence, as was Nestor, King of Pylos.
Bacon, like Socrates, was a genius and a great philosopher and like Virgilius Maro, or Virgil as most of us know him,
was a poet lamented by all who knew his real worth, as seen in the Latin tributes printed after his death and known
as the Manes Verulamiani . It was one of these poems which stated that Bacon would reside in Olympus, as given on
this Monument. In a subsequent work on poetry Bacon was named as "The Chancellor of Parnassus."
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