against

513-167-346-22 b & h-324-248-76-9 b & h=67. 516-167-349-22 b & h-327-248-79-8b & h exc.= 71

67

This account of Marlowe's death agrees exactly with the records and traditions which have come down to us. The parish register of Debtford, the village to which he had fled, records "Christopher Marlowe, slaine by ffrancis Archer, the I of June, 1593." His biographer says:

In the last week of May, 1593, he was carousing at Debtford, in- to say the least - very doubtful company; and, taking offense at some real or supposed insult to himself or his female companion, he unsheathed his dagger to avenge it, and, in the scuffle which ensued, received a mortal wound in the head from his own weapon.

And in a contemporary ballad, The Atheist's Tragedie, the story of Marlowe's

death is thus told:

His lust was lawless as his life,
And brought about his death,
For, in a deadlie mortal strife,
Striving to stop the breath
Of one who was his rival foe,
With his own dagger slaine,

He groaned and word spake never moe,

Pierced through the eye and braine.

The reader will observe the exquisite cunning with which the name of Archer is concealed in the text. The first syllable is the first syllable of Arch-bishop, separated from bishop by a hyphen. Arch comes from 513-167—30, and or from 516 -167-50: here we have the two common modifiers 30 and 50. But to obtain the first syllable, we count in the brackets and hyphens in 167; in the other case we do not; and, in the first instance, we begin at the end of scene 2, descend to the bottom of the column, and, returning to the top of the column, go downward; in the other case, we begin at the same point of departure and go up the column.

But there is even more of the story about Marlowe. these very proceedings against him for blasphemy.

We have references to

523-167-356-248-108. 193+108-301-7 b & h= 294

523-167-356-21 b-335-192-143-15 b & h=128. 128 523-167-356-193-163. 603–163—440+1-441. 441

Here the Cipher root-number changes, by one degree, from 523-167-356 to

The reader will observe here another of those extraordinary hyphenations, which, of themselves, ought to go far to prove the artificial and unnatural character of the text of the Plays: rascally-yea-forsooth-knave. Here are four words united into one word by hyphens! I doubt if another such example can be found in the literature of the last two hundred and fifty years.

Smithfield, the reader is aware, is that part of London where offenders against religion were burned alive. It was there John Rogers suffered in 1555.

If there is no Cipher here, is it not remarkable that Smithfield should occur in the text just where it is wanted so as to cohere arithmetically with burned, alive and fire. And we will see hereafter, in the chapter on the Purposes of the Plays, that the same 163 (523—167—356-193-163) which, carried up the second column of page 76, brings us to Smithfield, carried up the first column of the same page brings us to religion, the 336th word in the column. A very pregnant association of ideas in that age: Smithfield and religion! For we will see that Cecil charges that the Plays, not only under the name of Shakespeare, but also under that of Marlowe, were written by Bacon with intent to bring the religious opinions of the day into Contempt.

CHAPTER VI.

THE STORY OF SHAKSPERE'S YOUTH.

I long

To hear the story of your life, which must

Take the ear strangely.

Tempest, v, 1.

H

ERETOFORE the story has flowed mainly from the first col

umn of page 74, or, as in the last chapter, from the last subdivision of column 2 of page 74. We come now to a part of the story which is derived altogether from the middle subdivision of column 2 of page 74, and which flows forward and backward, after this fashion:

That is to say: starting from that middle subdivision of column 2 of page 74, the count is carried up and down the next column, forward and backward, and through these, or their subdivisions, to the contiguous columns. And the count (as indicated by the continuous line) is carried forward to the end of the same scene in which that second subdivision is found, and thence radiates up and down, right and left, as shown in the diagram. It is also carried backward to the beginning of the preceding scene, and of the scene preceding that, and from these points of departure radiates up and

down, backward and forward, until all the possibilities are exhausted.

And even the incredulous reader will be forced to observe that these numbers, so applied, bring out a body of words totally different from those which told of the flight of the actors or the bringing of the news to St. Albans; and these words describe the events of Shakspere's youth, and could scarcely be twisted into describing anything else.

And every word is produced by one of the following rootnumbers, used directly or subjected to the ordinary modifications, to-wit: 356, 338, 349 and 346. And these numbers are thus ob

This 167 is, of course, the number of words in that middle subdivision of 74:2; that is to say, from 51, the first word of the middle subdivision, to 318, the last word of the same, counting in that last word, there are just 167 words.

But the above numbers are first modified by the counting in of the bracketed words and additional hyphenated words in that second subdivision of column 2 of page 74, to-wit, 22. This gives us, applied to the above root-numbers, the following results:

And these, in turn, are modified by the modifiers on pages 74 and 73, as in the former chapters. And here again, as in the former instances, for a time the 523 alternates with the 505, and the 516 with the 513, and then the story is all told by a single number.

But these numbers are also modified by the counting in of the 21 bracket words alone in that second subdivision, exclusive of the one additional hyphenated word; and also by counting in the one hyphenated word alone exclusive of the 21 bracket words; and this gives us the following results:

Counting in the bracketed words alone