The word quenching only occurs one other time in all the thousand pages of the Plays; and here it coheres arithmetically with flame, fire and burned; and this is the only time when flame occurs in these two plays of 1st and 2d Henry IV.; and this is the only occasion when burned is found in 2d Henry IV.; and it occurs but once in 1st Henry IV. And here the narrative changes slightly its root-number; heretofore we have elaborated this part of the story by 505-167-338; but in that 167 (74:2) there are twenty-one bracketed words and one hyphenated word; if we count these in, then the 167 becomes 189; and 189 deducted from the root-number, 505, leaves, not 338, but 316. Hence, for a long narrative, hereafter, 316 becomes the root-number. We have seen a similar change take place on page 718, ante, where a whole chapter grows out of 516-167-349-22 b & h (167)=327. We read: Word. Page and 505-167-338-22 b & h=316-50-266—5 h—261. 261 505-167-338—22 b & h=316-49-267-5 h―262. 505-167-338-22 b & h-316-193 (75:1)=123. 498 262 The exquisite art of the work is shown in that word litter. We have already (505-448-57) used the 57th word, her, (her Grace is furious, etc.); here we use the 58th word, litter; and after a while we shall find the word o'erwhelmed, the 55th word, used to describe Bacon's feelings when he heard the dreadful news that Shakspere was to be arrested and put to the torture to make him disclose the author of the Plays. Now the Cipher story brought the words o'erwhelmed — her — litter into juxtaposition. How was Bacon to use these words in the external play? Thereupon, his fertile mind invented that grotesque image, wherein the corpulent Falstaff says to his diminutive page: one. I do here walk before thee, like a sow that hath o'erwhelmed all her litter but It will be found that we owe many of the finest gems of thought in the Plays to the dire necessities of the great cryptologist, who, driven to straits by the Cipher, fell back on the vast resources of his crowded mind, and invented sentences that would bring the patch-work of words before him into coherent order. Take that beautiful expression: O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird, It will be found that summer, haunch, winter, sings and lifting are all Cipher words, the tail ends of various stories, and the genius of the poet linked them together in this exquisite fashion. There was, to the ordinary mind, no connection between haunch, a haunch of venison, and summer, winter and sings, but in an instant the poet, with a touch, converted the haunch into the hindmost part of the winter. It is no wonder that Bacon said of himself that he found he had "a nimble and fertile mind." 1ad Henry IV., iv, 2. HEN WH CHAPTER XIII. THE YOUTHFUL SHAKSPERE described. We will draw the curtain and show you the picture. Twelfth Night, i, 5. And "my Lord" (as the peasants called him) — Sir Thomas captured one of the marauders and destroyers of his property, he was of course curious to know who it was. so by the same root-number (playing between the end of scene second, 76:1, and the subdivisions of 75:1) we find the following words coming out: face of the wounded man, he Little did Sir Thomas think, And when the blood was scraped away from the recognized "William Shagspere, one thone partie." as he gazed upon him, that the poor wounded wretch was to be, for centuries, the subject of the world's adoration, as the greatest, profoundest, most brilliant and most philosophical of mankind. The whole thing makes history a mockery. It is enough, in itself, to cast a doubt upon all the established opinions of the world. I would note the fact that the word scraped occurs in but two other places in all the Plays! 505-167-338-30-308-49-259-90-169. 505-167-338-30-308-50-258-63 (73:1)—195— 169 75:1 He 95 75:2 remembered 50-145-50-95. And here follows the description of the youthful Shakspere, as he appeared on his native heath:- one of the half-civilized boys of "the bookless neighborhood" of Stratford; the very individual referred to in the traditions of beer-drinking, poaching and rioting which have come down to us. To save work for the printers I will hereafter, instead of printing 505—167— 338, in each line, content myself with commencing each line with 338. 338-30 (74:2)-308-145-163-3 b (145)=160. 338-30-308-146-162. 457-162-295+1-296. 296 160 |