"But the vertues of them, whereby they are to be preferred, are three;that they be not laborious to write and reade; that they bee impossibleto discypher; and in some cases, that they bee without suspicion.The highest Degree whereof, is to write OMNIA PER OMNIA; which isundoubtedly possible, with a proportion Quintuple at most, of thewriting infoulding, to the writing infoulded, and no other restraintewhatsoever."
It was not till eighteen years later that he gave to the public anexplanation of this 'infoulding' writing. In the rarely beautifuledition of the work in Latin printed in London by Haviland in 1623, thepassage relating to secret writing is much amplified. Indeed the entirework is completed in many ways and greatly enlarged as is shown by itstitle.
"De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum. Libros IX."
The following is his revised statement:
"Ut vero suspicio omnis absit, aliud Juventum subijciemus, quod certe,cum Adolescentuli essemus Parisiis, excogitavimus; nec etiam adhuc visavobis res digna est, quae pereat. Habet enim gradum Ciphrae altissimum;nimirum ut _Omnia per Omnia_ significari possint: ita tamen, ut Scriptisquae involuitut, quintuplo minor sit, quam ea cui involvatur: Alia nullaomnino requiritur Conditio, aut Restrictio. Id hoc modo fiet. Primo,universae literae Alphabeti in duas tantummodo Literas soluantur, perTranspositionem earum. Nam Transpositis duarum Literarum, per Locosquinque, Differentiis triginta duabus, multo magis viginti quatuor (quiest Numerus Alphabeti apud nos) sufficiet. Huius _Alphabeti_. Exemplumtale est."
* * * * *
"But for avoiding suspicion altogether, I will add another contrivance,which I devised myself when I was at Paris in my early youth, and whichI still think worthy of preservation. For it has the perfection of acipher, which is to make anything signifying anything; subject howeverto this condition, that the infolding writing shall contain at leastfive times as many letters as the writing infolded; no other conditionor restriction is required. The way to do it is this: First let all theletters of the Alphabet be resolved into transpositions of two lettersonly. For the transposition of two letters through five places willyield thirty-two differences; much more twenty-four, which is the numberof letters in our Alphabet. Here is an example of such an Alphabet.
A B C D E F G H aaaaa aaaab aaaba aaabb aabaa aabab aabba aabbb
I K L M N O P Q abaaa abaab ababa ababb abbaa abbab abbba abbbb
R S T V W X Y Z baaaa baaab baaba baabb babaa babab babba babbb
"Nor is it a slight thing which is thus by the way effected. For hearewe see how thoughts may be communicated at any distance of place bymeans of any objects perceptible either to the eye or ear, providedonly that those objects are capable of two differences; as by bells,trumpets, torches, gunshots, and the like. But to proceed with ourbusiness. When you prepare to write, you must reduce the interiorepistle to this bi-literal alphabet. Let the interior epistle be:
Fly. Example of reduction. F L Y aabab ababa babba
"Have by you at the same time another alphabet in two forms; I mean inwhich each of the letters of the common alphabet, both capitals andsmall, are exhibited in two different forms,--any forms that you findconvenient."
[For instance, Roman and Italic letters; "a" representing Roman and "b"representing Italic.]
"Then take your interior epistle, reduced to the bi-literal shape, andadapt it, letter by letter, to your exterior epistle in the biformcharacter; and then write it out. Let the exterior epistle be:
"Do not go till I come." Example of reduction F L Y aabab ababa babba DO_N_O_T_ G_O_T_I_L _L_I_CO_M--_E_ do not go till I come
* * * * *
From the above given dates it would almost seem as if Bacon had treatedthe matter in a purely academic manner, and had drawn out of hisremembrance of his younger days a method of secret communication whichhad not seen any practical service. Spedding mentions in his book"Francis Bacon and his Times" that Bacon may have got the hint of the'bi-literal cypher' from the work of John Baptist Porta, "De occultisliterarum notis," reprinted in Strasburg in 1606, but the first editionof which was published when Porta was a young man. It is howevermanifest from certain evidence, that Bacon practised his special cipherand used it for many years. Lady Bacon, mother of the philosopher,writing in 1593, to her son Anthony, elder brother of Francis, speakingof him, Francis, says, "I do not understand his enigmatical foldedwriting." Indeed it is possible that many years before he had tried tohave his invention made use of for public service. His was an age ofsecret writing. Every Ambassador had to send his despatches in cipher,for thus--and even then not always--could they be safe from hostileeyes. The thousands of pages of reports to King Philip made by DonBernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of QueenElizabeth, before the time of the Armada, were all written in this form;the groaning shelves of the records at Simancas bear evidence of theindustry of such political officials and of their spies and secretaries.An ambitious youth like Francis Bacon, son of the Lord Keeper, and sotraditionally and familiarly in touch with Court and Council, who in hisbaby days was addressed by Elizabeth as her "young Lord Keeper," and whospent the time between his sixteenth and eighteenth years in the suiteof the English Ambassador in Paris, Sir Amyas Paulet, must have hadconstant experience of the need of a cipher which would fulfill theconditions which he laid down as essential in 1605--facility ofexecution, impossibility of discovery, and lack of suspiciousness. When,in a letter of 16 Sept. 1580, to his uncle Lord Burghley, he made suitto the Queen for some special employment, it is possible that the posthe sought was that of secret writer to Her Majesty. His letter, thoughfollowed up with a more pressing one on 18th October of the same year,remained unanswered. Whatever the motive or purpose of these last twoletters may have been, it remained on his mind; for eleven years laterwe find him again writing to his uncle the Lord Keeper: "I ever have amind to serve Her Majesty," and again, "the meanness of my estate dothsomewhat move me." In the interval, on 25th August, 1585, he wrote tothe Right Hon. Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal Secretary to the Queen:"In default of getting it, will go back to course of practice (at Bar) Imust and will follow, not for my necessity of estate but for my credit'ssake, which I fear by being out of action will wear." His brotherAnthony spent the best part of his life abroad, presumably on somesecret missions; and as Francis was the recipient of his letters it wasdoubtless that "folded writing" which so puzzled their mother which wasused for the safety and secrecy of their correspondence. Indeed to whata fine point the biliteral method must have been brought by Bacon andhis correspondents is shown by the extraordinarily minute differencesgiven in his own setting forth of the symbols for "a" and "b" etc., inthe "_De Augmentis_" of 1623 and later. In the edition printed in Latinin Paris the next year, 1624, by Peter Mettayer, the differences,possibly through some imperfection of printing, are so minute thateven the reader studying the characters set before him, with the extraelucidation of their being placed under their proper headings, finds italmost impossible to understand them. The cutting for instance of the"n" which represents "a" and that which represents "b" seems, even afterprolonged study, to be the same.
It is to be noticed that Bacon in setting forth the cipher in itscompleteness directs attention to its infinite possibilities andvariations. The organised repetition of any two symbols in combinationsof not more than five for one or both symbols may convey ideas. Notletters only but colours, bells, cannon, or other sounds may be usedwith effect. All the senses may be employed, or any or some of them, inendless combinations.
Again it is
to be noted that even in his first allusion to the system in1605, he says, "to write Omnia per Omnia, which is undoubtedly possible,with a proportion _Quintuple at most_, of the writing infoulding, to thewriting infoulded."
"Quintuple at most!" But in the instances of his system which he giveseighteen years later, when probably his time for secret writing as amatter of business had ceased, and when from the lofty altitude ofthe Woolsack he could behold unmoved any who had concealments tomake--provided of course that they were not connected with bribes--thereis only one method given, that of five infolding letters for each oneinfolded. In the later and fuller period he speaks also of the onenecessary condition "that the infoulding writing shall contain _at leastfive times as many letters_ as the writing infoulded"--
Even in the example which he gives "Do not go till I come," there is asuperfluous letter,--the final "e;" as though he wished to mislead thereader by inference as well as by direct statement.
Is it possible that he stopped short in his completion of thismarvellous cipher? Can we believe that he who openly spoke from thefirst of symbols "_quintuple at most_," was content to use so large anumber of infolding letters when he could possibly do with less? Why,the last condition of excellence in a cipher which he himself laid down,namely, that it should "bee without suspicion," would be endangered bya larger number than was actually necessary. It is by repetition ofsymbols that the discovery of secret writing is made; and in a cipherwhere, manifestly, the eye or the ear or the touch or the taste must beguided by such, and so marked and prolonged, symbols, the chances ofdiscovery are enormously increased. Doubtless, then, he did not rest inhis investigation and invention until he had brought his cipher to itsleast dimensions; and it was for some other reason or purpose thathe thus tried to divert the mind of the student from his earliersuggestion. It will probably be proved hereafter that more than onevariant and reduction to lower dimensions of his biliteral cipher wasused between himself and his friends. When the secrets of that"Scrivenry" which, according to Mr. W. G. Thorpe in his interestingvolume, "The Hidden Lives of Shakespeare and Bacon," Bacon kept at workin Twickenham Park, are made known, we shall doubtless know more on thesubject. Of one point, however, we may rest assured, that Bacon did notgo back in his pursuance of an interesting study; and the change from"Quintuple at most" of the infolding writing of 1605, to "Quintupleat least," of 1623, was meant for some purpose of misleading orobscuration, rather than as a limitation of his original setting forthof the powers and possibilities of his great invention. It will someday be an interesting theme of speculation and study what use of hisbiliteral cipher had been made between 1605 and 1623; and what it wasthat he wished to conceal.
That the original cipher, as given, can be so reduced is manifest. Ofthe Quintuple biliteral there are thirty-two combinations. As in theElizabethan alphabet, as Bacon himself points out, there were buttwenty-four letters, certain possibilities of reduction at once unfoldthemselves, since at the very outset one entire fourth of the symbolsare unused.
APPENDIX B
ON THE REDUCTION OF THE NUMBER OF SYMBOLS IN BACON'S BILITERAL CIPHER
When I examined the scripts together, both that of the numbers and thoseof the dots, I found distinct repetitions of groups of symbols; but nocombinations sufficiently recurrent to allow me to deal with them asentities. In the number cipher the class of repetitions seemed moremarked. This may have been, however, that as the symbols were simplerand of a kind with which I was more familiar, the traces or surmiseswere easier to follow. It gave me hope to find that there was somethingin common between the two methods. It might be, indeed, that bothwritings were but variants of the same system. Unconsciously I gave myattention to the simpler form--the numbers--and for a long weary timewent over them forward, backward, up and down, adding, subtracting,multiplying, dividing; but without any favorable result. The onlyencouragement which I got was that I got additions of eight and nine,each of these many times repeated. Try how I would, however, I could notscheme out of them any coherent result.
When in desperation I returned to the dotted papers I found that thismethod was still more exasperating, for on a close study of them I couldnot fail to see that there was a cipher manifest; though what it was, orhow it could be read, seemed impossible to me. Most of the letters hadmarks in or about them; indeed there were very few which had not.Examining more closely still I found that the dots were disposed inthree different ways: (a) in the body of the letter itself: (b) abovethe letter: (c) below it. There was never more than one mark in thebody of the letter; but those above or below were sometimes single andsometimes double. Some letters had only the dot in the body; and others,whether marked on the body or not, had no dots either above or below.Thus there was every form and circumstance of marking within these threecategories. The only thing which my instinct seemed to impress upon mecontinually was that very few of the letters had marks both above andbelow. In such cases two were above and one below, or _vice versa_; butin no case were there marks in the body and above and below also. Atlast I came to the conclusion that I had better, for the time, abandonattempting to decipher; and try to construct a cipher on the lines ofBacon's Biliteral--one which would ultimately accord in some way withthe external conditions of either, or both, of those before me.
But Bacon's Biliteral as set forth in the _Novum Organum_ had fivesymbols in every case. As there were here no repetitions of five, I setmyself to the task of reducing Bacon's system to a lower number ofsymbols--a task which in my original memorandum I had held capable ofaccomplishment.