Excerpt from Sir Francis Bacon's Cipher Story, Vol. 4

Mankind may now echo the words of this introduction to the 1623 Edition of the Shakespeare Plays, with a broader meaning. The contents of this book have been as much a surprise to those who have deciphered it as it will be to the world.

That francis bacon should write portions of the history of his father, his mother, and the Queen of Scots, as a Play, and mask it in Plays to prove his authorship of them all, is an accomplishment such as the greatest admirers of that great genius could have thought hardly possible, but that in doing so he should conceal in the Cipher a Play so sustained, so dramatic, so powerful, so historically concise, as is the Tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots here transcribed, marks a genius capable of unparalleled literary achievements.

In this book is found the motive for the Cipher, in the crushing by his mother, the Queen, of the youthful ambitions and aspira tions of his broadening mind. Now we know why he was never permitted to leave England after his visit to France, and was kept within the circle of the Court, lest he enter upon a course which might sway the world and array the powers against the Queen.

At twenty I was subdued to their yoke. My mother learned that I Wrote Hamlet Prince of Denmark, and then I was lost.

The interview which followed this discovery was most fateful to the world, circumscribing the free scope of that mighty intel lect, and forcing the hiding of its best work under masks and Cipher, only to be revealed three hundred years later.

What prouder ¿ight of ambition's fancy, than that in which the boy appeals to the Queen, for liberty to follow a literary career.

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