So far as Shakespeare’s handwriting is concerned, I do not propose at the present moment to go beyond the opinion of Spedding. It would profit nothing to enter into a discussion on the subject until one has something tangible in the way of evidence to offer. Shakespeare’s Will, for instance, has always been regarded as a witness for the Baconian case, but if the result of the investigations I am prosecuting confirm my suspicions, it will become a piece of important evidence for Shakespeare. The _bona-fides_ of this Will have always appeared to be more than questionable, and I am hopeful of being in a position shortly to connect it with the great fraud which I am satisfied has been perpetrated by Bacon. _The Bi-Literal Cipher._ The most interesting feature of the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy at the present moment is the alleged discovery by Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup, of Detroit, U.S.A., of a bi-literal cipher by Bacon, which appears in no fewer than forty-five books, published between 1591 and 1628. Mrs. Gallup was assisting Dr. Orville W. Owen (also of Detroit, U.S.A.), in the preparation of the later books of his _Sir Francis Bacon’s Cipher Story_, and in the study of the “great word cipher,” discovered by Dr. Owen, when she became convinced that the very full explanation found in _De Augmentis Scientiarum_ of the bi-literal method of cipher-writing, was something more than a mere treatise on the subject. She applied the rules given to the peculiarly italicised words, and “letters in two forms,” as they appear in the photographic facsimile of the 1623 folio edition of the Shakespeare plays. The surprising disclosures that resulted from the experiment, sent her to the original editions of Bacon’s known works, and from those to all the authors whose books Bacon claimed as his own. The bi-literal cipher, according to Mrs. Gallup, held true in every instance, and she is fully entitled to have her discovery thoroughly investigated before it is condemned as a “pure invention.” Mrs. Gallup solemnly declares her translation to be “absolutely veracious,” and until it is authoritatively declared that the bi-literal cipher does not exist in the works in which she professes to have traced it, I am not prepared to question her _bonâ fides_. Her conclusions are absurd, but her premises may be proved to be impregnable. She is convinced of the soundness of her discoveries, and she forthwith leaps to the conclusion that “the proofs are overwhelming and irresistible, that Bacon was the author of the delightful lines attributed to Spenser--the fantastic conceits of Peele and Greene--the historical romances of Marlowe--the immortal plays and poems put forth in Shakespeare’s name--as well as the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ of Burton.” Mrs. Gallup shows scant appreciation of the illimitable genius she claims for Bacon in this sentence.