[3] This fact so puzzling to Halliwell-Phillipps is fully explained when it is realised that William Shackspere of Stratford could neither read or write. [4] The words attriuted to Apollo, are of course spoken by his Chancellor Bacon. See note on the number 33 on page 112. [5] While I am perfectly satisfied that the above explanation of the meaning of the expression "All numbers" is the correct one; I am not unaware that at the date at which the Discoveries appeared "All numbers" would be generally understood in its classical sense; Jonson of course not being permitted to speak too plainly. He was foreman of Bacon's good pens and one of his "left-hands"; as any visitor to Westminster Abbey may learn, the attendants there being careful to point out that the sculptor has "accidentally" clothed Jonson's Bust in a left-handed coat. (With respect to the meaning of this the reader is referred to Plate 33, page 131.) Thus far was written and in print when the writer's attention was called to the Rev. George O Neill's little brochure, "Could Bacon have written the plays?" in which in a note to page 14 we find "Numeri" in Latin, "numbers" in English, applied to literature mean nothing else than verse, and even seem to exclude prose. Thus Tibullus writes, "_Numeris ille hic pede libero scribit_" (one writes in verse another in prose), and Shakespeare has the same antithesis in "Love's Labour Lost" (iv., 3), "These numbers I will tear and write in prose." Yet all this does not settle the matter, for "Numeri" is also used in the sense merely of "parts". Pliny speaks of a prose work as perfect in all its parts, "_Omnibus numeris absolutus_," and Cicero says of a plan of life, "_Omnes numeros virtutis continet_" (it contains every element of virtue). So that Jonson may have merely meant to say in slightly pedantic phrase that Bacon had passed away all parts fulfilled. [6] Under what is now known as "Rask's law" the Roman F becomes B in the Teutonic languages: fero, bear; frater, brother; feru, brew; flo, blow, etc., etc., shewing that the Roman F was by no means really a mute. [7] See Page 104.