Mr. Donnelly claims that there is concealed in the plays not only a declaration that Bacon wrote them, but a detailed history of the times. This is to be read by means of a word cipher, depending on a series of fixed numbers. The root numbers which he gives as the starting point are 505, 506, 513, 516, 523. These numbers are combined, at pleasure, with a vast number of “modifiers.” The latter consist of the number of words in a column, page or subdivision of the play selected; and of these numbers plus or minus the hyphenated and bracketed words. By this method the first two pages attacked yield him the following thirty-four “modifying” numbers: 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 50, 51, 62, 63, 79, 80, 90, 91, 141, 142, 167, 168, 169, 189, 208, 209, 211, 212, 218, 219, 237, 240, 283, 284, 291, 294, 301, and 302. Counting forward or backward, at pleasure, from the top or the bottom of each page, and from the beginning or the end of each scene, he finds himself directed to the specific words that tell the tale; each new count supplying a new “modifier.” He does not tell whence he derives his root numbers—and the world loses little by that—because he is informed by his publishers that there is nothing in our law of copyright to prevent some ingenious fellow, less conscientious than himself, from studying out his whole system, applying it to the rest of the plays, and bursting upon the world with the remainder of the story, which Mr. Donnelly wants to reserve for a future volume and future profits. How well grounded were his apprehensions the appearance of this lesser cryptogram may serve to show. Therefore he wraps himself in congenial mystery, and both his root numbers and his modifiers must be taken on faith. It is hard for the average man, at this point, to repress his scepticism, and to refuse straightforward treatment to a man who advertises for two years a great discovery and then reserves it for the future. There is a strong flavor of the Keeley motor about the process. But not thus unjustly shall the public deal with Minnesota’s gifted son. We, the people, want to get at the bottom of this cipher, and re-read our history of the Elizabethan era and its literature.