majesty of Denmark. But, madness or not, Miss Bacon never wavered in her conviction that the appointed time to read the oracles had come, and that _she_, Delia Bacon, a namesake, possibly, of the real Hamlet of the plays, had been raised in her appointed place to be the reader. Alas for her! * "Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays unfolded," p. x. {192}Like Cassandra, she announced her message only to be scorned and flouted in return! By what whim of fortune or fancy the great plays had grown to be known as "Shakespeare's works," any more than Burbage's works, or Jonson's works, she never troubled herself to inquire; but with the details of lier mission she was careful to possess herself. She held that "the material evidence of her dogma as to the authorship, together with the key of the new philosophy, would be found buried in Shakespeare's grave." * She claims to have discovered, by careful study of Lord Bacon's letters, not only the key and clew to the whole mystery, but to an entire Baconian cipher In these letters--there were over five hundred of them extant, and others have been discovered, we believe, since Miss Bacon's day--however, it still remains, for the secret of Miss Bacon's clew died with her. But she stoutly maintained that in these letters were "definite and minute directions how to find a will and other documents relating to the conclave of Elizabethan philosophers, which were concealed in a hollow space in the under surface of Shakespeare's gravestone.... The directions, she intimated, were completely and precisely to the point, obviating all difficulties in the way of coming to the treasure, and so contrived as to ward off any troublesome consequences likely to arise from the interference of the parish officers.... There was the precious secret protected by a curse, as pirates used to bury their gold in the guardianship of a fiend." ** * Hawthorne. ** Id. Delia Bacon was born in New Haven, in 1811, and early devoted herself to literature, writing two works "The Tales of the Puritans" and "The Bride of Fort Edward." She soon, however, abandoned miscellaneous writing and adopted the profession of a student and teacher of history, and began her career as a lecturer on history in the city of Boston. Her method was original with herself. She had models, charts, maps, and pictures to illustrate her subject; and we are told by Mrs. Farrar ("Recollections of Seventy Years," Boston, Ticknor & Fields, 1866) that, being of a commanding presence and elegant delivery, she was successful and attracted large audiences. Mrs. Farrar says, "She looked like one of Dante's sibyls, and spoke like.