In P. G. Wodehouse's story "The Reverend Wooing of Archibald," first published in Strand in August 1928 and collected in Mr. Mulliner Speaking (1929), Aurelia Cammarleigh's aunt, an enthusiast of the Baconian theory, corners Archibald Mulliner "to tell him all about the remarkable discovery which had been made by applying the Plain Cipher to Milton's well-known Epitaph on Shakespeare":
"As in the Plays and Sonnets," said the aunt, "we substitute the name equivalents of the figure totals."
"We do what?"
"Substitute the name equivalents of the figure totals."
"The which?"
"The figure totals."
"All right," said Archibald. "Let it go. I daresay you know best."
The aunt inflated her lungs.
"These figure totals," she said, "are always taken out in the Plain Cipher, A equalling one to Z equals twenty-four. The names are counted in the same way. A capital letter with the figures indicates an occasional variation in the Name Count. For instance, A equals twenty-seven, B twenty-eight, until K equals ten is reached, when K, instead of ten, becomes one, and T instead of nineteen, is one, and R or Reverse, and so on, until A equals twenty-four is reached. The short or single Digit is not used here. Reading the Epitaph in the light of this Cipher, it becomes: 'What need Verulam for Shakespeare? Francis Bacon England's King be hid under a W. Shakespeare? William Shakespeare. Fame, what needst Francis Tudor, King of England? Francis. Francis W. Shakespeare. For Francis thy William Shakespeare hath England's King took W. Shakespeare. Then thou our W. Shakespeare Francis Tudor bereaving Francis Bacon Francis Tudor such a tomb William Shakespeare.'"
This sounds like drivel to us just as much as it did to many of the aunt's contemporaries, but not to all: because it is based on an actual article published in Baconiana, the journal of the Bacon Society, one of whose stated objects is "to encourage the general study of the evidence in favour of [Francis Bacon's] authorship of the plays commonly ascribed to Shakspere, and to investigate his connection with other works of the period." The July 1927 issue, available at the Internet Archive, contains "To prove you a cypher" by one Charles W. Hopper, and a simple comparison of the following passages shows that the aunt's tirade was extracted from it, with many sentences preserved verbatim:
To test this cypher, everything should be numeralised in the well-known simple, or Plain cypher: A=1, B=2, etc., remembering that the Elizabethan alphabet had only 24 letters, as i and j, u and v, were of the same type. Then the names, given by a word or phrase, should be substituted. As most of us know, Bacon is 33, Francis 67, William 74, Shakespeare 103; and it is surprising what a number of useful words count either 103, or 100, Francis Bacon. The complication, not a puzzling one, is that the names where long phrases are used to give a name, (and it was perhaps thought wise not to make the cipher too obvious) occasionally go back into one of the three variations. These are known as the K (see Bacon’s reference to Kay cyphers) which gives each letter a double figure value, i.e., A=27, B=28, until K, 10, is reached: the Short (rarely used) or single digit, i.e., after J, 9, K starts again as 1, and T (19) as 1: or the Reverse, which is the Plain cypher reversed: Z=1, etc., until A, 24, is reached. [pp. 75-76]
The hidden reading appears to be as follows:
"AN EPITAPH,
FRANCIS TUDOR, KING OF ENGLAND.
What need Verulam for William Shakespeare? Francis Bacon England’s King, be hid under a W. Shakespeare? Dear Shakespeare of fame, what needst Francis Tudor King of England of thy name? Francis Bacon, Francis Tudor King of England, hast built thy W. Shakespeare monument. For, Francis England's King, thy William Shakespeare, Lord Saint Alban, hath from the leaves of Englands King, William Shakespeare took. Then thou Francis Tudor bereaving: Francis Bacon King of England: Francis the First of England. Francis Tudor, such a tomb, William Shakespeare!" [p. 77]
Aurelia's aunt, in sum, is up to date in her studies.
We never learn her name in the story, but it is tempting to search for a real life model. One candidate who presents herself is Miss Alicia A. Leith, a long-time contributor to the journal, and Vice-President of the Society in 1927. In fact, in 1941 Miss Leith was living in Park Street, just like the aunt:
except that this is Park Street in Taunton, not London.
But I don't think it is sensible to posit a connection: that kind of clue-hunting is best left to the Baconians. I just took her name at random from those mentioned in the July 1927 issue, and on searching around was struck by the coincidence of one of her addresses being "Park Lane." But Alicia Amy Leith (1852-1945) was a very estimable lady, who was already editing books and magazines when Wodehouse was still in the poached egg stage, and presenting her as a dotty old aunt would have been both uncharitable and disrespectful of him. Her first publication known to me, The Birthday Book of Flower and Song (1877), already shows her as an accomplished compiler and illustrator. She went on to edit Every Girl's Magazine (1878-1887) and Atalanta (1888), and later became involved with the Baconian movement until the end of her days. Her London address, mentioned both in 1906 and after her death in 1945, was No. 10 Clorane Gardens, Hampstead, London, N.W.3.
Baconiana, April 1945,
accompanying her obituary
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