Bacon and Shakespeare
Some people have suggested that the plays attributed to William Shakespeare were in fact written by Francis Bacon, and that the published plays contain enciphered messages to that effect. Both Ignatius L. Donnelly and Elizabeth Wells Gallup attempted to find such messages by looking for the use of Bacon's cipher in early printed editions of the plays.
However, American cryptologists William and Elizebeth Friedman refuted the claims that the works of Shakespeare contain hidden ciphers that disclose Bacon's or any other candidate's secret authorship in their The Shakespeare Ciphers Examined (1957).
Read more about this topic: Bacon's Cipher
Famous quotes containing the words bacon and/or shakespeare:
“For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face.
His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest.
His words come from his mouth; ours from our breast.
He prays but faintly, and would be denied;
We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)