This trick of the upside down printing of ornaments and even of engravings is continually resorted to when some revelation concerning Bacon's works is given. Therefore in Camden's "Remains" of 1616 in the Chapter on Surnames, because the head ornament is printed upside down, we may be perfectly certain that we shall find some revelation concerning Bacon and Shakespeare.
Accordingly on p. 121 we find as the name of a village "Bacon Creping." There never was a village called "Bacon Creping." And on page 128 we read "such names as Shakespeare, Shotbolt, Wagstaffe." In referring to the great Cryptographic book, we shall realise the importance of this conjunction of names.
On Plate 27, Page 115, we give a reduced facsimile of the title page, which as the reader will see, states in Latin that the work is by Gustavus Selenus, and contains systems of Cryptographic writing, also methods of the shorthand of Trithemius. The Imprint at the end, under a very handsome example of the double A ornament which in various forms is used generally in books of Baconian learning, states that it was published and printed at Lunaeburg in 1624. Gustavus Selenus we are told in the dedicatory poems prefixed to the work is "Homo lunae" [the man in the Moon].
[Illustration: Plate XXVII. Facsimile Title Page.]
[Illustration: Plate XXVIII. Left-Handed Portion, much enlarged, of Plate XXVIII.]
[Illustration: 202.--Royal Eagle. Facsimile from p. 93 of Boutell's English Heraldry, 1899. If this is compared with the bird in Plate XXVIII. it will at once be seen that the later is an Eagle in full flight.]
[Illustration: Plate XXIX. Right-Hand Portion, much enlarged, of Plate XXVII.]
[Illustration: Plate XXX. Top Portion of Plate XXVII., much enlarged.]
[Illustration: Plate XXXI. Bottom Portion of Plate XXVII., much enlarged.]
Look first at the whole title page; on the top is a tempest with flaming beacons, on the left (of the reader) is a gentleman giving something to a spearman, and there are also other figures; on the right is a man on horseback, and at the bottom in a square is a much dressed up man taking the "Cap of Maintenance" from a man writing a book.
Examine first the left-hand picture shewn enlarged, Plate 28, Page 118. You see a man, evidently Bacon, giving his writing to a Spearman who is dressed in actor's boots (see Stothard's painting of Falstaff in the "Merry Wives of Windsor" wearing similar actor's boots, Plate 32, Page 127). Note that the Spearman has a sprig of bay in the hat which he holds in his hand. This man is a Shake-Spear, nay he really is a correct portrait of the Stratford householder, which you will readily perceive if you turn to Dugdale's engraving of the Shakespeare bust, Plate 5, Page 14. In the middle distance the man still holding a spear, still being a Shake-Speare, walks with a staff, he is therefore a Wagstaffe. On his back are books--the books of the plays. In the sky is seen an arrow, no, it is not sufficiently long for an arrow, it is a Shotbolt (Shakespeare, Wagstaffe, Shotbolt, of Camden's "Remains"). This Shotbolt is near to a bird which seems about to give to it the scroll it carries in its beak. But is it a real bird? No, it has no real claws, its feet are Jove's lightnings, verily, "it is the Eagle of great verse."