Bacon's Signature Ciphers in Shakespeare -42- Free

-42-

12)  Next, a better known example than many of the above is represented by the word “Free” that is the last word in the play The Tempest, on page 19 of the Comedies. The Friedmans read about it from Baconian Edward Johnson.

http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/book/Bran_F1/37/?zoom=1

There are several aspects about it that look significant to Baconians. First, it is the last word in what is seen as the playwright’s last solo-authored play. This location, being the play’s last spoken word, itself adds to its merit as would a count on a title page or other important location. Then it has the interesting cipher properties of being equal to the Simple count for “Bacon”  which equals 33. Also “Free” = “Bacon” in the Kay cipher, both being equal to 111. And I haven’t been using any Reverse alphabet count for a Bacon signature, but we’ll use it here. In reverse Simple alphabet, Free = 67, (F = 19, R = 8, E = 20) the number for “Francis”. Finally, Dawkins pointed out, the name “Francis” has as its meaning “free”:

http://www.zelo.com/firstnames/findresults.asp?name=francis&x=19&y=14

http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Francis

The Friedmans mention some of these observations on the word “Free” in The Tempest but they provide no analysis of why it should not be viewed as a possible Bacon numerical signature. It’s one of those possible ciphers that were lumped with poorer quality examples or flawed candidates, and that were then dismissed as a group as all coincidences, and perhaps it is.