Bacon's Signature Ciphers in Shakespeare -67- Sea-coale 1

-67-

32) Now we turn to the play Much adoe about Nothing and to page 111 of the Comedies. This number, as you may recall, equals “Bacon” in the Kay alphabet. Being alerted by the significant page number, some of the early Baconians (in “Seals”) found the name of “George Sea-coale” given some emphasis with the phrase “God hath blest you with a good name”.

http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/sceti/printedbooksNew/index.cfm?TextID=firstfolio&PagePosition=129

This character is made part of the “Watch”, a Watch being defined as a watchman, officer, or part of a street patrol. And because of this character’s fitness for the task he is charged with bearing the lanthorne [lantern]. The interesting thing here is that there was such a thing as a “sea-coal lantern”:

http://books.google.com/books?id=NdE6AQAAIAAJ&dq=sea-coal%20lantern&pg=PA491#v=onepage&q=sea-coal%20lantern&f=false

And that these lanterns could be beacons:

http://books.google.com/books?id=RgSjCPp2_R4C&lpg=PA27&dq=lanthorn%20beacon&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q=lanthorn%20beacon&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=R4s9AAAAYAAJ&dq=%22sea-coal%20beacon%22&pg=RA1-PA181#v=onepage&q&f=false

Then, the alert cryptologist needs to keep in mind that “beacon” could then be pronounced as “bacon”

Jean Overton Fuller, in her book Sir Francis Bacon: A Biography wrote about this pronunciation similarity:   "Laymen seldom realize how complex is the history of sound-changes. The sound heard in 'beacon' would then have been more open, but so would that in 'bacon.' In phonetician's language, the sound heard in 'beacon' today is a close front vowel (English vowel no. 1); in those days it would have been a half-close front vowel, nearer to Cardinal vowel No. 2. The sound in 'bacon' today is a diphthong, but would then have been a half-open front vowel, near Cardinal vowel 3. The sounds would, then as now, have been in different phonemes, with about the same interval between them."