AN AMAZING ACROSTIC.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 710, 8 January 1910, Page 9

AN AMAZING ACROSTIC.

: v Not long ago an -American author,: Mr. TWilliam Stono Booth.Y. wrote a. big - book to prove .that-Francis Bacon signed his namoinShakespeare's plays;.in sorao-oi , Spenser's poems, and in Ben Jonson's verses in-tlio'Shaltespearo Tolio by moans of acrostics.■.. Commenting, on! them : at tlio time, '.%•s -stated that,; , taking : '•Mγ.' Booth's method aiid allowiug;himself.!tlib iicouse'which Mr. Booth assumes,' a man Donld' n'nd ahyliod^s, namo in any book. Another ■ writer has now conio forward and done it: '.for:, us. Mr.- John Pollock, writing intho current number, of "Cor'n'hill," nfter- examining, tho methods- on which Mr. , Booth , : attacked tho Folios and ;Quartos,yha's'tried' some Httlo exporimonts of'his own. 'Incidentally ho has proved (as■Mγ.- Booth ; would put it); that two of ,l)ryden's most famous -'.works'.-aro -from , other- hands. . "Absalom ■and: Achitbphol" reveals 'itself as a'-posthumous,'poom"-by Bacon,. and tho "Odo' , on = St. ■ Cecilia's Day";as.a prenatal omrfoy Shelley. But tho'most significant and' momentous discovery which nn_ ingenious .use, of ' tho acrostic as a diving, rod- has \moarthed for; him, is that which concerns "Calriona,', n novol hitherto well-nigh universally attributed .to E. L. Stevenson, -a popular „. author ■ who .flourished in the oiglities and early nineties of the Inst century.,: Tho 'preface■ to this book,.: summarising:.the. novel. l of- : .which it is a -sequel,, contains-in the initial.Mctters of its'sentences, if .wo, are 'to .'belio.vb Air; , Pollock, words -which/ .wlion disentangled provo7.to.bq,"Andrew Lang's cautious conundrum." The; sugKostiou contained in'..this:is..connrmcd'whcn wefiud tb.it tho..lnst'p*nrag"raph:qf, tho conclusion ' of the book roads ;"Andveir Langs Tale'."

Here, then, is a literary deception of tho first ■ magnitudo unmasked.- Fortunately it is possible to secure nn explanation. ■ ; Francis Bacon is dead.Mr. Andrew Lang is living." We: appeal to hini to mdke : a clean breast of it. He is known to. ho a versatile .writer. How '■' much of contemporary .literature has he really written? Meanwhile .the process should bo carried into other charters. •If it should bo found that Mr. Hall Caino was the true author of—but we forbear until investigations have been carried a little further. It would not be fair to projudice anything in advance.—"Manchester Guardian." ', : ■;'.'■" ". ' ' ' '