Like paper marks were the head-pieces and colophons which embellished the books of the sixteenth century; they were cryptic, and to the initiated revealed meanings which they regarded as verbi sapienti, as of of deep significance. Note, for example, the squirrel and nut, used in more modern devices for mere ornament, which formerly suggested that the shell of the letter must be cracked to get at the precious kernel of truth within.
We reproduce a cryptic device often found with some variations in books of the sixteenth century and later. This headpiece comprises several emblems, the squirrel already mentioned, and the light and dark A in whose sheltering curves recline the Asvins, two cherubic figures with a sheaf of wheat between them. These Asvins are said to signify the dualism of creative energy. It is noticeable that the this device appears in the Spencer Folio of 1611 and in the Shakespeare Folios of 1623 and 1632:
And here is another version of the above:
We also reproduce a modification of the double A head-piece with some of the minor emblems and the Asvins, or twin children as they are sometimes called, left out; the scrolls somewhat changed, and a vase of fruit, signifiying plenty, substituted for the wheat. This is the familiar head-piece found in the Shakespeare Quartos and first appears in them on the title-page of the "Contention" in 1594 and is here reproduced:
If we discard the cryptic features of this head-piece altogether, the fact of its careful use on the anonymous Quartos, and those bearing the name "Shakespeare," seem to indicate that they were by one and the same author, who took pains to conceal his authorship of them from the world of his day, while leaving upon them a secret mark by which they might eventually be identified. It is doubtful if anyone would claim that the Stratford actor could have done this. It is certainly a suggestive fact that this head-piece was used in the "Shakespeare" Quartos from 1594 to 1609, as well as in the "Argenis," probably translated in 1623, and that the Quartos were printed by five rival houses, in some cases far removed in point of time from one another, which seems to indicate a directing mind, and not mere coincidence. Of course this head-piece has attracted the attention of students, and Stratfordians were delighted when it was found in a Latin book bearing the date 1563, before Bacon was three years old. Strangely enough, the author, Porta, like Trithemius, was a writer upon ciphers, and this book treats of the art of concealment.
Mr. Smedley, however, who has made an exhaustive search to settle the question of the earliest use of this noted head-piece, has discovered that Porta's book was printed in London in 1591, and falsely dated 1563 so as to pass for the first edition, in which the head-piece does not appear. Mr. Smedley conludes "that Francis Bacon was directing the production of a great quantity of the Elizabethan literature, and in every book in the production of which he was interested, he caused to be inserted one of these devices. He kept the blocks in his own custody; he sent them out to a printer when a book was approved by him for printing. On the completion of the work, the printer returned the blocks to Bacon so that they could be sent elsewhere by him as occasion required; and he gives a list of the works in which the favorite head-piece appears."
The foregoing is from James Phinney Baxter's The Greatest of Literary Problems.
