Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere.

As to the cipher systems supposed to reveal hidden messages in the plays: First, no poet bending his energies to the composition of such masterpieces as Shakspere's could possibly concern himself at the same time with weaving into them a complicated and trifling cryptogram. Second, the cipher systems are absolutely arbitrary and unscientific, applied to any writings whatever can be made to 'prove' anything that one likes, and indeed have been discredited in the hands of their own inventors by being made to 'prove' far too much.

Therefore, though the whole point of his "Current Shorthand" is that it can express every sound in the language perfectly, vowels as well as consonants, and that your hand has to make no stroke except the easy and current ones with which you write m, n, and u, l, p, and q, scribbling them at whatever angle comes easiest to you, his unfortunate determination to make this remarkable and quite legible script serve also as a Shorthand reduced it in his own practice to the most inscrutable of cryptograms. His true objective was the provision of a full, accurate, legible script for our noble but ill-dressed language; but he was led past that by his contempt for the popular Pitman system of Shorthand, which he called the Pitfall system.

It is as if the same rule book is used to describe two entirely different games - although a better analogy is probably that of a cryptogram with an encoded message, as it is not always easy to translate results from one system to the other.

Meanwhile, over in San Francisco, Iris (Crystal Balint) finds her old cryptogram machine and has a bright idea.

(3) The cryptogram is then embedded into the original frame.

Traditional payment cards have a static cryptogram (CVV2) used to pay online and printed on the back of the card, next to the signature pad.

One particular story concerns Olivier Levasseur who frequented the islands in the 18th century and is said to have left behind a haul of treasure worth more than $1bn -- as well as a cryptogram detailing its whereabouts.

The 2000 work Schlussgesang, written for clarinet, viola and cello, is dedicated to the memory of the German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, whose name is encoded in the music as a cryptogram. The clarinet, playing multiphonics, veils the entire piece in a strange haze.

Device-specific cryptograms. The cryptogram ensures that the payment originated from the card-holder's device.

The first folio returns to London before April's out but the exhibition runs until August 31 and there are other gems to see, including The Great Cryptogram by Ignatius Donnelly who tied himself in knots to 'prove' that Shakespeare's plays were written by Sir Francis Bacon.