Jonson’s short dedicatory poem in the First Folio, To the Reader, is in the prime position facing the Droeshout portait. It contains 272 letters.

To the Reader.

 This figure, that thou here seest put

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;

Wherein the Graver had a Strife

With Nature, to out-doo the life:

O, could he but have drawne his wit

As well in brasse, as he hath hit

His face; the Print would then surpasse

All, that was ever writ in brasse.

But, since he cannot, Reader, looke

Not on his Picture, but his Booke.

In a discussion thread attached to the short online course, “Who Wrote Shakespeare?” Tutored by Dr Ros Barber, it was pointed out by a fellow student, that in 2007, Mr C. Gamble wrote that he had discovered, against the odds, the letter ‘m’ was missing from the poem. Other students pointed out that five other letters, j,q,x,y and z, were also missing. Four of these, j,q,x,z, occur, on average, on much higher letter counts in written English. ‘J’, the most common of these four letters, only occurs, on average, every 653 letters. Thus, their absence from the 272 letters-long poem is not significant. The letter ‘y’ is different.

Letter ‘y’ occurs, on average, every 50 letters. So, over five times in 272 letters; but it does not appear in the poem at all.

Letter ‘m’ occurs, on average, every 41 letters. So, over six times in 272 letters; but it, as Mr Gamble discovered, does not appear in the poem at all.

It seems that Ben Jonson has deliberately highlighted the letters ‘m’ and ‘y’ by omission from his poem. The letters ‘m’ and ‘y’ begin and end the name, Munday. They are pointing to and supporting the clues in the Droeshout picture puzzle on the facing page to the poem.