Morning journal and courier., 1880-01-02
Spelling of shakespeare'sN Name.

Under the title of (which shall it be-Shax- pers or Shakespeare ?" the veteran Shakes pearean scholar, Mir. J. Halliwell-P Phillips, has printed for private distribution small pamphlet, which goes far to settle the vexed question of the spelling of Shakespeares name. Fir. Furnivall seemed to many people to stand OF solid ground when he affirmed that the great dramatist surely knew how to spell his own name. His signature occurs three times iii his will, and there 1t is spelled Shekspere. What could be more conclusive?
 Happily for the interests of minute contro
 versy, the form in which Shakespeare wrote his name on this occasion is not so conclusive as 1t seems. People were not so particular i'll the Eiizabethan age as they are now aboutthe spelling of their names, and, if anything, had a preferences for varying the spelling, as If to
 try how their names would look in different
 forms. Nowadays Browne would consider it
 deliberate and intentional insult to write his
 name without the e, and Smythe would throw
 a letter into the fire if it came addressed to
 him as plain Smith. But MT. Halliwell-
 Phillips has collected number of instances
 to prove what he does not point out for the
 first time, that the men of the seventeenth
 century, even of the first families, above all
 suspicion of not being able to spell, did not
 care for uniformity. Thomas Fuller says he
 has seen the honorable name of Villiers writ
 ten 14 several different ways in their own evil
 dence Shakespeare's son-in-law signed him
 self indifferently Hawle, Halle, and Haule;
 Rowley, the poet, Rouley, Rowleye, and Row ley; Alleyne, the actor, Alleyne, Aneyn, Al
 lin, and Allen. With these and many other
 examples to back him, MT. Hardiweu-Phil- lips may well contend that to follow sigma lures would ''revolutionize the system of ear ly nominal orthograpby and lead to prepos terous results" But what authority are we
 to follow7 We have spoken of Mir. HaIliweu- Phillips pamphlet as settling the question,
 but perhaps we should rather say that 1t un-
 settles the question. He does not however,
 leave us without guiding principle. We should spell the first syllable, he thinks, as it is pronounced. We do not pronounce it
 "Shak-pere," and, therefore, should not spell it Singapore" It was pronounced 'tShake- spear" by his literary contemporaries and so spelled by Ben Johnson, by the editors of the first folio of his works, and by himself, or printers under his supervision, in two printed letters. People may, therefore, in defiance of the New Shakspere Society, go on spelling it Shakespeare, without feeling that they thereby cast upon the poet the imputation that he did not know how to spell his own name.
 Thomaston's grand list is $1. .3s2, 172. Over | $2OO, 900 is invested in manufacturing. The large boafding house near the west end | of the bridge in Collinsville, belonging to the Collins company, was burned on the morning of December 26th.
 It is thought that the railroad company will sell the present site of the depot and the post | office in Meriden and erect new passenger ! depot which will span the track.
 The Rev. Hugh Montgomery, of the Cen l traI M. E. church of Norwich, is in New York laboring in the liberal Catholic move ! ment there, and is to be financial agent of
 that organization.
 The infant child of William E. Smith, of Meriden was fatally burned Friday in it's l cradle by a young sister of the child accident | ally overturning teapot filled with boiling | water upon it's face and breast.
 | A coal barge got caught recently under the
 draw of the Saugatuck carriage bridge in
 such 8 way that she could not be moved for ward or backward. The tide was rising al, the
 time, and the result was the barge lifted the l bridge entirely of it's bearings.