The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-08-25
A PIECE OF DISSERTATION.

The controversy as to whether SHAK-
sPEARE or BACON wrote the works bearing
the formers name still goes on in a feeble
way, but it is gratifying to all lovers of the
grand and lofty sentiments which the vol
ume contains that it is really dying out.
IGNATIUs DoNNELLY, of Minnesota, has
spent small fortune and realized next to
nothing in the endeavor to make it appear
that by means of an occulte6 CIPHER which
he brought to light and interpreted, FRAN
CTS BACON was the one whom we should
idolize as the creator of the works all
along ascribed to the "Bard of Avon"
This goes to show that the labors of the
iconoclast in this particular direction are
about ended, that SHAKESPEARE cannot be
toppled over from his pedestal, that those
who gather SCOT to cast upon his monument
do not besmirch it, but their own hands in
stead.
This business of attacking SHAKsPEARE's
works has produced nothing of good and a
great deal of harm. BY overthrowing for
a season the fortified regard in which the
great public here and elsewhere hold and
have held the name itself, the motley crew
who thrive on decayed regulations have
taken advantage of the situation and
rushed in to garner whatever of profit the
situation seemed to offer. If the normal
condition of things had been permitted to
remain, they would not have dared to desc
crate the sanctuary. AS it is, every man
in the land whose tendencies are pessi-
mistic and who has read enough to know
hat ! SC low 70 ha f0aA q
reader has his own little handful
of dirt to throw at the grand
est figure of medieval times.
Not only those who read little, but those
who act a little, and act badly, have their
vile contribution, and the better sense of
an intelligent community must needs be
outraged now and then in order that these
sordid strollers may add a few d2llars to
their eXchequers.
The most striking and certainly one of
the most Objectionable instances in point
occurred recently in one of the places of
amusement in this city. An alleged actor
named MANTELL, supported" (heaven
knows he needed support) by company to
put into whose mouths line of poetry was
equal to placing rose petals between the
jaws of warty toad, appeared in ''Othello."
We are accustomed to seeing amateur per-
formers climb high and take hold of diff
cut pieces, ana so long as they are amateurs
and claim nothing more, this is commend
able; albeit, even then, we see such in
fictions perpetrated upon popular idols as
make US almost vince. OTHELLo, one of
the bard's greatest heroes, for the first
time in the history of the drama,
was made dude, dandified
nondescript whose presence was about all
there was of him. SHAKESPEARE caused
DEsDEMoNA to say as Illustrative Of what
the moor is supposed to be, that she saw
his visage in his mind and loved him for
the dangers he had passed. meaning
thereby that there was little else to at
tract romantic maiden; MANTELL re-
versed all this and made the Moor very
light tan -colored man with remarkably fine
legs exhibited to the thigh such a fellow
as girl who hadn't much sense would go
crazy after. That, of course, was the
actors winning card he plays to the weak
side of his audience, not to the iudicious
and skilled; and in order to make point
does not hesitate to perpetrate the outrage
spoken of.
We care nothing for all this beyond max
ing the point that once let down the bars
and all the scrubs in the neighborhood rush
in. Once let DoNNELLY or others Of his |
kind trifle with sacred memories and every
tenth-class actor in the land Immediately
has an improvement to present. So long
as their efforts in this direction are con-
fined to some such thing as 1.-THE Mug
wump's Revenge. or MCKNIGHT's ''Reb-
bers of the Rocky Mountains we have
nothing to say; but going beyond this
raises an earnest protest.