The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-02-02
FALSE RELICS AT STAMFORD.

And Doubt Cast on the Anne Hatha-
 way Cottage at Shottery
 We visit Shakespeare's shrine with feelings of reverence. and the majority of visitors naturally accept implicitly the statements that are made and be- lieve in the proved genuineness of the relics shown to them. It will be a rude shock to thousands of English and American devotees either to discover that the necessary authenticity is lack ing or to learn that there never was any proved connection between the poet and some of the most conspicious articles labelled with his name Yet assertions are so dogmatically made that a casual visitor would possess temerity to reject them.
 allege no i'll faith against the guides and curators. They are sincere enough. and they perform their set duties with unvaryipg courtesy and patience. It is mot theirs to reason why" That task is for independent students, in spite of any temporary hostility their heterodoxy maysexcite.
 My first nrotest is against the so- called shakespeare desk" exhibited at his birthplace The assumption that it was Shakespeare's is unwarrantable. is extremely doubtful whether the desk dates so far back as Shakespeare's time; it is absolutely certain that it never was a scholars desk at all, but an usher's. This fatal objection is got over by Snowden Ward, among others, by saying that perhaps Shakespeare was a schoolmaster" Perhaps he was perhaps he was head master of the grammar school, for there is just as much evidence on the one point as the other, but still we do not prove the desk to be his,, This piece of old furni- ture from the Latin room is interesting enough as old furniture-nothing more.
 In New Place ther is an antique shovel board, and the visitor is inform ed q speaking from personal exper- ience) that if Shakespeare did not actually own it he often played game upon it. As matter of fact, it came from the public house opposite, the Fall conInn, and those who care to believe that our .godlike Shakespeare wasted his nights there may hold the shovel board as sacred. But there is not an ieta of proof that he knew of its exist ence, and yet it is thought worthy of the most conspicious place in the hall of his rebuilt residence.
 Equally in keeping with this tavern couousity is the mulberry tree at the back of the house, guarded with utmost care, railsd round, proudly pointed out, because it acords with the local senti- ment of propriety to credit that Shakes peare drank too hard" under the tree of which this is an offshot, and died of a surfeit three days later That foul tradition rests on the uncorroborated statement of picker up of unconsid- cred trifles, who extracted it from the dust heap of village legends nearly a century after the poets death.
 The delicacy which obtrudes the mul- berry tree on the notice of visitors also 1 is the means of calling attention to the Shakespeare lagon," of which the ut-
 most that can be recorded by such an enthusiast as Snowden Ward is that 'it is said to have been the poets s. , Yet know that visitors to New Place never go away without being convinced that Shakespeares own lips have 1 touched it.
 1 Genuine relics of Shakespeare there are. One is his signet ring, the other is