The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-03

speare. A Kruger half crown, some Jubilee and Coronation medals that figure in other cases. have. if possible, even less An Improved genealogical chart of the royal family" Is simply irrelevant A new set of Shakesperean playing cards" "to be had of all statlons," and displayed, if you please. under glass, is something worse. After this it is almost a relief to turn to key of an old church, where Shakespeare may have been married and to a pair of nut-crackers, of which no- body knows anything except that they may have been Shakespeare's. By com parison. their appositeness Is quite start ling.
 Purge the Temple.
 The truth is, the whole collection needs to be gone over with a rake. The coun- Gil evidently have not realized that in running an institution of this kind the necessity of excluding the wrong thing Is just as stringent as the necessity of including the right thing. The latter they have done admirably. and as a Shake speare lover I am humblv and sincerely grateful. But 1t is painfully cleSr that they have been altogether too lenient in admitting the unessential the unneces- sary. the irrelevant. and even the blatant; and unless they are more careful in the future they will end by finding themselves utterly swamped with rubbish. They might very we'll take hint from the little museum at the birthplace. There every thing is good taste and everything, or almost everything. distinctly bears on Shakespeare--so much so that even d student of his works can visit it.
 What the council should particularly guard against is the irruption of self advertising melodies. There is at least one nauseating example to show that in the past they have not been sufficiently no the alert. It sounds incredible, but 1t is a fact that nearly the whole of one case is given up to the original manu- scripts of some plays by Mir. Alfred Calmour This Mir. Calfour, it seems, has written book of sorts about Shake- speare ;and he also apparently writes plays. And on the strength of this he Is to be permitted or encouraged to rank alongside of Shakespeare ard catch, no doubt, something of his reflected glory; his precious original manuscrips' are to be guarded and preserved like a first folio; and Calmour and Shakespeare are to go down to posterity hand in hand. Just think of the preposterous egotism on the one side and the all but criminal neg ligence on the other that could alone have made such an arrangement possi- blei
 It is with rather a shock, too, that one discovers the greater portion of another case devoted to first editions of stephen Phillipss writings-accompanied by a puffing brochure brought out by his pub fisher; and the shock Is not lessened. though I do not say 1t Is increased, by finding that the donor of these valuable volumes Is also the manager of we'll known Birmingham bookshop. They are very proud of Mir. Phillips in Stratford, and no doubt quite rightly-he was edu- cated there. But l think their pride might have taken a less venturesome form than that of linking him so pub licly and pronouncedly with Shakespeare.
 Once upon a time collector of pictures wished to sell his treasures. But before he sold them he determined that copies should be made wherewith to cover the walls of his gallery. He consulted an ex- pert upon his project, who told him sadly that it was too late. The trick had al. ready been played; the originals were gone and nothing was left save set of inferior copies. As We walked through the crowded streets of Stratford we were reminded of this story. The mob of tour ists, the shops packed with foolish little husts and pictures of the poet. the strange whisperings about the birthplace. all told us that it was too late.
 The original Stratford disappeared as long ago as New Place, and nothing is left to do honor to the poet but a vast tea garden. The very cabmen have caught the odious Jargon. They speak of Shakespeare with tears in their voice; they assume a tone of sentimentality which may amuse the foreign tripper, but which can do little else than disgust the unprejudiced pilgrim; and they turn 10 instant ridicule the genuine emotions which the aspect of Shakespeare's native town might legitimately have inspired. Here. they say. fin their droning voice, the poet went to schol;" there he did his cour ting;"' and ono cabman. more drunk than the rest with the genius loci, was so fully convinced of some inherent virtue which lurked in ''birthplaces" that he showed us his own as we'll as tho poets.
 These, then. are a few of the things this entire lack of proportion, this brawl- ing vulgarity, thls rampant commercial ism-that make Statford so intolerably offensive. It would probably surprise the Inhabitants if they knew what people say and think of the way fin which they have run" Shakespeare. And yet people go on discussing whether the new Carnegie Library will "spoil Stratford." The thing Is impossible. Stratford Is spoiled already Shakespeare was born there.