The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-03
By A. N. Id1er.

speare was merely the wrolds greatest dramatist, but after a visit to Stratford- on-Avon you will know better. Shake spearej is a good deal more than that. In fact, thanks to stratford enterprise" 1t is almost hard to say what he is not.
 First and foremost, however, he is a money-making machine. All Stratford will agree to that Indeed, I am not sure that his affectionate townsmen ever think of him in any other way. To them he is the basis of local prosperity, the begin ming and the end of Stratford commerce. imports and exports in one. "a good sell ing line,' counter for showing off their goods. a hoarding for advertising their wares, magnificent and everlasting cir GUS.
 All you have ever heard of the American yellow press of P. T. Barnum, and of Yankee dodges for selling patent medi- cines, will seem tame and almost dis piriting by the side of this. Stratford Ia all right. It knows a good thing when 1t sees it. It Is Tive city-it ''hustles," !" 1t has push, and it fairly lives on Shake speare.
 The very gamins of the gutters have caught the atmosphere. They rush at you the moment you show yourself on the street, and run by your side reciting Shakespeare by the yard. An urchin of nine or ten, shoeless. hatless. gabbling off ITO be or not to be-" and stopping every now and then to ask for a copper. stays in my memory as the typo and es- sence of all Stratford.
 What shuold they know of Shakespeare who only Shakespeare know?' asks Strat- ford of the world, and its amazing shops quite justify the question. Until you have looked into them. ninety-nine hun dredths of the man-all of him, that is, fbak YaalI.x ohonf.-zfNaYllV must have escaped you. For instance. you, an average Anglo-Saxon. are proud of your Shakespeare. You think of him with a kind of awe; you wonder how such an immensity of Imagination could CO., exist with such an immensity of mellow ness and sanity; you marvel at those overwhelming gifts of mind and heart that made him not only the greatest of poets and dramatists, but one of the dearest and shrewdest of thinkers. phil osophers and observers Possibly you even read him.
 But this, it will be said, is after all con- fined to the shopkeepers and shopkeepers in all such matters are necessarily-what we know them to be. We'll, if you think th.s, go to the Shakespeare memorial and examine It's exhibits. The building itself is a tumble of all styles of architecture, and, therefore. of none; and the contents COErespOnu iUueeub IL VIII IlUt Ldke you long to decide that there are atrocities and incongruities under the glass cases in the library that really transcend-re- membering the special sense in which the library is consecrated to Shakespeare anything to be found in the shops.
 An Eggsaspsrating Eggsample.
 For example, in this building-which stands there as a national tribute to Shakespeare's genius-I found, preserved in onS of the glass cases, an eggshell. A sort of face had been painted on it. Dis gusting bits of hair had been gummed on to represent eyebrows. beard and mus tache. The artist had so arranged things that, in the result, there was something that might have passed for an insulting caricature of the worst bust of Shake speare that even Stratford possesses. It was a specimen of provincial handiworIS and wit that would have sickened one even at a charity bazar Yet there 1t re- posed, q part of our English offering on Shakespeare's shrine. And that nothing of Its exquisiteness might be lost. there was a scrap of paper close by with this inscription: An egg-zact likeness. The most eggshellent in eggsistence."
 How came such dastardly vulgarism there. It was, 1t turned out, the gift of the late c. F. Flower, and Mir. Flower not only presented the site for the memo rial buildings. but was a very large sub scriber toward the cost of erecting them. I am fully sensible of Mir. Flowers fiber ality, and know quite well how much the whole memorial scheme owed to his enthusiastic energy and his genuine pas sion for Shakespeare. But I cannot think either the eggshell or the inscription he composed to go with 1t adds anything s substantial to his credit It doesn't ''il- lustrate' Shakespeare in any very tangi- ble way; I doubt whether even a German would find it "helpfuI;" and I am quite sure it is not tho sort of thing should like any visitor with good taste to catch sight of. There is only one place where it would be really appropriate, and that Is the ash barrel.
 In the same way q stuffed wildcat may do capitally for dark corner of hotel smoking room. but its presence in the Shakespeare memorial is not to be justi- fled by a quotation from the '"Htming of the Shrew." similar objec-6n applies to a stuffed crocodile; I am not in the | least reconciled to its inclusion by line from Anthony and Cleopatra" If the council think themselves bound to have specimens of everything that Shakespeare mentions, they may as well hire the Brit ish museum at once.
 But there are other exhibits that can not plead even this exceedingly indirect excuse for their presence. In one case. for instance. is a rather curious old fish ing tackle box. Its sole Justification for being there Is that it was found near Stratford Otherwise 1t has just as much connection with Homer as with Shake -