The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-12
WILLIAM HENRY SHAKESPEARE


 From the New York Globe.
 The decision of tribunal in Chicago a city which easily takes precedence over all others as an authority on authorship that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeares s plays, and the later prospect that the case Will be reviewed, with. of course, the possibility of a reversal, is only one ex- pression of municipal interest in the Shakespeare tercentenary. Mayor Curley of Boston provided another when at the recent Shakespearian festival in the Bos- ton opera house he referred to the au- Shakespeare. The Boston executive thus recalled to mind the late Sir Augustus Harris who, in the course of a little ad- dress to the audience on the occasion of the first performance in New York of Humperdincks "Hansel und Gretel" al luded pleasantly to the beautiful music
 Herr Humpernickel had supplied for the production-a sorry blow to an amiable and then innocent composer, composer who had not yet committed "Konigs-
 kinder" But Boston and vicinity have lOH5 Detil d HOtDCo Ol Ci doilC III S'ti6o- tion The library of Harvard college,
 which insists on cataloging the novels of the late Georges Sand under the name of Dudevant, carried it's diligence so far as
 to discover @ Wilhelm in the name of Richard Wsgner-the composer of Iris tan and "The Ring none other. Sub seauently the librarians did cross the Well
 helm off the catalog cards, but the eras- ure Eerpetuates the proof of the original ingenuity. Mayor Curley in proclaiming
 William of Avon 'arry, too, thus fol- thor of the plays as William Henry lowed a time honered tradition of the seat of lea: ming across the Charles from his Athcniar city.
 The mayor of Boston is not the first functicnary to meddle with the name of Shakespeare An enthusiastic auditor of the late Artemus Ward. on the occasion of lecture given in a barroom at Big Creek, New, by that eminent writer and speaker, was precisely the bartender. q had" says Ward, "a good audience at Big Creek who semed to be pleased, the barkeeper especially, for at the close of any point that I sought to make he would deal the counter vigorous blow with his fist and exclaim, Good boy from the New England states. Listen to Will liam w. Shakespeare! Later Ward him. self visited tomb in the Stratford church yard, which he supposed to be the tomb Of Shakespeare. Let Ward tell the tale This I said, this marks the spot where i:es William w. Shakespeare l What the w. stands for the barkeeper | did not vouchsafe We have an over- wheim ng suspicion that were the name written out in full it would run Will | liam Winter Shakespeare. It could how ever, stand for Wendell, and as Barrett | Wendell long ago succeeded in putting over on Harvard his favorite spelling oi i the final name, Shakspere, perhaps il does, Professor Wendell maintained with the full heat of his ardent temperature that Shakespeare being the one way He 1 of Avon never wrote his name, though | he wrote 1t in almost numberless other com binaticns (to say nothing of the intri, cacies of cryptogrammic orthography., Shakespeare should never be used We should like now to ask the enthusiastic teacher of youth if on mature reflectio. his reason is not perhaps precisely tht Urea son why Shakespeare should be uset
 and all other forms eschewed.