The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-03-19
M E N y, w o M B N
 AMI 1T H N c s

liet's prologue to Robert Mantells Ro- nance" and therefore had no space in which to set down anything about the and do it.
 l like a biographer who is willing to let his subject walk through the pages Of his volume as a human being and not a paragon or demi-god. It may be heresy for me to admit it, but wouldn't care to read the story of an angel even though it was written under inspiration.
 Friend Bullet is not averse to permit ting us to catch glimpses. of Manteii when, so to speak, he is not dressed out for the public, It was his ambition to make Robert Mantell known somewhat as we know David Coppertield or Tom Jones, not as we know the bloodless he roes of the Dictionary of National Bi- ography.
 How often in looking up a mans life in such aework have 1 felt that all of the humanity had been squeezed out of him, and all that was left was spineless corpse loosely wabbling around in his skel- eton from which all flesb had been stripped One reason George Washing tor has been frost so long in history comes from the fact that his early bi- ographers were afraid to tell the truth about some \of his weaknesses.
 But best of. all about Bullet as biographer is his shameless disregard or sticking to any set plan, for any time he feels like breaking the symmetry by inserting something out of it's place he seems to take genuine pleasure in so doing, which is a delight in this day when everything is catalogued and card ndexed and wrapped up in the mummy cloth of efficiencyl
 | A man who takes such liberties with his hero is apt to give him away on the slightest provocation, and give us glmpses of a man instead of dummy. l do not mean that he juggles with the facts, for he makes bold to claim that he knows 6,742 facts about Mantell, while only seven and one-haH facts are known about the immortal Shakespeare, whom his hero impersonates so well. Facts are all right if you do not let them dominate you.
 If you think his family tree is going to wave continuously you will be mis- taken as about the only bit of pride shown was that of his mother. Elizabeth Bruce, who was quite sure that she was a direct descendant of Robert Bruce, national hero of Scotland. But>why chide her even though she might possibly have been mistaken. for there does not breathe a loyal Scot anywhere in the wide world by the name of | who does not make the same claim.
 It is refreshing to read that James Man- tell, his father. was an Englishman who periodically hated the Scotch in general, but who showed his good taste by falling in love with one Scotch lassie in partic- ular, Elizabeth Bruce. If his bride could trace her ancestry back to the Great Scot" he was not to be outdone, for like many Englishmen of repute, he linked up his ancestors with the Mantells, who came over with William the Conqueror.
 But I'll, climb down out of what might on investigation turn out to be apocrypha1 family trees, and say that the only Man tell among Bobs forbears who seems to have got a place in history was Dr. Gideon Algernon Mantell the geologist. who immortalized- himself by the dis covery of the Dionosaurian reptiles, who born in 1790 and dying in, 1852, still has his name kept green in the British museum, as his collection of fossils form now a very important section of the nations geological treasures.
 lugged the fossiliferous cousin in to be able to tell a good one on his nephew which happened in the callow days of his youth, after he had migrated to this country He was playing in Salem, and ore day in strolling through the quaint old city he was brought to a standstill in front of shop window in which a fossil fish labelled "Maptell' was exhib- ited for sale. Robert thought somebody who had seen the show the night before was ''spoofing' him, but upon inquiry it developed that it had at one time be- longed to the Mantell collection, and was highly prized as we'll as priced.
 But I pass from his scientific cousin and his scientific collection of Dionosau- rian crawling creature to ManteH the Clown" the only snowman in the fam ily who flourished in the days of Joseph Grimaldi, the most celebrated of all Eng fish clowns who scored so tremendously in Mother Goose. and other pantomimes at Covent Gardea in the latter days or the eighteenth century. Mantell was his | greatest rival Robert Mantell saw a crude picture of his famous relative in a tavern in Drury Lane a few years back and tried to buy it. but the inn keeper, who prided himself on his coi- lection of stage oddities. refused to part with it at any price.
 Now. think a whole lot more of Rob- r ert Mantell. famous as an actor on both sides of the Atlantic, trying to buy the picture Of his kinsman clown, than if he had commissioned the foremost DOT trait painter of his day to paint in oil some faked ancestor of either the Robert Bruce or the William the Conqueror lines, It is in just such little. things that one gets a true insight into mans char acter. Its the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin"