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Otago Daily Times, Issue 15820, 19 July 1913, Page 6

Yet even on this frank showing your rase were not hopeless. It is with a benefactor of the spscies yon have to do, a.nd he writes (at the foot of. the schedule) " tell lis what kind of !ife companion you wont, and we will attend to the matter at once," —his motto, " Married while vou wait." Hence with confidence lie concludes: " I feel certain that you will not let. the small fee of five dollars deprive you of a loving wife and life-long happiness." Mv correspondent continues: ' One circular' wiis a big surprise. It was a descriptive list of 167 women desiring husbands, and the pictures of 60 of them, including girls >n weir t-o&Es —widows some of them, which is verv pathetic; othcre confessing to tho a"es of 56, 62, and 72 respectively. Ono is 4 foet high, weighs 5 stone 5 pounds, and owns 25 acres of land; anothor is an Indian maiden, black hair and CYC'S, a college education membci of a vaudeville troop. Another, whoso ■affo is "33, height Mt 3, weight 195 pounds, writes " I am tired of bang single and want a dear loving hubby. No objection to age." And £0 on, through tho list. He sends me this illuminated catalogue, and 1 lift my "hat to a portrait gallery altogether new. Hero's to the maiden of bashful fifteen; Here's to the widow of fifty; Here's to tho daunting, extravagant And °here's to the housewife that's thrifty. Thev are all here. Pay your five dollars and' Hing the handkerchief,—the female Barkis £ willin'. You may mate with any degree of disparity m age and station That reminds me of our momentary sraro this week over the engagement of prince Arthur of Connatfght to the Duchess of Fife—the l'nnoe 30 years of a ,r o and the Duchess 46, according to our New Zealand papers. But a glance at this year' 3 Whittaker puts the thing right. The 'Duchess of Fife is not the Kwg 6 widowed sister, aged 46, but her daughter a«cd 22; the Dowager Duchess, it seems," being now the Princess Royal win. So all is right as right can be, a.nd tlie wedding hells may ring. T return, fascinated, to the American marriage market, picking out for notice a havd-fcatorcd candidate who as d mother-in-law might be worth oonsidermrr \mt not in any tenderer relationship. Her catalogue number is 8/0. Missouri, and this is the account she gives of lieiself I am a widow, 62, sft 6, weight 160, "•rav hair, brown eves,- American, lro■tutant, have 40,000 dollars and an inoome of 250 dollars per month, good marry if suited. I do not wish for pomp or power, Nor do I ask for famo; I hciioo may go at any hour— What matter's praiso or blamo? ; n, O dollars, pins the inducement mentinned in I'" 0 three > bnng •an offer' but she has formidable competitors in tl'ie adjacent columns, lleniemhoring that men are swayed by youth and hcautv, yon wonder why some of tho husband -seekers shown here sliould be driven to advertise. But listen to one oi them (544, Indiana)— I am a maiden, 20, sft 7, weight 180, liavo a very good form fuwl do not look to weigh iliat much, blondo hair, blue oves .fair complexion, I am very popular liere' but in this email toivn thero w no on|Kirlun:ty to become ac(|iiaintcd with a congenial person, therefore 1 will lie pleasrd 1o hear from ge.ntle- ' men; 1 livo at homo, chnrucUn* above reproach. Seo photo.

The trouble is hero laid bare at its root; she touches it with the point of a needle. It is not money that niakes marriages, nor position, but juxtaposition. In default of juxtaposition, there may bo a use for marriage agencies.

In repayment-of a Passing Note criticism to which his attention had been drawn, Sir Edward Durning-LawTcnce, Bt., of Bacon-Shakespea.ro or ShaconBakespeare fame, heaps coals of fire on the editor and " Civis" by sending gratuitous specimens of pamphlet literature together with an occasional letter breathing all goodwill. I hasten to acknowlege that your Bacon-Shakespeare enthusiast though mad nor'-nor'-west may at other points of the compass be a. sane and courteous gentleman. For example:

13 Carlton House Terrace, S.W.,

May 24, 1913.

Dear Sir,—l enclose for your acceptance a copy of my "The Shakespeare Myth," ot which the 700,000, has just been printed. But more will be required vorv soor, as the time has now come for the "Bill Shaggs" 1 "mask" to 'bo thrown aside. The other pamphlet is from the Gaelic magazine, Guth na. Bliadhna, of this month, May, 1913, which, I think, if you could find space- for, would prove of (treat interest to your readers, as it is a very clear and succinct account of the whole story. I was asked by Lord Erskino's eon (Hon. Robert) to write of " Macbeth " for his Gaelic magazine, and almost immediately friends sent me the 1588 Buchanan's " H.istorica Scotica" and Boethius's "Scotorum Historia, 1575," both annotated in ..Bacon's handwriting, the existence of which was quite unknown to myself. The matter, therefore, of the Baconi is Shakespeare " pamphlet is absolutely new and quito unknown to -any otlhor writer.—Yours, etc., Edwin Duhxikg-Lawiienck.

Turning over these pamphlets I find nothing but the old story embellished by some new absurdities. Bacon, the oiio supreme genius of the time, wrote the plays, -but for reasons not clear put them forth under the name of William Shakespeare, an illiterate stage clown, leaving distant ages to puzzle out the true authorship from certain impish contrivances in the typography of the First Folio, and from 'mystic allusions in proper names. Perpend this exquisite nonsense:

"As You Like It," first printed in 1623 which means " Wisdom from the mouth of a Fool." tells us quite clearly the'story o? Bacon, 'Shakespeare, and the plays. Two of the characters are Jaques," a Courtier, who is desirous of becoming a Fool, and Touchstone, who is a Fool, but has been a Courtier. Both of these' characters represent Bacon, and when "Jaques" "touches

Stone" we perceive that we obtain " Jaques-Pierre "—that is, "Shakespeare." Prospero, chief figure in "The Tempest," is Bacon—"Prospero" for "pro Shakesporo'M and "pro Shakespero" it is who expounds the inwardness of things-

tells us that Ariel, the spirit of

dramatic poesy, had been confined in the pine (boards of classical books) till he released her; tells us that.Caliban (Shakespeare) had tried to get hold of his daughter "Miranda" (the plays); tolls us that Caliban's (and every actor's) mother was "Sycorax" (the Sugehora,gos), which signifies the person who had previously provided the mean and miserable mumming. Then he breaks his magic staff, for he will in future write no more , plays. . . . Tcllr, us "deeper than ever plummet sound I'll drown my book." It remained drowned as his till the full talc of 287 years had piwsc-d, when at last we hear him say: "My dukedom, ... I know perforce thou must restore I"

Here we come upon a mystery that caps the lot—" the full tale of 287 years." On the fly-leaf opposite the portrait of Shakespeare an the First Folio stand Ben Jonson's graceful lines beginning—

The Figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, . .

Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence quotes the lines and adds this astounding comment :

If my readers will count all the letters in" the above, including the four v's, which are used instead of the two w's, they will find that- there are 287 letters, a masonic number often repeated throughout the Folio. My book, " Bacon is Shakespeare," was published in 1910 (i.e., 287 years after 1623), and tells for the first time the true meaning of these lines.

The 287 letters are 287 years, contrived, counted, measured out, to foreshadow the advent of Sir Edwin Diiming-Lawrence, Bt.,and hJ6 book ''Bacon is Shakespeare." I humble my mind to this staggerer, but in vain. To receive it, one would need to be not merely " mad nor'-nor'-west, 1 ' as Hamlet says/but mad all round—mad as a hatter. ■■ .

Dear "Civis,"—Onco more I crave your guidance in pronunciation. Almost daily I hoar foil; speak of "Pater" and "Mater," sounding the "a" as in "fate." Aro these Latin words; and if so, should not the "a" be sounded as iiy "far"? As with foreigners who are of human kind, so with foreign words; admitted to English citizenship, they leave behind them their original rights and accept whatever conditions of existence we choose to assign them. Masters in our own house are we, the only law our own sweet will. Usage settles everything, and usage has often the air of mere caprice. Thus to one and the same syllable " ough," which is a native, we assign the diverse sounds o, and 00, and ou, and uff, and off, as in "though," and "through,'' and "plough," and "tough, and "cough." It is not to be expected that we should trouble 'aibout consistency in our treatment of foreign words. We pronounce " rendezvous " as jf it were French, and "bulletin" as if it were English. We sound the sin "Paris''' and" we drop it in " Cakis," Then Latin words;— having strayed into English they are treated as English. Such is the 'law court usage -with ''habeas corpus, 1 ' " nisi prius," and the like. It is the usage with my own appellation— a name tolerably well known in the republic of letters. To Cicevo, reading Passin" Notes in the fields of asphodel, I am " Keewis "; but the title by which it chiefly pleases me to be invoked is " Civis," my first a sigh, my. second an echo of "kiss,"—the true-lovers' progress. As for "pater" and "mater,'' if wanted for English domestic use, better let thorn be "paytcr" and "mayter" than suggest another phase of disparity between tho sexes by making, as in Latin, the "a" of the one word short, and the "a'' of the other word loni;. " Patter " and " martyr "—that would never do; the risk of misconstruction is too obvious. Cms