TOPICS OF THE DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21259, 1 November 1940, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Treasures in Peril Referring to the danger of destroying art treasures when inexperienced people obey the orders to clear out the attics of London the Times remarks : Experts, on the other hand, know well the risks of loss through these summary ways. Some twenty years ago, when a great old Scottish house was being dismantled, it was found that, roughly speaking, not the higher you go the fewer, but the higher they went the more numerous the choice bits of furniture, of china, of embroidery, of engraving—things which, as fashion changed century by century, had been sent up, floor by floor, for the use of the minor guests, of the children, of the servants, and, as fashion changed back again under the influence of archaism, had been overlooked or not considered important enough to be brought down again. English palaeographers and literary historians dream that, not in the cellar* of the Folger Library, but in the attics of some old English country house will be found that holograph manuscript of, bay, Hamlet, or King Lear, or Twelfth Night, which will prove once and for all that Shakespeare, as the schoolboy said, was not written by William Shakespeare but by another gentleman ol the came name.