I IO 
NATURE NOTES 
private, unobtrusive, and altogether of a submissive and sub- 
servient type. The Carnegie Library, to be built by the pain- 
fully local gentlemen concerned “ of the best design and material,” 
was no doubt a very useful institution — so was a small-pox 
hospital, — but it did not agree with Shakspeare’s birthplace. 
It was widely felt that the birthplace was enough for the birth 
street, and that to put up a modern free library full of cheap 
modern fiction anywhere near the birthplace of the greatest poet 
of the world would be a grotesque incongruity which would 
put us to shame, and would raise the laugh of scorn at our 
expense throughout all literary Europe. A free library could 
be put up in any rushed-up city in America, but a street where 
Shakspeare was born was a unique possession of humanity 
and should be left secure to itself and to the birthplace for 
all time. It should be said (continued Miss Corelli) that Mr. 
Carnegie was in no way to blame for the intended desecration. 
He did not select the site for the library. He left that to the 
local authorities, which meant— Mr. Flower, the brewer. The 
site was chosen because the land was cheap, and because certain 
economies could be effected in the lighting and heating of the 
Technical School which was to be connected with the Library. 
The name of Shakspeare was not mentioned in the discussion, 
nor was the peculiar sacredness of Henley Street considered. 
The townspeople had nothing to do with the choosing of the 
site. They would be glad and proud if such matters were made 
of truly national and not local concern. The existing Act of 
Parliament with respect to the birthplace was not sufficiently 
protective, it vested all business in the hands of certain persons 
acting as trustees on behalf of the nation. Every person being 
the donor of £100 could be a trustee, but no meeting could be 
considered a meeting unless five members attended. Therefore 
the meeting on May 9, at which only three trustees were present, 
was null and void. She pleaded for the preservation of Henley 
Street from any modern intrusion, not only for ourselves, but 
for all the unborn generations, that they might wend their way, 
as we did, down the historic thoroughfare, and find it spared 
from any touch of modernity. She appealed, with all possible 
earnestness, to secure for Henley Street a share in the national 
trust, so that it might never be interfered with through a scheme 
of merely local convenience. There was a strong force against 
her cause — the force of a whole brewery. It was using every 
possible weapon, it was using even the lampoon and the libel 
against her. She felt, however, that she was espousing a right 
cause, and even if she lost it through the brewer she would 
know that it would be admitted by literary opinion that she was 
right. National protest, if such protest could be got into the press 
—and it often could not— would do much : perhaps a strong 
appeal to Parliament would do more. There were many sites 
