Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 107, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1899 — Truly Remarkable. [ARTICLE]

Truly Remarkable.

When the artist Haydon, stopping In a rural inn near Stratford, was beguiled by his own enthusiasm Into expatia.tlng upon the fame of Shakespeare to an assembly of local rustics, they admitted readily that Shakespeare 'was a person who had shed some di» tinctlon upon his native place; but they added that Stratford now contained another prodigy, one John Cooper. “John Cooper?” inquired Haydon, “W’hy what has he done?” “Why, zur, I’ll tell ’e,” replied the spokesman. “He’s lived ninety years In that ’ere town, man and boy, and nlver had the toothache.” This ancient anecdote has recently found a parallel in the same English county. A woman from Nuneaton was making a local boast of its connection with “the lady with a man’s name who wrote books,” meaning George Eliot, when another woman from a neighboring village contemptuously interrupted her. “With a man’s name!” she cried, scornfully. “What’s that? And what’s the good o’ books? Now we’ve a woman you may talk about In our place. She’s lived a hundred years and a bit over, and quarreled with seven daughters and two daughters-in-law and all her grandchildren! And her tongue’s as brisk as ever it were, and she quarrels with the parson’s wife herself every time she comes to visit her. That’s what I call a woman to respect, and a fine sight more to boast of than a person who miscalls her own name and makes books!”