Books and Bookmen [24]
to the stage, was taken in by a boy of eighteen. Young Ireland not
only palmed off his sham prose documents, most makeshift imitations
of the antique, but even his ridiculous verses on the experts.
James Boswell went down on his knees and thanked Heaven for the
sight of them, and, feeling thirsty after these devotions, drank hot
brandy and water. Dr. Parr was not less readily gulled, and
probably the experts, like Malone, who held aloof, were as much
influenced by jealousy as by science. The whole story of young
Ireland's forgeries is not only too long to be told here, but forms
the topic of a novel ('The Talk of the Town') by Mr. James Payn.
The frauds in his hands lose neither their humour nor their
complicated interest of plot. To be brief, then, Mr. Samuel Ireland
was a gentleman extremely fond of old literature and old books. If
we may trust the 'Confessions' (1805) of his candid son, Mr. W. H.
Ireland, a more harmless and confiding old person than Samuel never
collected early English tracts. Living in his learned society, his
son, Mr. W. H. Ireland, acquired not only a passion for black
letters, but a desire to emulate Chatterton. His first step in
guilt was the forgery of an autograph on an old pamphlet, with which
he gratified Samuel Ireland. He also wrote a sham inscription on a
modern bust of Cromwell, which he represented as an authentic
antique. Finding that the critics were taken in, and attributed
this new bust to the old sculptor Simeon, Ireland conceived a very
low and not unjustifiable opinion of critical tact. Critics would
find merit in anything which seemed old enough. Ireland's next
achievement was the forgery of some legal documents concerning
Shakespeare. Just as the bad man who deceived the guileless Mr.
Shapira forged his 'Deuteronomy' on the blank spaces of old
synagogue rolls, so young Ireland used the cut-off ends of old rent
rolls. He next bought up quantities of old fly-leaves of books, and
on this ancient paper he indicted a sham confession of faith, which
he attributed to Shakespeare. Being a strong "evangelical," young
Mr. Ireland gave a very Protestant complexion to this edifying
document. And still the critics gaped and wondered and believed.
Ireland's method was to write in an ink made by blending various
liquids used in the marbling of paper for bookbinding. This stuff
was supplied to him by a bookbinder's apprentice. When people asked
questions as to whence all the new Shakespeare manuscripts came, he
said they were presented to him by a gentleman who wished to remain
anonymous. Finally, the impossibility of producing this gentleman
was one of the causes of the detection of the fraud. According to
himself, Ireland performed prodigies of acuteness. Once he had
forged, at random, the name of a contemporary of Shakespeare. He
was confronted with a genuine signature, which, of course, was quite
different. He obtained leave to consult his "anonymous gentleman,"
rushed home, forged the name again on the model of what had been
shown to him, and returned with this signature as a new gift from
his benefactor. That nameless friend had informed him (he swore)
that there were two persons of the same name, and that both
signatures were genuine. Ireland's impudence went the length of
introducing an ancestor of his own, with the same name as himself,
among the companions of Shakespeare. If 'Vortigern' had succeeded
(and it was actually put on the stage with all possible pomp),
Ireland meant to have produced a series of pseudo-Shakespearian
plays from William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth. When busy with
'Vortigern,' he was detected by a friend of his own age, who pounced
on him while he was at work, as Lasus pounced on Onomacritus. The
discoverer, however, consented to "stand in" with Ireland, and did
not divulge his secret. At last, after the fiasco of 'Vortigern,'
suspicion waxed so strong, and disagreeable inquiries for the
anonymous benefactor were so numerous, that Ireland fled from his
father's house.