1796.]

66

IRELAND'S SHAKSPEARE PAPERS."

At, O parentes, tum vos, quibus esse contigit,

135

Tum vos, quibus non contigit, germina pulchros-filios-procreantis segetis,

Si felices optatis extra-domos itiones

Pueris vestris, bene eos intra domos servate.

Three children sliding on the ice

All on a summer's day,

It so fell out they all fell in:

The rest they ran away.

But had they stay'd within the house,
Or play'd on solid ground,

I'd wager seas and hills of gold,

They had not then been drown'd.

So, parents, that no children have,
And eke ye that have some,

If you would know they're safe abroad,
Keep them lock'd up at home.

The signature "S. England" was used in sarcastic allusion to Samuel Ireland, who was then publishing the forged papers attributed to Shakspeare, which his son, William Henry Ireland, pretended to have discovered in a chest at the house of a gentleman in the country.

When these papers were exposed to the view of the public, Porson, among others, went to look at them. Being asked by Ireland, the father, to set his name to a declaration of his belief in their genuineness, he replied that he would rather be excused, as he was slow to subscribe to articles of faith. His caution, in this affair, stands in such felicitous contrast to the precipitancy of many of his contemporaries, that we cannot but feel inclined to fix our attention for a while on the subject.

Though there are many detached notices, and a fragmentary confession of the younger Ireland, concerning this imposture, a remarkable event in literary history, there has been hitherto, we believe, no clear and direct

account of its origin and progress. Porson's judgment, as directed to the papers, is so admirably manifested, and so advantageously compared with that of Parr and others, that we are led to bestow our attention on the subject at such length as may seem to require some apology.

William Henry Ireland, the son of Samuel Ireland, an artist, having received a fair education, first at three schools in England, and afterwards, for three years, at the College of Eu in Normandy, had been articled, at the age of sixteen, to a solicitor in New Inn. From his father he derived a taste for old books, and paid more attention to booksellers' shops and stalls than to his legal studies; and as his father used to extol Shakspeare as a demigod, and frequently to express his wonder that no relic of his handwriting was to be found, except the signature to his will in the Commons, and his name attached to the mortgage-deed in the possession of Garrick, he was led to repeated perusals of Shakspeare's plays, and to conceive that if some apparently old writing could be produced as Shakspeare's, it might perhaps occasion some diversion by deceiving credulous searchers after the antique.

As his occupation often engaged him in the perusal of old deeds, he at length began to imagine the possibility of executing such a project. Securing some old paper, and getting from the journeyman of a bookbinder named Laurie a liquid to imitate faded ink, which was used in marbling the covers of books, and which, being held to the fire, became brown, he forged, as his first attempt, a letter of presentation to Queen Elizabeth, pretended to be written by the author of a

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IRELAND'S STRATAGEMS.

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thin pamphlet which he had picked up at a book-stall. This he showed to his father, who had no doubt of its genuineness.

Elated with his success in this attempt, he proceeded to the production of his Shakspeare papers. He invented a story, which he told his father and others, that he had formed an acquaintance with a gentleman in the country, who, learning his fondness for old writings, had invited him to his house, and offered him the liberty of turning over a chest-full of old deeds, which he had inherited from his father, an eminent lawyer; that he had been unwilling, for some time, to accept the invitation, lest the search should cause him only disappointment or ridicule; but that at length resolving to go, he was reproached for not coming sooner, and found a great quantity of papers tied up in bundles. Among these was the pretended lease of two houses from Shakspeare and Hemynge to Michael Fraser, which the gentleman gave him on condition that he should receive a copy of it, and promised him, at the same time, whatever else he should find worthy of notice.

Hearing it questioned whether Shakspeare had been a Catholic or a Protestant, he wrote a "Profession of Faith" for Shakspeare to prove him a Protestant; and then, to prove him, he says, a good-natured man, he wrote a letter for him, short but pleasant, to one Richard Cowley.

Other documents came forth in quick succession; a letter from Queen Elizabeth to Shakspeare; a note of hand and some theatrical receipts; a letter and some verses to Anne Hathaway; a letter to Lord Southampton and another from him; agreements with

John Lowine and Henry Condell; and, what was the most audacious of all the inventions, a deed of gift of certain plays in manuscript to one William Henry Ireland, for having saved Shakspeare's life when he was almost drowned through falling into the Thames. He was induced to forge this instrument by the remark that, if a descendant of Shakspeare should come forward, he might claim the papers, and said that the gentleman had observed that they formerly belonged to a Mr. Ireland, one of Ireland's own family, and were consequently Mr. Samuel Ireland's rightful property. For these writings he procured fly-leaves of old books, and other discoloured papers, from a bookseller named Verey in St. Martin's Lane. He used to lay before him, when writing, a deed of the time of James I., and cut off seals from old deeds to affix to his productions.

A young man of his acquaintance, named Montague Talbot, also articled to an attorney, suspected that all these documents were forgeries, and charged young Ireland with the execution of them. This charge he positively denied; but Montague, still retaining his suspicions, burst suddenly one day into Ireland's room, and surprised him in the act of forging. Ireland then entreated that he would not betray him, alleging his fear of his father's anger, when he should find that he had been deceived; and the two young fellows seem then to have acted in concert, the one continuing to forge writings, and the other furthering the deception among his friends and connexions.

Having heard some critics observe, that if a manuscript of one of Shakspeare's plays could be found, in his own handwriting, it would show whether he wrote