The Confessions of William-Henry Ireland

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In the annals of literary imposture, there is not a more striking instance of boldness on the one side and downright gullibility on the other, than that which is known to Shakespearean Students as the Ireland Forgeries. The contriver and perpetrator of these forgeries, was a young fellow of eighteen, having but a moderate acquaintance with literature, with very little knowledge of the Elizabethan period, and entirely ignorant of the manners and customs of the period to which the papers that he produced pretended to belong. On the other hand, his dupes were, the most of them, men of mature years, of literary training, and strangest of all, in many cases scholars who had made the literature of the Shakespearean period their special study. Notwithstanding these extraordinary conditions, his success was for a while almost complete. Only a very few scholars and Shakespearean critics stood out against the authenticity of the manuscripts but looking back at Ireland's efforts, we wonder that, all other occasions of doubt apart, his dupes did not see that he was deceiving them to order, and that he was practicing literally upon the maxim, "Populus vult decipi et dicipiatur" (People want to be deceived; therefore, let them be deceived).

There is yet another reason for astonishment at the success of such a clumsy literary forgery. For only a few years had passed since "the marvelous boy" Thomas Chatterton, who was to William Ireland as an eagle to a mousing owl, had delighted and deceived the literary world with his famous Rowley manuscripts.

Shakespeare himself has given us the key to the mystery of such a success. As "a jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it," so the success of an imposture depends chiefly upon the receptive disposition of those who are selected as its victims. In the last quarter of the last century, London was just in the mood to receive eagerly and credulously, any plausible pretense of discovery in the field of Shakespearean research. Shakespeare had first then attained that pinnacle of fame, to which succeeding years have only confirmed his title.

It was upon a public in this mood that the young son of Samuel Ireland, well known as a dealer in antique books and prints, was tempted to palm off a series of papers, professing to be written by Shakespeare and rising to the manuscripts of King Lear and of Hamlet, culminated in a tragedy never before heard of, "Vortigern," which was actually produced at Drury Lane Theatre, as Shakespeare's, with John Philip Kemble in the principal part! From this height, the young impostor fell suddenly and headlong. The play was damned on its merits.

That William Ireland should have made such blunders is not surprising, but that he had filled all London, and indeed all England, with excitement over his wonderful discoveries, and have numbered scholars and critics of not undeserved eminence amongst his dupes, is strange. But he gave these people only what they were craving, and were eager to swallow, and as they cried for more he fed them according to their appetite and capacity of belief.

Moreover, he declared that the unknown gentleman, living in a nameless place, in whose house he asserted that he had all these wonderful, priceless, and theretofore unheard-of things, said, that as they had been bequeathed by Shakespeare to a friend named William Ireland (by a deed forged by this young fellow), and as William Henry Ireland (the forger) was a direct descendant of the former, they were his by right of descent!

And now let us hope we have got to the end of Shakespeare forgeries. But who knows? They have been attempted again and again, have almost always been successful at first, but seem doomed in the end to detection.