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PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON.

For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded free of postage.

Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes. handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume. ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers.

ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value.

THE VOLUNTEER ON JULY 14th.

You must wake and call me early, when the early birds appear,

To-morrow will be a glorious day for each London volunteer:

For each London volunteer by far the hottest, heaviest day

For we're to shain fight at Chiselhurst, four thousand strong, they say.

There's many a crack, crack corps I know, but none so crack as mine, There's the queen's and artillery company, almost equal to the line,

But none can beat our local corps, whether red, or green, or gray,

And so we shall prove at Chiselhurst in to-mor. row's tremendous fray.

I sleep so sound after evening drill, that I shall

never wake,

If the maid doesn't knock extremely loud when

my boots she comes to take; And you'll have to cut me some sandwiches, and cut them substantial, prayWe shall all have desperate appetites at Chiselhurst, I dare say.

As I came up to our private parade, whom think ye I should see,

But that ass, Smivens-a coming it as cheeky as could be:

He gave a look at my uniform, as if he meant to say:

"How can you make such a guy of yourself, old chap, at your time of day?"

He thought I should be offended, but I guess I sold him quite;

For I passed, and no more gave him a look than

if he'd been out of sight;

You may tell me it's snobbish to cut a man, but this is what I say;

That the chap who don't join a volunteer corps has thrown his manhood away.

They say we shall fire thirty rounds, I don't know how that may be;

I've not fired more than ten rounds yet, and that was enough for me.

For what with biting the cartridges, and what with blazing away,

I'd a taste in my mouth, and a buzz in my ears, for all the rest of the day.

Lord Ranelagh as Commander-in-Chief to-morrow will be seen,

And as his uniform is gray, let us hope he wont turn out green;

I trust he'll remember which is attack, and which is defence, in the fray,

Or we certainly shall have a difficulty about who is to give way.

The war office has issued no end of rounds and

caps;

And in Regent's Park and on Putney Heath spent cartridges dot the grass :

And there's a sulphury, choky smell of gunpowder hangs all day

In the suburbs, that quite overpowers the breath of the new-mown hay.

And then when we've done our fighting, our empty stomachs to fill,

There's to be Grant's cooking wagon, to find dinner for all who will:

And the moderate sum of two shillings is all one will have to pay,

Which, considering what we're likely to eat, is a trifle, I must say.

So you must wake and call me early, when the early birds appear,

don volunteer:

To-morrow's to be a glorious day for each LonFor each London volunteer about the hottest, heaviest day

For we've to fight at Chiselhurst, four thousand strong, they say!

OZONE.

-Punch.

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And sky-painted sunsets of wonderful tone; And whoever is wise (and has cash enough) dips his

Tired limbs in the sea and inhales the ozone. Ozone? Why there's none wherein Westminster Palace

Debates to a terrible nuisance have grown; If old Father Thames comes ashore with a chalice,

He fills it with any thing else but ozone. John Russell's Reform Bill, a triumph of crassitude,

Mr. Gladstone's rash Budget, the silliest e'er known,

Could scarce have existed, except for the lassitude

Produced by an atmosphere void of ozone. The want of it carried stout White down at Brighton,

Made Collier a sour oratorical drone; But old Palmerston surely, whom nothing can frighten,

He found out the secret of pocket ozone. Soon Commons and Lords will wear border apparel,

Nor in dull dens at Westminster grumble and groan;

For August will come with the good double

barrel

Hurrah for the moors and the grouse and

ozone !

I hope there'll be surgeons enough on the ground, The political air will next session grow purer;

in case of little mishaps.

For novices have a habit-at least so veterans

sav

Earl Derby the time-serving Whigs will dethrone.

When they get a little excited, of firing their So long live the Queen! may our rifles secure

ramrods away.

Detachments through the streets and squares to

their firing practice pass,

her!

May the Tries get power, and the air get

ozone.

-The Press, 21 July.

From Fraser's Magazine.

THE IRELAND FORGERIES.

our entertainment. Mr. Ireland, père, professed to honor William Shakspere with alOf course everybody has heard of the Ire- most idolatrous admiration. In his opinion, land forgeries. But it may be suspected "the bard of Avon was a god among men." that, with the exception of the few who have He would frequently of an evening read one looked into the matter, those who have heard of his plays aloud, to the edification of his know very little more about them than that delighted family. While his son was still a they were connected with an attempt to pass mere lad, he took him as his companion on a off some dramatic writings as the production tour, for the purpose of collecting materials of Shakspere. The particulars of the case for a work upon the "Warwickshire Avon." have almost perished in oblivion. An at- Of course, they visited and passed some time tempt to resuscitate them now cannot asat Stratford, where Mr. Ireland was most suredly be made with a view of pandering diligent, as others have been before and to our literary vanity. Were such a case to after him, in searching for information conoccur in the present day, in the existing state cerning what his son, in his peculiar style, of intercourse with the continent, it would termed "the sublunary career of our dramake us the laughing-stock of Europe. But matic lord." The search does not appear to recent discussions relative to some other have been very successful; and Mr. Ireland supposed fabrications connected with Shak- seems to have been considerably hoaxed by spere, have re-invested this subject with an a gentleman farmer, the tenant of Cloptoninterest which it appeared to have lost. At house, named Williams-but no relation to any rate, it is an accomplished fact, as our the celebrated "divine "-who informed him French neighbors say, and cannot be ban-that only a fortnight before he had burnt ished from the history of our literature. So several basketfuls of letters and papers, bunwe must even make the best of it; and per-dles of which had the name of Shakspere haps may hope that our said neighbors will accept this narrative in the propitiatory light

of a national humiliation.

written on them! After having made a large purchase of indubitable Shakspere relics, the Irelands returned to town. It is not It is curious to observe how one literary very clear whether it was before or after this forgery breeds another. The affair of Mac- journey that young Ireland was articled to a pherson was hardly out of Horace Walpole's conveyancer, at whose chambers, however, hands, when that of poor Chatterton was he had little or nothing to do. And we all thrown upon them. It was not many years know, from the traditions of our copy-books after that unhappy boy had been consigned of what idleness is the root. Young Hopeto his pauper grave, and while the contro- ful employed much of his leisure in learning versy as to the genuineness of the Rowley to copy old handwritings, in which he atpoems was yet sub judice, that the Ireland forgeries first saw the light. There can be no doubt indeed as to the connecting chain between the two last-mentioned impostures. There was some resemblance between the two dramas; but there was also the most striking difference. Chatterton's was a tragedy; sublime in its working up; terrible in its catastrophe. Ireland's afterpiece was the broadest of burlesques. Looking back at both through the interval of years, one cannot peruse the one without a shudder, nor the other without laughter. We proceed to detail the plot of the latter.

Samuel Ireland was originally a weaver in Spitalfields; but in process of time he became a dealer in old books and curiosities, having a house in Norfolk-street, Strand. What his family consisted of is not exactly known; but he had at least two sons and two daughters. The eldest of the former named Samuel, after his father, died young. The other, William Henry, is the hero of

*Thus it appears, on the best evidence, the name of the dramatist should be spelt.-Madden's Observations on an Autograph of Shakspere. Lon

don. 1838.

tained great facility. According to his own showing, one of the earliest uses to which he put this talent was to forge a letter as from the author of a religious tract dedicated to

count of the Shakspearian Manuscripts (1796), in *In a copy of W. H. Ireland's Authentic Acthe library of the British Museum, is a MS. note, which states that William Henry was a natural son; that, as the writer had heard, his baptism was registered at St. Clement Danes, under the name of William Henry Irwyn, and that his mother was a married woman who had separated from her husband, and living with Mr. Ireland. The acenracy of this note seems very doubtful. There is certainly no such entry in the register of St. Clement Danes, nor any relating to the family of Ireland, at least between the years 1772 and 1779 inclusive; and in 1794 or 1795, W. H. Ireland was eighteen. There are those still living who knew him, and say they never heard any such rumor from friend or foe. His father always called him Sam, after his brother, who had died; and in the account he first published of the discovery of the papers, spoke of him as his son Samuel William Henry. These are apparently trifling matters; but trifles concerning great men become important.

†The anonymous and apocryphal commentator before referred to says he had been told that this faculty was not confined to old handwriting, but that it was also extended to copying orders of admission to the theatre by modern actors.

644

Q. Elizabeth. This letter, a sort of presen- to YOUNG IRELAND). It is impossible for tation epistle to the queen, he thrust between me to express the pleasure you have given the cover of the book and the paper, where me by the presentation of this deed. There he pretended to find it. He had written it are the keys of my bookcase: go and take originally on a piece of old paper in common from it whatever you please; I shall refuse ink weakened with water; but the journey- you nothing. man of a bookseller to whom he had shown it, gave him a mixture which much better resembled old ink; so with this he again wrote out the dedicatory letter, which he presented with the book to his father. The old gentleman was gulled and gratified; and the amiable son, who, as he says, only made the experiment to see how far he could mystify his parent, appears to have had no scruples of conscience as to the result.

YOUNG IRELAND (instantly returning the keys into OLD IRELAND'S hand). I thank you, Sir, but I shall accept of nothing.

On another occasion he palmed off on his father a bas-relief portrait of Cromwell, in terra cotta, the work of a modern artist lately deceased, as an antique, having affixed to the back a label, intimating that the head had been a present from Cromwell to his friend Bradshaw. The conoscentia of the day were taken in, and the head was pronounced the undoubted production of the sculptor Simon, the contemporary of the Protector.

Mr. Ireland appears to have been so constantly insisting on the probability that some day or other some MS. of Shakspere's would turn up, and on the inestimable value of such a treasure, that his affectionate offspring determined to extend the sphere of parental He had found that his fagratification. ther's pleasure in being cheated was quite as great as his own in cheating him. So one evening he laid before him a deed writ

ten in the law hand of the time of James I., purporting to be a lease to one Michael Fraser and his wife, dated 1610, and bearing the signature of William Shakspeare as one of the lessors. This scene as recorded by W. H. Ireland, is one of the gravest comedy, and readily moulds itself into a dramatic form, with elaborate stage-directions, after the fashion of the German Theatre, or "The Rovers," in the Anti-Jacobin :

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SCENE:-Old Ireland's Library. OLD IRELAND and YOUNG IRELAND discovered. YOUNG IRELAND (drawing a deed from his bosom and presenting it to OLD IRELAND). There, sir! what do you think of

OLD IRELAND rises from his chair, selects from his books a scarce tract with engraved plates, called "Stokes, the Vaulting Master,' which he peremptorily insists on YOUNG IRELAND's accepting."

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The family are summoned to supper. Such at least, we may surmise, was the termination of this touching domestic scene.

Sir Frederick Eden, a great authority in such matters at that time, was summoned next day to inspect the deed. He gave it and moreover that the impression on the as his decided opinion that it was genuine ; seal affixed under Shakspere's signature was the representation of a Quintain,† which he supposed to bear, in the language of heraldry, a canting reference to the dramatist's name. Other learned Thebans pronounced for the authenticity of the deed. It was a

great success.

How it came to be so strikes us now-a-days as rather strange. The writing of the document itself may have been a very good imitation of the law writing of the time; and Shakspere's signature was certainly not ill done. But the deed was horribly stuffed with covenants that were unnecessary and, in the language of Chancery, 'impertinent;" and the premises demised were described as "abutting close to the Globe theatre by Blackfryers London"!— the Globe, we may remind the reader, being situate in Southwark!§ These two points

*See W. H. Ireland's Confessions.

There is a curious circumstance connected with this seal. In the Miscellaneous Papers published by S. Ireland, a fac-simile is given of the signature and seal affixed to the deed. Another fac-simile of them is given as the frontispiece to W. H. Ireland's Confessions. The two signatures have a general but by no means an accurate resemblance: but the seals are as unlike as two seals can well be.

As some readers may not be sufficiently versed in antiquities to understand this allusion, it may that? OLD IRELAND (having opened the parch-be as well to state, the quintain was a pole set upment, regarded it for a length of time with right in the ground, generally with a transverse at one end and a sand-bag at the other, at which the strictest scrutiny, examined the seals, and beam turning on a pivot, and having a broad plank persons used to tilt on horseback with a lance or folded up the instrument, presenting it to "Hee that bit not the broad end of the spear. YOUNG IRELAND). I certainly believe it to quinten," says old Stowe, "was of all men laughed be a genuine deed of the time. faster, had a sound blow in his necke with a bagge to scorne; and he that hit it full, if he rid not the full of sand hanged on the other end."

you

YOUNG IRELAND (returning it immediately
think it
into OLD IRELAND'S hand). If
so, I beg your acceptance of it.
OLD IRELAND (taking the keys of his li-
brary from his pocket, and presenting them

§ Chalmers, in his Apology for the Believers in the Shakspere papers, had the curious audacity to contend that this was not a misdescription of

did not escape the perspicuity of Malone; but what, curiously enough, did escape him was the fact that this fabricated deed was in the main copied from a genuine mortgage, by lease and release, from Shakspere and others which had been printed by Malone himself. This circumstance accounts for the insertion of the covenants that were quite "insensible," to borrow another law-term, in the fabricated lease. It is remarkable, too, that in the genuine mortgage mention is made of a William Ireland, which circumthe site of the Globe; for, he said, and truly enough, that the word by meant near to; and the Globe was on the Bankside, in Southwark, which was not far from Blackfriars; the exact site of the theatre, in fact, "abutting close to Black fryers-bridge," that bridge not having been begun till one hundred and fifty years after the date of the deed!

*See Var. Ed., vol. i. p. 149. The history of this deed is rather remarkable. It is dated 11th March, 1612. In 1768, Mr. Albany Wallis, a solicitor (of whom, by the way, not very honorable mention will be made hereafter), found it among the title-deeds of the Rev. Mr. Fetherstonhaugh, of Oxted. Co. Surrey, and he presented it to Garrick. In 1790, it was in the possession of Garrick's widow, where Malone saw it. He transcribed the deed and made a fac-simile of the signature, both of which he published. In 1796 he again wished to consult the deed, having some doubts of the accuracy of his fac-simile, and for that purpose again applied to Mrs. Garrick; but the deed, after a diligent search, was nowhere to be found; but just at the same time, Mr. Wallis found among the papers of Mr. Fetherstonhaugh the counterpart of the deed, dated the 10th March, 1612, bearing the dramatist's signature, of which Malone published a fac-simile. In May, 1841, Mr. Troward, the son of a gentleman who had been in partnership with Mr. Wallis, produced the deed to Sir Frederic Madden, the keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum, together with the letter from Mr. Wallis presenting the deed to Garrick. Mr. Troward, who had inherited the deed from his father, left it to his niece by the mother's side, who had married Mr. Filleul, and in March, 1858, this gentleman again brought the deed for the inspection of Sir Frederic Madden. On the 14th June, in the same year, it was sold by auction at Sotheby's, and purchased for £330 15s., for the British Museum, where it now remains, together with various documents illustrative of its history.

The counterpart, of the 10th March, 1612, had been previously sold. in May, 1841, at Evans' auction rooms, to Mr. Elkins, for £162 15s., and in May, 1843, it was resold at the same rooms, when it was purchased for £145 by the corporation of

London.

There are undoubtedly some very strange circumstances in this account. The loss of the first deed the simultaneous discovery of the counterpart in Mr. Wallis' possession-and the fact of the first deed, together with the presentation letter to Garrick, having afterwards found their way back, as it were, into the possession of Mr. Wallis' partner; these would, in a court of law, throw great suspicion on the custody from which the documents were produced. But notwithstanding all this, no doubt, we believe, has ever been entertained by competent judges as to the genuineness

of both deeds.

stance probably gave rise to the interesting discoveries that were afterwards made relating to a William Henry Ireland, who had played the dolphin to our Arion and saved him from drowning. But this is anticipating.

Inquiries were of course made as to where the deed came from. The first account bruited abroad was, that young Ireland having casually met a gentleman at a coffeehouse, and the conversation having turned upon old papers and autographs, the latter had invited the former to come some morning to his chambers in the Temple and rummage among his old deeds, where he would find autographs enough: and that in this rummage the deed was discovered. Afterwards, however, when papers of more importance were produced from the officina, this account was not deemed of sufficient circumstance; and the story then ran thus: That "the Gentleman," who was a man of fortune, had given the manuscripts to young Ireland in consideration of his having found among the old papers a deed establishing the donor's right to a contested estate; but that for reasons of his own he especially wished his name to be concealed, and indeed had exacted a solemn promise from the young man never to divulge it. In fact, this "Gentleman's" identity never proceeded further than an initial: he was never any thing more substantial than "Mr. H."

As it appears the first deed was forged for the mere gratification of Mr. Ireland, senior, so it would seem that there would have been an end of the matter, but for the constant reiteration of an opinion that other papers of Shakspere's might be found by referring to the same source whence the deed had been drawn. And true enough, the source was referred to, and the find was prodigious. Other papers and documents poured in thick and fast. There were more deeds, and there were agreements, and love-verses and loveletters to Anne Hathaway, one enclosing a lock of "Willy's" hair; and papers relating to" William Henry Ireland" above-mentioned; and a Profession of Faith; and letters from Q. Elizabeth and Lord Southampton; and to crown all a manuscript, nearly perfect, of King Lear, and another of a portion of Hamlet. Merciful Powers! how the most thinking public were taken in! Mr. Ireland's house in Norfolk Street was in a state of siege.

Notwithstanding the most ludicrous blunders in orthography, the most palpable errors in dates, and the most striking instances of fabrication in some of the signatures, the mass of the public would believe in the papers; and of course they had a right to do

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