Samuel Ireland
Encyclopedia
Samuel Ireland British author and engraver, is best remembered today as the chief victim of the Ireland Shakespeare forgeries
created by his son, William Henry Ireland
.
, London
, but soon took to dealing in prints and drawings and devoted his leisure to teaching himself drawing, etching, and engraving. He made sufficient progress to obtain a medal from the Society of Arts in 1760. In 1784 he appears as an exhibitor for the first and apparently only time at the Royal Academy, sending a view of Oxford. Between 1780 and 1785 he etched many plates after John Hamilton Mortimer
and Hogarth
. Etched portraits by him of General Oglethorpe
(1785) and Thomas Inglefield, an armless artist (1787), are in the print room of the British Museum, together with etchings after Ruisdael
(1786) and Teniers
(1787) and other masters, and some architectural drawings in water-color.
Meanwhile his taste for collecting books, pictures, and curiosities gradually became an all-absorbing passion. In 1794 Ireland proved the value of a part of his collection by issuing “Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, from Pictures, Drawings, and Scarce Prints in the Author’s possession.” Some of the plates were etched by himself. A second volume appeared in 1799. The work is of high interest, although it is possible that Ireland has assigned to Hogarth some drawings by other artists.
and contained etchings on copper in aqua-tinta from drawings made by the author “on the spot.” He paid at least one visit to France, and the charge brought against him by his enemies that he was never out of England is unfounded. A second edition appeared in 1795. The series, which was long valued by collectors, was continued in the same form in Picturesque Views on the River Thames, 1792 (2 vols., 2nd ed. 1800-1); in Picturesque Views on the River Medway, 1793 (1 vol.); in Picturesque Views on the Warwickshire Avon, 1795 (1 vol.); and in Picturesque Views on the River Wye, 1797 (1 vol.). In 1800, just after Ireland’s death, appeared Picturesque Views, with an Historical Account of the Inns of Court in London and Westminster, and the series was concluded by the publication in 1824 of Picturesque Views on the River Severn (2 vols.), with colored lithographs, after drawings by Ireland, and descriptions by T. Harral. Ireland had announced the immediate issue of this work in his volume on the Wye in 1797.
In 1790 Ireland resided in Arundel Street, Strand, and a year later removed to 8 Norfolk Street. His household consisted of Mrs. Freeman, a housekeeper and amanuensis, whose handwriting shows her to have been a woman of education, a son William Henry
, and a daughter Jane. The latter painted some clever miniatures. He had also a married daughter, Anna Maria Barnard. The Ireland family Bible shows that all three children were illegitimate, and that Mrs. Freeman was their mother. Mrs. Freeman’s original name was Anna Maria de Burgh Coppinger.
, and in 1793, when preparing his “Picturesque Views of the Avon,” he took his son with him to Stratford-on-Avon. They carefully examined all the spots associated with the dramatist. The father recorded many village traditions, which he accepted as true, including those concocted for his benefit (according to Sidney Lee
) by John Jordan
, the Stratford poet, who was his chief guide throughout his visit.
In his pursuit of information about Shakespeare Ireland learned from some of the oldest inhabitants that manuscripts had been moved from Shakespeare's residence at New Place to Clopton House at the time of the Stratford fire. To Clopton House he went, where he learned from the tenant that the manuscripts he was seeking had been destroyed only a week before. His disappointment was extreme. "My God! Sir, you are not aware of the loss which the world has sustained. Would to heaven I had arrived sooner!".
Late in 1794 his son, William Henry, claimed to have discovered a mortgage deed signed by Shakespeare, in an old trunk belonging to a mysterious acquaintance of his, whom he designated only as Mr. H. In fact he had forged the deed himself, using blank parchment cut from an ancient deed at his employer’s office. Prominent authorities pronounced it genuine, and soon other items followed—a letter from Queen Elizabeth, a love-poem by Shakespeare written to his future wife, “Anna Hatherreway,” the original manuscript of King Lear, as well as the manuscript of an otherwise unknown play, Vortigern and Rowena.
These were soon on display at Ireland’s house, where notable literary men such as James Boswell
, Samuel Parr
, Joseph Warton
, and Henry James Pye
, the poet laureate, pronounced them genuine. The chief Shakespearean scholars of the day, Edmond Malone
and George Steevens
, however, unhesitatingly denounced them as forgeries. (One curious exception was George Chalmers
, who made genuine contributions to Shakespeare scholarship, but who was nonetheless taken in by the imposition.)
Samuel Ireland, however, had no doubts about their genuineness, and published them in a folio volume in December 1795. Exposure quickly followed. James Boaden
, formerly a believer, responded with A Letter to George Steevens, published in January 1796, that attacked their authenticity, but the decisive blow was delivered by Edmond Malone’s response, An Enquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Papers and Legal Instruments, published in March 1796. The failure of the play, Vortigern and Rowena
, on its first performance (2 April 1796), quickly followed.
Fortune's Fool. When in 1797 he published his Picturesque Tour on the Wye, the chilling reception with which it met and the pecuniary loss to which it led proved how low his reputation had fallen. George Chalmers’s learned Apology for the Believers in the Shakesperian Papers with its Supplemental Apology (1797), mainly attacked Malone, made little reference to the papers, and failed to restore Ireland’s credit. In 1799 he had the hardihood to publish both Vortigern and Henry II, the copyrights of which his son gave him before leaving home, and he made vain efforts to get the latter represented on the stage. Obloquy still pursued him, and more than once he contemplated legal proceedings against his detractors. He died in July 1800, and Dr. Latham, who attended him, recorded his deathbed declaration, "that he was totally ignorant of the deceit, and was equally a believer in the authenticity of the manuscripts as those who were the most credulous". He was never reconciled to his son. His old books and curiosities were sold by auction in London 7–15 May 1801. The original copies of the forgeries and many rare editions of Shakespeare’s works were described in the printed catalogue. His correspondence respecting the forgeries was purchased by the British Museum in 1877.
Ireland Shakespeare Forgeries
The Ireland Shakespeare forgeries were a cause célèbre in 1790s London, when author and engraver Samuel Ireland announced the discovery of a treasure-trove of Shakespearean manuscripts by his son William Henry Ireland. Among them were the manuscripts of four plays, two of them previously unknown...
created by his son, William Henry Ireland
William Henry Ireland
William Henry Ireland was an English forger of would-be Shakespearean documents and plays. He is less well-known as a poet, writer of gothic novels and histories...
.
Early life
He began life as a weaver in SpitalfieldsSpitalfields
Spitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to many markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market, founded in the 17th century, Sunday...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, but soon took to dealing in prints and drawings and devoted his leisure to teaching himself drawing, etching, and engraving. He made sufficient progress to obtain a medal from the Society of Arts in 1760. In 1784 he appears as an exhibitor for the first and apparently only time at the Royal Academy, sending a view of Oxford. Between 1780 and 1785 he etched many plates after John Hamilton Mortimer
John Hamilton Mortimer
John Hamilton Mortimer was a British Neoclassical painter known primarily for his romantic paintings and pieces set in Italy and its countryside, various other works depicting conversations between people, and works drawn in the 1770s portraying war scenes, very similar to those of Salvator Rosa...
and Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
. Etched portraits by him of General Oglethorpe
James Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe was a British general, member of Parliament, philanthropist, and founder of the colony of Georgia...
(1785) and Thomas Inglefield, an armless artist (1787), are in the print room of the British Museum, together with etchings after Ruisdael
Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruysdael
Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael was a Dutch landscape painter.-Life:A native of Haarlem, he appears to have studied under his father Isaak van Ruysdael, a landscape painter, though other authorities place him as the pupil of Berghem and of Allart van Everdingen...
(1786) and Teniers
David Teniers the Younger
David Teniers the Younger was a Flemish artist born in Antwerp, the son of David Teniers the Elder. His son David Teniers III and his grandson David Teniers IV were also painters...
(1787) and other masters, and some architectural drawings in water-color.
Meanwhile his taste for collecting books, pictures, and curiosities gradually became an all-absorbing passion. In 1794 Ireland proved the value of a part of his collection by issuing “Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, from Pictures, Drawings, and Scarce Prints in the Author’s possession.” Some of the plates were etched by himself. A second volume appeared in 1799. The work is of high interest, although it is possible that Ireland has assigned to Hogarth some drawings by other artists.
Picturesque views
In 1790 Ireland published A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France made in the Autumn of 1789, London (2 vols. Roy. 8vo and in large-paper 4to). It was dedicated to Francis GroseFrancis Grose
Francis Grose was an English antiquary, draughtsman, and lexicographer. He was born at his father's house in Broad Street, St-Peter-le-Poer, London, son of a Swiss immigrant and jeweller, Francis Jacob Grose , and his wife, Anne , daughter of Thomas Bennett of Greenford in Middlesex...
and contained etchings on copper in aqua-tinta from drawings made by the author “on the spot.” He paid at least one visit to France, and the charge brought against him by his enemies that he was never out of England is unfounded. A second edition appeared in 1795. The series, which was long valued by collectors, was continued in the same form in Picturesque Views on the River Thames, 1792 (2 vols., 2nd ed. 1800-1); in Picturesque Views on the River Medway, 1793 (1 vol.); in Picturesque Views on the Warwickshire Avon, 1795 (1 vol.); and in Picturesque Views on the River Wye, 1797 (1 vol.). In 1800, just after Ireland’s death, appeared Picturesque Views, with an Historical Account of the Inns of Court in London and Westminster, and the series was concluded by the publication in 1824 of Picturesque Views on the River Severn (2 vols.), with colored lithographs, after drawings by Ireland, and descriptions by T. Harral. Ireland had announced the immediate issue of this work in his volume on the Wye in 1797.
In 1790 Ireland resided in Arundel Street, Strand, and a year later removed to 8 Norfolk Street. His household consisted of Mrs. Freeman, a housekeeper and amanuensis, whose handwriting shows her to have been a woman of education, a son William Henry
William Henry Ireland
William Henry Ireland was an English forger of would-be Shakespearean documents and plays. He is less well-known as a poet, writer of gothic novels and histories...
, and a daughter Jane. The latter painted some clever miniatures. He had also a married daughter, Anna Maria Barnard. The Ireland family Bible shows that all three children were illegitimate, and that Mrs. Freeman was their mother. Mrs. Freeman’s original name was Anna Maria de Burgh Coppinger.
Enthusiasm for Shakespeare
Ireland was a fervent admirer of William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, and in 1793, when preparing his “Picturesque Views of the Avon,” he took his son with him to Stratford-on-Avon. They carefully examined all the spots associated with the dramatist. The father recorded many village traditions, which he accepted as true, including those concocted for his benefit (according to Sidney Lee
Sidney Lee
Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...
) by John Jordan
John Jordan
John Jordan may be:*Sir John Newell Jordan , British diplomat*John Jordan , American basketball player and coach for the University of Notre Dame*Johnny Jordan , English footballer...
, the Stratford poet, who was his chief guide throughout his visit.
In his pursuit of information about Shakespeare Ireland learned from some of the oldest inhabitants that manuscripts had been moved from Shakespeare's residence at New Place to Clopton House at the time of the Stratford fire. To Clopton House he went, where he learned from the tenant that the manuscripts he was seeking had been destroyed only a week before. His disappointment was extreme. "My God! Sir, you are not aware of the loss which the world has sustained. Would to heaven I had arrived sooner!".
Late in 1794 his son, William Henry, claimed to have discovered a mortgage deed signed by Shakespeare, in an old trunk belonging to a mysterious acquaintance of his, whom he designated only as Mr. H. In fact he had forged the deed himself, using blank parchment cut from an ancient deed at his employer’s office. Prominent authorities pronounced it genuine, and soon other items followed—a letter from Queen Elizabeth, a love-poem by Shakespeare written to his future wife, “Anna Hatherreway,” the original manuscript of King Lear, as well as the manuscript of an otherwise unknown play, Vortigern and Rowena.
These were soon on display at Ireland’s house, where notable literary men such as James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
, Samuel Parr
Samuel Parr
Samuel Parr , was an English schoolmaster, writer, minister and Doctor of Law. He was known in his time for political writing, and as "the Whig Johnson", though his reputation has lasted less well that Samuel Johnson's, and the resemblances were at a superficial level, Parr being no prose stylist,...
, Joseph Warton
Joseph Warton
Joseph Warton was an English academic and literary critic.He was born in Dunsfold, Surrey, England, but his family soon moved to Hampshire, where his father, the Reverend Thomas Warton, became vicar of Basingstoke. There, a few years later, Joseph's younger brother, the more famous Thomas Warton,...
, and Henry James Pye
Henry James Pye
Henry James Pye was an English poet. Pye was Poet Laureate from 1790 until his death. He was the first poet laureate to receive a fixed salary of £27 instead of the historic tierce of Canary wine Henry James Pye (20 February 1745 – 11 August 1813) was an English poet. Pye was Poet Laureate...
, the poet laureate, pronounced them genuine. The chief Shakespearean scholars of the day, Edmond Malone
Edmond Malone
Edmond Malone was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare.Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first political and then more congenial literary pursuits. He went to London, where he...
and George Steevens
George Steevens
George Steevens was an English Shakespearean commentator.He was born at Poplar, the son of a captain and later director of the East India Company. He was educated at Eton College and at King's College, Cambridge, where he remained from 1753 to 1756...
, however, unhesitatingly denounced them as forgeries. (One curious exception was George Chalmers
George Chalmers
George Chalmers was a Scottish antiquarian and political writer.-Biography:Chalmers was born at Fochabers, Moray, in 1742. His father, James Chalmers, was a grandson of George Chalmers of Pittensear, a small estate in the parish of Lhanbryde, now St Andrews-Lhanbryde, in Moray, owned by the family...
, who made genuine contributions to Shakespeare scholarship, but who was nonetheless taken in by the imposition.)
Samuel Ireland, however, had no doubts about their genuineness, and published them in a folio volume in December 1795. Exposure quickly followed. James Boaden
James Boaden
-Life:He was the son of William Boaden, a merchant in the Russia trade. He was born at Whitehaven, Cumberland, on 23 May 1762, and at an early age came with his parents to London, where he was educated for commerce...
, formerly a believer, responded with A Letter to George Steevens, published in January 1796, that attacked their authenticity, but the decisive blow was delivered by Edmond Malone’s response, An Enquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Papers and Legal Instruments, published in March 1796. The failure of the play, Vortigern and Rowena
Vortigern and Rowena
Vortigern and Rowena, or Vortigern, an Historical Play is a play that was touted as a newly discovered work by William Shakespeare when it first appeared in 1796. It was eventually revealed to be a Shakespeare hoax, the product of prominent forger William Henry Ireland. Its first and only...
, on its first performance (2 April 1796), quickly followed.
Final days
Ireland never recovered from these disappointments. Although his son admitted to the hoax in his Authentic Account (1796), many blamed the father. He published in November Ì796 A Vindication of His Conduct, defending himself from the charges of having willfully deceived the public, and with the help of Thomas Caldecott attacked Malone, whom he regarded as his chief enemy, in An Investigation of Mr. Malone’s Claim to the Character of Scholar and Critic. On 29 October 1796 he was ridiculed on stage at Covent Garden as Sir Bamber Blackletter in Reynolds’sFrederick Reynolds
Frederic Reynolds was a British dramatist. During his literary career composed nearly one hundred tragedies and comedies, many of which were printed, and about twenty of them obtained temporary popularity...
Fortune's Fool. When in 1797 he published his Picturesque Tour on the Wye, the chilling reception with which it met and the pecuniary loss to which it led proved how low his reputation had fallen. George Chalmers’s learned Apology for the Believers in the Shakesperian Papers with its Supplemental Apology (1797), mainly attacked Malone, made little reference to the papers, and failed to restore Ireland’s credit. In 1799 he had the hardihood to publish both Vortigern and Henry II, the copyrights of which his son gave him before leaving home, and he made vain efforts to get the latter represented on the stage. Obloquy still pursued him, and more than once he contemplated legal proceedings against his detractors. He died in July 1800, and Dr. Latham, who attended him, recorded his deathbed declaration, "that he was totally ignorant of the deceit, and was equally a believer in the authenticity of the manuscripts as those who were the most credulous". He was never reconciled to his son. His old books and curiosities were sold by auction in London 7–15 May 1801. The original copies of the forgeries and many rare editions of Shakespeare’s works were described in the printed catalogue. His correspondence respecting the forgeries was purchased by the British Museum in 1877.
Works
- A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France made in the Autumn of 1789, London, 1790. Volume 1 at Google; Volume 2 at Google.
- Picturesque Views on the River Thames, 1792, 2 vols., 2nd ed. 1800-1. volume 1 and volume 2 at Google.
- Picturesque Views on the River Medway, 1793, 1 volume.
- Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, 1794.
- Views on the Upper, or Warwickshire Avon, 1795, 1 volume.
- Miscellaneous Paper and Legal Instruments under the Hand and Seal of William Shakespeare, including the Tragedy of King Lear and a Small Fragment of Hamlet, from the Original Manuscripts in the Possession of Samuel Ireland, London, 1796.
- Mr. Ireland's Vindication of His Conduct Respecting the Publication of the Supposed Shakspeare MSS., London, 1796.
- An Investigation of Mr. Malone's Claim to the Character of Scholar or Critic, Being an Examination of His Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Shakespeare MSS., 1797.
- Picturesque Views on the River Wye, 1797, 1 volume.
- Views, with an Historical Account of the Inns of Court in London and Westminster, 1800.
- Picturesque Views on the River Severn (2 vols.), with colored lithographs, after drawings by Ireland, and descriptions by T. Harral, 1824.