A LITERARY HOAX

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 8

A LITERARY HOAX

SHAKESPEARE FORCED

There can be few more mistaken examples of filial piety than that of Wil liam Henry Ireland, who died a hun dred years ago. Tp please his father, .Samuel, a foolish old man m (everything except his passionate but uncritJ cal admiration of Shakespeare, William' produced a strange crop of Shakes pearean documents, all carefully forged by himself, and even wrote two plays called "Vortigern" and "Henry II" un-1 der that ill-treated name, states thel "Manchester Guardian" in an editorial. Samuel was delighted at these discoveries, but unfortunately William, hay ing once tasted the joys of a literary forger,1,, was in no mood to stop his charity at home. As his ideas of Elizabethan style consisted mainly in doub ling the last consonant of each word and adding "c," it is surprising that anyone was deceived, but then, as'now there .were Some critics "who were eager to be caught and-many eminent gentlemen rivalled each other in making fools of themselves.- An easy winner was James Boswell, who, to.prove his (conviction,-bent down to kiss tho signature of this most mortal William Ireland was a jester rather than h rogue, and this moment must have don? much to compensate him. for the disasters that followed the. production oi | "Vortigern" at Drury Lane. Neither Kemble, J who played the" part of V6rtigern, nor the audience took it seriously, and the first night proved to be the last as well. Ireland turned •misfortune into profit ( by immediately publishing his "Confessions" on .the "Why I Lost" principle so popular today, but this small success did not last him long and the rest of his life was a hard struggle against poverty. .To...add insult to injury^ the ungrateful Samuel refused.to speak to his son again, not, as one might think, because he had proved a liar and a fraud, but because his! confessions had -cast doubt ion the manuscripts, in the authenticity of which the father still firmly believed.