IRELAND, WILLIAM_ (1777-1835). A Shakespearean forger, son of Samuel Ireland, engraver and author. born in London in 1777. After attending various private schools. he was sent to schools in France. where he remained four years. On returning to London. he was ap prenticed to a conveyancer. In 1794 he visited Stratford-on-Avon with his father. who was pre paring a book descriptive of the town. Here he met John Jordan. a Stratford poet. who had published much gossipy information in regard to Shakespeare. even forging the will of the dramatist's father. After the return of the Irelands to London, William hegan on own account a series of remarkable forgeries, which deceived first his credulous father and then many scholars. Ile nroduced legal documents, verses, and letters purporting to be Shakespeare's, a number of sixteenth-century volumes with Shake speare's name on the title-page., the
of Lear and of a fragment of /iamb t, and finally two plays, 1 ortig(rn and Henry 11_ which he tried to foist a, Shakespeare's. On April 2, 1796. l'ortigcrn was performed at Drury Lane amid peals of laughter. The same year young Ireland published a written confession. which he enlarged in 1805. Subsequently he wrote con siderable verse in imitation of Chatterton, squibs, and several Gothic romance. Ile died in London. April 17, 1835. Hi, Confessions (1805) were reissued by L. White t New York, 18741. In December. 1795. the elder Ireland pub lished facsimiles of the forged document, bearing the title Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instru ments Under the Hand and Seal of William Shakespeare. These forgeries James Payn made the subject of an interesting novel, The Talk of the Town (1SS5).