Living in his learned society, his son, Mr. W. H. Ireland, acquired not only a passion for black letters, but a desire to emulate Chatterton. His first step in guilt was the forgery of an autograph on an old pamphlet, with which he gratified Samuel Ireland. He also wrote a sham inscription on a modern bust of Cromwell, which he presented as an authentic antique. Finding that the critics were taken in, and attributed this new bust to the old sculptor Simon, Ireland conceived a very low and not unjustifiable opinion of critical tact. Critics would find merit in anything which seemed old enough. Ireland's next achievement was the forgery of some legal documents concerning Shakespeare. Just as the bad man who deceived the guileless Mr. Shapira, forged his Deuteronomy on the blank spaces of old synagogue rolls, so young Ireland used the cut-off ends of old rent rolls. He next bought up quantities of old fly-leaves of books, and on this ancient paper he indited a sham confession of faith, which he attributed to Shakespeare. Being a strong "evangelical," young Mr. Ireland gave a very Protestant complexion to this edifying document. And still the critics gaped and wondered and believed. Ireland's method was to write in an ink made by blending various liquids used in the marbling of paper for bookbinding. This stuff was supplied to him by a bookbinder's apprentice. When people asked questions as to whence all the new Shakespeare manuscripts came, he said they were presented to him by a gentleman who wished to remain anonymous. Finally, the impossibility of producing this gentleman was one of the causes of the detection of the fraud. According to himself, Ireland performed prodigies of acuteness. Once he had forged, at random, the name of a contemporary of Shakespeare. He was confronted with a genuine signature, which, of course, was quite different. He obtained leave to consult his "anonymous gentleman," rushed home, forged the name on the model of what had been shown to him, and returned with this signature as a new gift from his benefactor. That nameless friend had informed him that there were two persons of the same name, and that both signatures were genuine. Ireland's impudence went the length of introducing an ancestor of his own, with the same name as himself, among the companions of Shakespeare. If "Vortigern" had succeeded (and it was actually put on the stage with all possible pomp), Ireland meant to have produced a series of pseudo-Shakespearean plays from William the Conqueror to Queen Elizabeth. When busy with "Vortigern" he was detected by a friend of his own age, who pounced on him while he was at work, as Lasus pounced on Onomacritus. The discoverer, however, consented to "stand in" with Ireland, and did not divulge his secret. At last, after the fiasco of "Vortigern," suspicion waxed so strong, and disagreeable inquiries for the anonymous benefactor were so numerous that Ireland fled from his father's house. He confessed all, and, according to his own account, fell under the undying wrath of Samuel Ireland. Any reader of Ireland's "Confessions" will be likely to sympathize with old Samuel as the dupe of his son. The whole story is told with a curious mixture of impudence and humor, and with great plausibility. Young Ireland admits that his "desire for laughter" was almost irresistible, when people — learned, pompous, sagacious people listened attentively to the papers. One feels half inclined to forgive the rogue for the sake of his youth, his cleverness, his humor. But the "Confessions" are, not improbably, almost as apocryphal as the original documents. They were written for the sake of money, and it is impossible to say how far the same mercenary motive actuated Ireland in his forgeries. Dr. Ingleby, in his "Shakespeare Fabrications," takes a very rigid view of the conduct, not only of William, but of old Samuel Ireland. Sam, according to Dr. Ingleby, was a partner in the whole imposture, and the "Confessions" was only one element in the scheme of fraud. Old Samuel was the Fagan of a band of young literary Dodgers. He "positively trained his whole family to trade in forgery," and as for Mr. W. H. Ireland, he was "the most accomplished liar that ever lived," which is certainly a distinction in its way. The point of the joke is that, after the whole conspiracy exploded, people were anxious to buy examples of the forgeries. Mr. W. H. Ireland was equal to the occasion. He actually forged his own, or (according to Dr. Ingleby) his father's forgeries, and, by thus increasing the supply, he deluged the market with sham shams, with imitations of imitations. If this accusation be correct, it is impossible not to admire the colossal impudence of Mr. W. H. Ireland. Dr. Ingleby, in the ardor of his honest indignation, pursues William into his private life, which it appears was far from exemplary. But literary criticism should be content with a man's works, his domestic life is matter, as Aristotle often says, "for a separate kind of investigation." N SIDNEY LANIER (1842-1881) SUSTAINED Power of description, De Quincey's "Pains of Opium" is the only essay in the English language which can be rightly classed with "On the Ocklawaha in May," by Sidney Lanier, while, as might be expected, the melody of Lanier's prose is greatly superior to that of De Quincey's. Almost wholly neglected during his lifetime, Lanier was recognized after his death as one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century. He wrote little, but of that little nothing can be spared. His "Hymns of the Marshes" have been pronounced by his English admirers the greatest poems ever written in America; and if we take purity and sublimity as the standard by which to judge the essential element of great poetry, we need not hesitate to conclude that they are unequaled in the English verse of the nineteenth century. They show a greater intensity than Browning's and a higher lyrical faculty than Tennyson's. Lanier is not Longfellow's equal in breadth; and a life of suffering made him so intensive and introspective that, while distinctly superior to Longfellow in poetic quality, he is greatly his inferior in that most important quality by which the poet who has a message to deliver to mankind succeeds in making it intelligible to the largest possible number of people. Lanier's poetry has been growing steadily in favor with the decrease of sectional prejudices, but as a prose writer he is scarcely known at all. The prose essay by which he is best known is an examination of the fundamental principles of English verse. While it is of interest chiefly to specialists, it is a most extraordinary production. In it Lanier, who was a highly trained musician with an exquisite ear for melody, was carried by his sense of music to a realization of the fundamental principle which governs the melody of Homer and other great classical poets who practiced the Homeric mode. This may be called a coincidence, as Lanier had made no special study of classical verse, and as far as appears was unaware of the fundamental identity of principle governing the music of English verse, and that of the classical poets. But if a coincidence, it is one of governing law-not of chance. Lanier's own verse approximates the melody of the great classical poets, especially of the Horatian lyric and the Virgilian hexameter, to an extent that can never be realized except through the |