cities of Flanders and Brabant-the rivals | contributing to the store of human enlightenof the Italian cities as early abodes of liberty, ment, to be merged and lost in a mass of commercial wealth, and the attendant arts population already too large for the interests -which stand in the annals of human prog- of humanity? Why are those who have not ress above any thing that the French Celt shared the crimes and errors of French polhas had energy to produce. Why is all this iticians to share the present political punishto be tied up in a bundle and put under the ishment of France, and be committed with feet of French vanity? Why is Brussels, her to the dark chances of her uncertain and now a distinct centre of political life, to be louring future? No answer can be given thrust into the long schedule of medieval to these questions but that the annexation capitals which Parisian "unity" exults in would please the Parisians, and, by turning having extinguished? Why are all the their minds from their political degradation, public men to whom independence has given help to secure the emperor and his associates birth in Belgium to be superseded by a in the enjoyments of Compiègne. This is French prefect? Why is the independent an answer which the Belgians do not deem experience, political, economical, and educa- sufficient, as they have given France and tional, which Belgium as a separate state is the world clearly to understand.

BAPTISMAL NAMES.-There is a family ex-| any question of the word, either in any numbers isting in this neighborhood, two sons of whom yet issued or in the indices. Under the circumwere called Thankful and Tranquil (Joy),—the stances I have, at the risk of troubling you with former still living, I believe; and in the adjoin- a matter which has very possibly already come ing county (Dorset) the triad, Faith, Hope, and under your notice, to ask of your correspondCharity are not uncommon. Much of the pecu-ents the origin of the expression, or how it first liarity of choice in selecting such names is due, came in use. I conceive, to the veneration observable in coun- Arbroath. try districts for Scriptural names, and not to the lingering remains of Puritanical customs, as is sometimes supposed. Two at least of the names of Job's three daughters may be occasionally seen. I have a faint recollection of once meeting with the third. (Job xlii. 14.)

K.

[It may be said of the term "henpecked" (as it may of many other vernacular expressions), that though it be deemed trivial it is grounded on actual observation, and is true to nature and to fact. The ordinary cock of the farm-yard, however bold and fightful in his bearing towards other barn-door cocks, will sometimes submit to be peeked by his hens without resistance. Reaumur relates how two hens being shut up with a cock, they both together attacked him, and finally succeeded in killing him. Several cocks were afterwards shut up successively with the same two hens, and would have experienced the fate of the first, if not withdrawn in time. "The extraordinary part of this case was, that the cocks were strong and bold, and would easily have governed thirty rebel hens at large, yet, cooped up, did not attempt either to defend themselves, or even to avoid the attack of the furies, their wives." (Mowbray's Practical Treatise, 1830, p. 93. See also D'Orbigny's Dictionnaire, 1844, iv. 208.) Hence the peculiar import and Swift's " Cudgell'd husband: " significance of the term "henpecked."

Cf.

"Tom fought with three men, thrice ventured his life,

Then went home, and was cudgelled again by his wife."]

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

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

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 :

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."

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