英语词汇the ireland hoax的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

the Ireland hoax. While working as a clerk in a lawyer’s of- fice, William Henry Ireland (1777–1835) discovered blank Elizabethan parchments and used them and a faded brown ink he concocted to forge a number of documents purporting to be in the handwriting of William Shakespeare. Ireland, only 17 at the time, claimed that he received the documents from an old “gentleman of fortune” who “had many old papers which had descended to him from his ancestors” but wanted to remain anonymous. When Ireland’s father, an engraver and bookseller, pronounced the first documents authentic and notified schol- ars of the find, his forger-son proceeded to turn out scores of Shakespeare documents, including letters to the Earl of South- ampton, a “Profession of Protestant Faith,” and even a love let- ter to Anne Hathaway enclosing a lock of hair. The young man published his findings in book form and exhibited them, charg- ing admission and gulling people like Pitt, Burke, Bowswell, and the Prince of Wales. Ireland’s masterworks, however, were two new “Shakespeare” plays: Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II. Playwright Richard Sheridan actually purchased Vortigern for £300 and half of any royalties, producing it at Drury Lane on April 2, 1796. By this time many people had sensed that Ire- land’s “discoveries” were forgeries, and the play proved it. A complete fiasco, it was treated as a joke by the actors and prac- tically hooted off the stage by the audience, never to be played again. Its failure and an exposé by Shakespearean scholar Ed- mund Malone at the end of the year prompted Ireland to con- fess his forgeries in print. The only punishment he received was the condemnation of literary critics, and he went on to write several forgettable novels.

词汇	the ireland hoax
词源	the Ireland hoax. While working as a clerk in a lawyer’s of- fice, William Henry Ireland (1777–1835) discovered blank Elizabethan parchments and used them and a faded brown ink he concocted to forge a number of documents purporting to be in the handwriting of William Shakespeare. Ireland, only 17 at the time, claimed that he received the documents from an old “gentleman of fortune” who “had many old papers which had descended to him from his ancestors” but wanted to remain anonymous. When Ireland’s father, an engraver and bookseller, pronounced the first documents authentic and notified schol- ars of the find, his forger-son proceeded to turn out scores of Shakespeare documents, including letters to the Earl of South- ampton, a “Profession of Protestant Faith,” and even a love let- ter to Anne Hathaway enclosing a lock of hair. The young man published his findings in book form and exhibited them, charg- ing admission and gulling people like Pitt, Burke, Bowswell, and the Prince of Wales. Ireland’s masterworks, however, were two new “Shakespeare” plays: Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II. Playwright Richard Sheridan actually purchased Vortigern for £300 and half of any royalties, producing it at Drury Lane on April 2, 1796. By this time many people had sensed that Ire- land’s “discoveries” were forgeries, and the play proved it. A complete fiasco, it was treated as a joke by the actors and prac- tically hooted off the stage by the audience, never to be played again. Its failure and an exposé by Shakespearean scholar Ed- mund Malone at the end of the year prompted Ireland to con- fess his forgeries in print. The only punishment he received was the condemnation of literary critics, and he went on to write several forgettable novels.
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