Alexander Rex to his very beloved Aristotle, Greeting.
My beloved:—
I am not satisfied because you have made public certain of your books which you had to keep under the seal of secrecy, for it is a profanation of their value; and no more render them public without my consent. As to what you asked of me, to travel to the country of the Gauls in order to learn the sciences of the Druids, of whom Pythagoras made so fine a eulogy, not only do I permit you but I entreat you to go for the good of my people, as you are not ignorant in what esteem I hold the nation which I consider as the one that carries the light in the world. I salute you.
This XX of the Kalends of May, year of the CV Olympiad
Alexander
Old Chasles got all that was coming to him, and the 140,000 francs that he spent on the Lucas inventions were as nothing compared with the great joy the world in general, and antiquarians in particular, have experienced in reading these altogether amusing epistles.
Being sometimes called a pirate myself, I have always been interested in reading about them. I remember reveling in Treasure Island, soon after it appeared in 1883. But instead of the pieces of eight and flashing gems which Stevenson conjured up for the boyish mind, I substituted, in my youthful imagination, rare books. This seems far-fetched, yet it is absolutely true. Instead of Long John Silver’s doubloons and sequins, I put in their place first editions and manuscripts. They were more to me, then and now, than all the treasure of the Indies. And yet, in the first years of my passion for them, I rarely gave thought to forgeries. I had that superb reliance upon instinct which is a part and parcel of youth. I felt that if there were forgeries about I could sniff them as a dog follows a scent. So I was not really interested in forgers and their works until I read in a book for the first time an account of William Henry Ireland, the greatest fabricator of them all.
Ireland was a youthful scamp, less than eighteen years old, who in 1795 pulled the leg of almost the entire literary world with his “discovery” of many Shakespearean manuscripts. He was the son of an engraver in London, and doubtless inherited the facile fingers which brought him his peculiar fame. Ireland senior reverenced all relics of antiquity, and especially those which were connected with the memory of Shakespeare. He was almost a fanatic on this subject and gave his son to understand that his greatest desire would be satisfied the day that he was lucky enough to find an autograph manuscript of the Bard of Avon. I’ve had that feeling myself. After being dragged hither and yon by his father, who searched every nook and cranny where Shakespeare was supposed to have stayed, the filial William Henry decided upon a course of his own to make his father completely happy.
FORGERY OF SHAKESPEARE MANUSCRIPT
BY WILLIAM HENRY IRELAND