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COPYRIGHT 2005 Boston University
Government and literature are now more than ever intimately connected.
--T. J. Mathias (1)
THE STORY OF WILLIAM HENRY IRELAND'S NOTORIOUS SHAKESPEARE FORGERIES has been told many times. It has been treated as a scandal of intrinsic interest; (2) as an important episode in the history of bardolatry; (3) and as a significant chapter in the history of literary forgery. (4) In this essay I want to look at the material again, from the perspective of its reception. My argument will be that the politics of its reception tell us a great deal about the state of the literary public sphere in the 1790's: its character, its stresses, and finally, its fractures.
Over the last decade or so Jurgen Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere has established itself as the dominant, theoretical reading of print culture's rise in the course of the long eighteenth century. Habermas' account has been frequently challenged, especially over whether one can speak of a single, bourgeois public sphere. (5) As Geoff Eley puts it, "the public sphere makes more sense as the structured setting where cultural and ideological contest or negotiation among a variety of publics takes place, rather than as the spontaneous or class-specific achievement of the bourgeoisie in some sufficient sense." (6) Terry Eagleton specifies what some of these publics might be: "the Corresponding Societies, the radical press, Owenism, Cobbett's Political Register and Paine's Rights of Man, feminism and the dissenting churches...." (7) Geoff Eley's own general statement about the rise of the public sphere is, I think, correct: "Historically, its growth occurred in the late eighteenth century with the widening of political participation and the crystallizing of citizenship ideals" (Eley 290). The endless constitution debates in a revolutionary era sharpened notions of political inclusion and exclusion, notions defended through "rational" interventions in print, one of the principal characteristics of Habermas' public sphere. Many, if not most, of these interventions came from "below," from the politically disenfranchised. A key question is therefore whether we should regard such opposition as emanating from "alternative public spheres and counterpublics," (8) that is to say, as conflict inherent within the bourgeois public sphere, or whether dissent on such a massive scale discredits the whole theory altogether.
My approach to this question is to examine the reception of the Shakespeare forgery in terms of the tropes employed in the debates for and against the papers' authenticity, tropes embedded in the discursive practices that formed the public sphere. As we shall see, the republic of letters was a recurring, organizing figure. As Dena Goodman has shown, the Enlightenment concept of the republic of letters closely fits Habermas' theory of the bourgeois public sphere: as a concept it is a largely post-Renaissance invention; its history coincides with the rise of letters, with the invention of the post and "correspondence"; it was internationalist, and "universalist," in its self-conception; it was based on the assumption of "reciprocity" and equality between its citizens, on, that is, Enlightenment notions of sociability; and it was committed to rational ideals. (9) In this essay I shall be examining the strains within the republic of letters as they arose as the result of the most audacious literary forgery in English history. I shall set this local debate within the wider context of 1790's print culture, before returning to the consequences this has for our understanding of Habermas' theory of the bourgeois public sphere.
The Shakespeare Forgeries
In 1795 news began to filter out of the West End of London of some sensational discoveries. It was the development all Shakespeareans dreamt about: the poet's archive--his papers, manuscripts, and even his library--had come to light. The papers' provenance, was, however, troubling. On the plus side, the finds were announced to the world by Samuel Ireland, a respected author of picturesque travel books, a noted authority on Hogarth, and a private collector and dealer in antiquarian books and prints. His address (8 Norfolk Street, off the Strand) and his friends were all highly respectable. Unfortunately the story of their discovery was shrouded in mystery. It appears the papers had been found in the library of a wealthy gentleman by Samuel Ireland's late-adolescent son, William Henry, who encountered the documents in the course of his duties as a solicitor's clerk. William had made a discovery among the gentleman's papers that had materially assisted him and in reward the gentleman had let William keep a document that had caught his eye: a legal instrument pertaining to the Bard. Further investigation revealed the full extent of the trove, which included, among other things, a profession of faith (establishing the poet's Protestant credentials); a thank you letter from Elizabeth; a love letter to "Anne Hatherrwaye"; annotated books from Shakespeare's libraries; a manuscript draft of Lear (with the play's "vulgarisms" excised); a portrait of Shakespeare as Shylock; a deed of gift from Shakespeare to W. H. Ireland (an alleged ancestor), signing over to him the possession of his papers as a reward for having saved Shakespeare from drowning; and finally, the "lost" Shakespeare plays, Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II. The mysterious gentleman was anxious to avoid publicity; nor did he desire payment. The deed of gift appeared to confer a moral authority upon the Irelands--if not a strict legal one--and in any event, the gentleman had come to see William as a second son. But on no account would he reveal his identity.
To begin with, the press was largely guarded in its reception. For instance, in a letter to Mr. Urban, 'KS' objected that the prospectus for the forthcoming Miscellaneous Papers--Samuel Ireland's deluxe edition of the discoveries--lacked the support of the leading Shakespearians; he also worried about the papers' uncertain provenance. (10) Elsewhere, the skeptical made fun of the papers' orthography, its suspiciously Chattertonian multiplication of consonants, its 'y's instead of Ts, and its supernumerary 'e's. However, there were no outright accusations of malfeasance, as there was also a powerful lobby of enthusiastic "believers." Samuel Parr and Joseph Warton recklessly waxed lyrical over the profession of faith that appeared to confirm the Bard's Protestantism. James Boaden, in the Oracle, kept readers regularly informed of each new discovery, also in enthusiastic language that would come back to haunt him. (11) On visiting Norfolk Street, Boswell gulped down some brandy, wiped his brow, and fell on his knees in veneration before the papers, thanking God for having lived long enough to have seen them.
The magnificence of the production values of the Miscellaneous Papers was both its strength and its weakness. The papers may have been fabricated by a teenager, but they were presented as if endowed with the unequivocal blessing of the literary establishment: "In point of typographical beauty, the volume may challenge competition with even the Shakespeare of Boydell: and the fac similia with which it abounds are executed in a manner that does credit to the engraver's skill" (GM lxvi [1796]: 7). Their authenticity appeared to be underwritten, not just by high production values, but by the establishment itself." "The subscribers are in number about 120, and among them are several names of the highest respectability as patrons of literature, and cultivators of the belles lettres" (GM lxvi [1796]: 7). These patrons included "Glasgow College, New College, Oxford ... Boswell, George Chalmers, Richard Brinsley Sheridan ... a number of knights.., and a sprinkling of lords" (Schoenbaum 219-20). However, the prohibitive cost--four guineas--sowed suspicion. Commenting on the prospectus, "KS" complains that subscribers should be required to deposit two guineas for the right of inspecting whether the papers "are in reality what they pretend to be" (GM lxv [1795]: 210). KS also darkly animadverts on the absence of support from Farmer, Steevens, and Malone. Samuel Ireland responded with a letter to the Gentleman's Magazine, asking "Is all knowledge of Shakespeare and of old papers stored in the breast of this triumvirate?," and claiming that KS "wants an exhibition made of them. What, at a shilling a-head, to view, tear, and steal, any old papers?" (GM lxv [1795]: 285). In June KS notes with satisfaction that in the second prospectus for the publication of the Miscellaneous Papers, the "editor engages to return the deposit" of any subscriber unconvinced by a close inspection of the papers (GM lxv [1795]: 458).
The balance between belief and skepticism was upset by Edmond Malone. From the very beginning, Malone was convinced the papers were counterfeit. He had refused to visit Norfolk Street to inspect them fearing that to do so would give the impression of offering tacit support to their authenticity. The publication of the Miscellaneous Papers provided all the ammunition he needed. In February 1796, he launched the first foray of his campaign, a letter to Mr. Urban bluntly informing the world that he was committed to the "detection of the most inartificial and bungling forgery ever attempted" (GM lxvi [1796]: 92). Careful of Samuel Ireland's standing, and with a lawyer's awareness of the libel laws, he added that the "forger being unknown, the detection necessarily relates to the manuscripts alone" (GM lxvi [1796]: 92-93). Monetary forgery was a capital offense; (12) and while literary forgery obviously was not, in actual courts of law, it was similarly fatal in the tribunals of the republic of letters. To be found guilty of forging "letters," was to risk being expelled from the republic's metaphorical spaces. Emboldened by Malone's intervention, the Gentleman's Magazine accompanied Malone's letter with a sarcastic squib urging him to expose this "counterfeytynge Willye fromme Irelande by Thames" (GM lxvi [1796]: 93).
The accusation of forgery made by someone of Malone's standing holed the Irelands' cause below the water line. Worse, Malone recruited his coterie in support of his campaign. For instance Malone's old...
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