Samuel Ireland

Mjesto: London

Rođen: 1744

Smrt: 1800

Biografija:

Samuel Ireland and Thomas Inglefield, an armless artist (1787), are in the print room of the British Museum, together with etchings after Ruisdael (1786) and Teniers (1787) and other masters, and some architectural drawings in water-color.
Meanwhile his taste for collecting books, pictures, and curiosities gradually became an all-absorbing passion. In 1794 Ireland proved the value of a part of his collection by issuing "Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, from Pictures, Drawings, and Scarce Prints in the Author’s possession." Some of the plates were etched by himself. A second volume appeared in 1799. The work is of high interest, although it is possible that Ireland has assigned to Hogarth some drawings by other artists.
In 1790 Ireland published A Picturesque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France made in the Autumn of 1789, London (2 vols. Roy. 8vo and in large-paper 4to). It was dedicated to Francis Grose and contained etchings on copper in aqua-tinta from drawings made by the author "on the spot." He paid at least one visit to France, and the charge brought against him by his enemies that he was never out of England is unfounded. A second edition appeared in 1795. The series, which was long valued by collectors, was continued in the same form in Picturesque Views on the River Thames, 1792 (2 vols., 2nd ed. 1800-1); in Picturesque Views on the River Medway, 1793 (1 vol.); in Picturesque Views on the Warwickshire Avon, 1795 (1 vol.); and in Picturesque Views on the River Wye, 1797 (1 vol.). In 1800, just after Ireland’s death, appeared Picturesque Views, with an Historical Account of the Inns of Court in London and Westminster, and the series was concluded by the publication in 1824 of Picturesque Views on the River Severn (2 vols.), with colored lithographs, after drawings by Ireland, and descriptions by T. Harral. Ireland had announced the immediate issue of this work in his volume on the Wye in 1797.
In 1790 Ireland resided in Arundel Street, Strand, and a year later removed to 8 Norfolk Street. His household consisted of Mrs. Freeman, a housekeeper and amanuensis, whose handwriting shows her to have been a woman of education, a son William Henry, and a daughter Jane. The latter painted some clever miniatures. He had also a married daughter, Anna Maria Barnard. The Ireland family Bible shows that all three children were illegitimate, and that Mrs. Freeman was their mother. Mrs. Freeman’s original name was Anna Maria de Burgh Coppinger.
Ireland was a fervent admirer of William Shakespeare, and in 1793, when preparing his "Picturesque Views of the Avon," he took his son with him to Stratford-on-Avon. They carefully examined all the spots associated with the dramatist. The father recorded many village traditions, which he accepted as true, including those concocted for his benefit (according to Sidney Lee) by John Jordan, the Stratford poet, who was his chief guide throughout his visit.
In his pursuit of information about Shakespeare Ireland learned from some of the oldest inhabitants that manuscripts had been moved from Shakespeare's residence at New Place to Clopton House at the time of the Stratford fire. To Clopton House he went, where he learned from the tenant that the manuscripts he was seeking had been destroyed only a week before. His disappointment was extreme. "My God! Sir, you are not aware of the loss which the world has sustained. Would to heaven I had arrived sooner!".
Late in 1794 his son, William Henry, claimed to have discovered a mortgage deed signed by Shakespeare, in an old trunk belonging to a mysterious acquaintance of his, whom he designated only as Mr. H. In fact he had forged the deed himself, using blank parchment cut from an ancient deed at his employer’s office. Prominent authorities pronounced it genuine, and soon other items followed—a letter from Queen Elizabeth, a love-poem by Shakespeare written to his future wife, "Anna Hatherreway," the original manuscript of King Lear, as well as the manuscript of an otherwise unknown play, Vortigern and Rowena.
These were soon on display at Ireland’s house, where notable literary men such as James Boswell, Samuel Parr, Joseph Warton, and Henry James Pye, the poet laureate, pronounced them genuine. The chief Shakespearean scholars of the day, Edmond Malone and George Steevens, however, unhesitatingly denounced them as forgeries. (One curious exception was George Chalmers, who made genuine contributions to Shakespeare scholarship, but who was nonetheless taken in by the imposition.)

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