344 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 70., May 2. '67. 



Extraordinary Superstition. — Mr. Gardner, a 

 recent traveller in Brazil, assures us that he met 

 with several individuals belonging to that re- 

 markable sect called Sebastianistas, who take this 

 appellation from their belief in the return to earth 

 of King Don Sebastian, who fell in the battle of 

 Alcazar Kebir, while leading on his army against 

 the Moors. On his return, they say, Brazil will 

 enjoy the most perfect state of happiness, and all 

 that our own Millennarians anticipate will be fully 

 realised. E. H. A. 



Local Saying. — In Ray's Collection ia the fol- 

 lowing : 



" Essex stiles, 

 Kentish miles, 

 Norfolk wiles, 

 Many men beguiles. 



For stiles Essex may well vie with any county in Eng- 

 land, it being wholly divided into small closes, and not 

 one common field that I know of in the whole country. 

 Length of miles I know not what reason Kent hath to 

 pretend to, for generally speaking, the further from 

 London the longer the miles ; but for cunning in the law, 

 and wrangling, Norfolk men are justly noted." 



Perhaps " N. & Q." can solve the Kentish diffi- 

 culty. DUNELMEHSIS. 



Holly-Bussing. — 



" This is a vernacular expression for a very ancient 

 custom that still obtains at Netherwitton, the origin of 

 which your correspondent has never yet been able to 

 ascertain. On Easter Tuesday the lads and lasses of the 

 village and vicinity meet; and accompanied by our 

 worthy parish clerk, who plays an excellent fiddle, the 

 inspiring strains of which put mirth and mettle in their 

 heels, proceed to the wood to get holly ; with which some 

 decorate a stone cross that stands in the village, while 

 others are " bobbing around " to " Speed the Plough," or 

 " Birnie Bouzle." Accordingly, on Tuesday last a merry 

 party assembled, and, after going through the usual 

 routine, dancing was kept up on the green until the 

 shades of evening were closing ou them." — Newcastle 

 Express. 



A. Challeteth. 



Gray's Inn. 



THE SHAKSPEARE FORGERIES. 



My copy of the Confessions of William Henry 

 Ireland was formerly in the possession of Robert 

 Lang, Esq., the eminent Roxburgher, the Me- 

 liadus of Dr. Dibdin. From the many notes in 

 his handwriting, the following may appear to 

 merit preservation : 



" My name appears in the list of those who have been 

 ridiculed as subscribing to the Shakspere papers. It was 

 put down by my Father-in-law, who was an implicit 

 Believer ; he had young Ireland frequently at his house, 

 and the loan of the Henry the 2nd., in MS., previous to 

 the performance of Vortiyern ; his name had considerable 

 weight, and he was a man of a good judgment of such 

 subjects. When I returned from seeing the papers in 

 Norfolk Street, I was not satisfied, but I think it was 

 principally in consequence of remarking the singularity 



of the drawing of Mortimer's which hung in the room 

 adjacent to Ireland's library. I mentioned this in the 

 evening at Mr. Bennett Langton's, and was struck with 

 the benevolence of his remark on the subject of the Papers. 

 He said, from various inquiries, he had no doubt the 

 Papers were spurious ; he had been pressed to see them ; 

 he had no doubt that his opinion would be against them, 

 and if that was given out it might possibly injure Ire- 

 land, who, he believed, was poor; and he would not go. 

 He must have considered it as an ingenious and innocent 

 deception." 



So indeed it was ; and so it would have been 

 considered by the petty word-mongers of the day 

 — Malone, Chalmers, Boaden, et id genus omne 

 (men utterly incapable of appreciating or compre- 

 hending Shakspeare, but who, nevertheless, did 

 good service in their subordinate line) — but for 

 the feeling, not less revengeful and malignant than 

 the feminine spretcB injuria formce, engendered by 

 the galling consciousness that their boasted sa- 

 gacity had been set at nought by a mere boy ! 

 This was a glorious affair for Cobbett, whose con- 

 tempt for Shakspeare is well known (^Advice to 

 Young Men, p. 75.), as it afforded him at once an 

 illustration of the truth of his opinion, and a fine 

 opportunity of laughing at the "Doctors." Yet 

 in Shakspeare and Cobbett alike must be sought 

 the words and the style to drive ideas home to the 

 minds of Englishmen. The pompous pedant 

 Parr, likewise, (now fast sinking to oblivion, and 

 whose " works " are just better than waste paper,) 

 tries, in language unfitting at once the divine and 

 the gentleman, to back out of his avowed and 

 implicit belief in the genuineness of the papers. 

 {Bib. Parriana, p. 522.) But this generation oi 

 critics has passed away : poor Ireland has expi- 

 ated his dangerous and too successful experiment 

 on their boasted acumen by a prescribed and im- 

 poverished life, and a death doubtless hastened by 

 a consciousness of injustice and cruelty ; and the 

 great Shakspeare Hoax is now regarded in its 

 true light, as an innocent and just rebuke to ultra 

 crepidarian critics and literary pretenders, and 

 one of the most interesting of the Curiosities of 

 Literature. 



I am reminded, while writing the above, of the 

 singular statement made by a correspondent to 

 a contemporary miscellany (Willis's Current 

 Notes, Dec. 1855, p. 98.), that in the concoction 

 of the Shakspeare forgery W. H. Ireland was but 

 the amanuensis or copyist of his father, Samuel 

 Ireland, the real fabricator of the spurious MSS. ; 

 and that the Confessions published by the former 

 was " a tissue of lies from beginning to end," as 

 was affirmed to the writer by the younger Ireland 

 himself In contravention of this extraordinary 

 statement, and in proof of W. H. Ireland's actual 

 and sole authorship of the spurious papers, may 

 be cited, quant, valeant : 



1. W. H. Ireland's advertisement in the London 

 papers containing his solemn declaration that his 



