is the fashion to turn up the eyes, when Paradise Lost is mentioned ; 

 and, if you fail herein you want taste : you \vantjudgment even, if 

 you do not admire this absurd and ridiculous stuff, when, if one 

 of your relations were to write a letter in the same strain, you 

 would send him to a mad-house and take his estate. It is the 

 sacrificing of reason to fashion. And as to the other &quot; Divine 

 Bafd,&quot; the case is still more provoking. After his ghosts, witches, 

 sorcerers, fairies, and monsters ; after his bombast and puns and 

 smut, which appear to have been not much relished by his com 

 paratively rude contemporaries, had had their full swing : after 

 hundreds of thousands of pounds had been expended upon embellishing 

 his works : after numerous commentators and engravers and 

 painters and booksellers had got fat upon the trade ; after jubilees 

 had been held in honour of his memory ; at a time when there 

 were men, otherwise of apparently good sense, who were what was 

 aptly enough termed Shakespear-mad. At this very moment an 

 occurrence took place, which must have put an end, for ever, to 

 this national folly, had it not been kept up by infatuation and 

 obstinacy without parallel. Young IRELAND, I think his name 

 was WILLIAM, no matter from what motive, though I never could see 

 any harm in his motive, and have always thought him a man most 

 unjustly and brutally used. No matter, however, what were the 

 inducing circumstances, or the motives, he did write, and bring 

 forth, as being Shakespear s, some plays, a prayer, and a love- 

 letter. The learned men of England, Ireland and Scotland met 

 to examine these performances. Some doubted, a few denied : 

 but, the far greater part, amongst whom were Dr. PARR, Dr. 

 WHARTON, and Mr. GEORGE CHALMERS, declared, in the most 

 positive terms, that no man but Shakespear could have written 

 those things. There was a division : but this division arose more 

 from a suspicion of some trick, than from any thing to be urged 

 against the merit of the writings. The plays went so far as to be 

 ACTED. Long lists of subscribers appeared to the work. 

 And, in short, it was decided, in the most unequivocal manner, 

 that this young man of sixteen years of age had written so nearly like 

 Shakespear, that a majority of the learned and critical classes of 

 the nation most firmly believed the writings to be Shakespear s ; 

 there cannot be a doubt, that if Mr. Ireland had been able to keep 

 his secret, they would have passed for Shakespear s till the time 

 shall come when the whole heap of trash will, by the natural 

 good sense of the nation, be consigned to everlasting oblivion ; 

 and, indeed, as folly ever doats on a darling, it is very likely, that 

 these last found productions of &quot; our immortal bard &quot; would have 

 been regarded as his best. Yet, in spite of all this ; in spite of 

 what one would have thought was sufficient to make blind people 

 see, the fashion has been kept up ; and, what excites something 

 more than ridicule and contempt, Mr. Ireland, whose writings 

 had been taken for Shakespear s, was, when he made the discovery, 

 treated as an impostor and a cheat, and hunted down with as much 



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