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on vellum no less—sold some years ago for about $8,000. The
ordinary paper copies today are running $5,000 or $6,000, if you
are lucky enough to get one. Ireland is remembered only as a
forger, but his work is still very interesting. When you actually
examine the forgeries you realize that they are ludicrous. But
they fulfill every scholar's or collector’s dream: imagine what
you would want to see belonging to Shakespeare and there it is.
William was not really a bad person, and the whole thing was so
silly that it hasn’t fooled scholars over the years. The forgeries
were spotted early and were labeled as such, and now are just
curiosities.

The next forgerfiwe are now in the nineteenth centuryiis to
my mind the worst. One doesn’t get to like these people, they’re
not lovable, but you can empathize in an abstract way. If some—
one tells you he can open a safe by rubbing sandpaper on his
fingers you may not approve of this type of conduct, but you
might say, “Well, that/s a talent, bad as it is."

This forger should have known better. In fact, he is, in my
mind, the lowest of all of them because he was a great scholar.
And when a scholar, like a policeman, goes bad, it’s loathsome.
John Payne Collier lived a very long life, from 1789 to 1883. He
was a lawyer and historian. He was founder of the Shakespeare
Society and he wrote books on Shakespeare. He did a great deal
of work on the life of Shakespeare. But one thing he did for which
there is no forgiveness: he mixed facts with forgeries. He had
access, because of his great expertise, to the libraries of certain
noblemen, the Earl of Ellesmere, the Duke of Devonshire, and
others, who had much original material relating to the Elizav
bethan age. He would research and publish books which were all
legitimate and based on the actual documents which were part
of the archives. The problem was that he got carried away. Once
in a while he would slip in false evidence—documents that didn't
belong there—which he had created, supposedly annotated books
that had no annotations.

As is the case with many forgers and all scholars, Collier
wanted to prove certain favorite theories. Shakespearean schol—
ars are no different from others; they have their pet ideas, their
likes and dislikes. These theories are not to be taken lightly. If
you imagine that the attitude toward Shakespeare and Shake—
spearean scholarship is purely intellectual, on a very cold—blooded
basis, you're mistaken. I sat one day at the Pierpont Morgan
Library and listened to A. L. Rowse deliver a lecture on his the—