elated the affair in the _Anecdote Library_.

In the Catalogue of Dr. Parr's Library at Hatton, (_Bibliotheca
Parriana_,) we find the following attempted explanation by the Doctor:--

"Ireland's (Samuel) 'Great and impudent forgery, called,' Miscellaneous
Papers and Legal Instruments, under the hand and seal of William
Shakspeare, folio 1796.

"I am almost ashamed to insert this worthless and infamously trickish
book. It is said to include the tragedy of _King Lear_, and a fragment
of _Hamlet_. Ireland told a lie when he imputed to _me_ the words which
_Joseph Warton_ used, the very morning I called on Ireland, and was
inclined to admit the possibility of genuineness in his papers. In my
subsequent conversation, I told him my change of opinion. But I thought
it not worth while to dispute in print with a detected impostor.--S. P."

Mr. Ireland died about 1802. His son, William Henry, long survived him;
but the forgeries blighted his literary reputation for ever, and he
died in straitened circumstances, about the year 1840. The reputed
Shakspearean MSS. are stated to have been seen for sale in a pawnbroker's
window in Wardour-street, Soho.

* * * * *

HOOLE, THE TRANSLATOR OF TASSO. THE GHOST PUZZLED.

Hoole was born in a hackney-coach, which was conveying his mother to
Drury-lane Theatre, to witness the performance of the tragedy of
_Timanthes_, which had been written by her husband. Hoole died in 1839,
at a very advanced age. In early life, he ranked amongst the literary
characters that adorned the last century; and, for some years before his
death, had outlived most of the persons who frequented the _conversazioni_
of Dr. Johnson. By the will of the Doctor, Mr. Hoole was enabled to take
from his library and effects such books and furniture as he might think
proper to select, by way of memorial of that great personage. He
accordingly chose a chair in which Dr. Johnson usually sat, and the
desk upon which he had written the greater number of the papers of the
_Rambler_; both these articles Mr. Hoole used constantly until nearly
the day of his death.

Hoole was near-sighted. He was partial to the drama; and, when young,
often strutted his hour at an amateur theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Upon one occasion, whilst performing the ghost in _Hamlet_, Mr. Hoole
wandered incautiously from off the trap-door through which he had
emerged from the nether world, and by which it was his duty