I shall not trouble myself by entering upon an elaborate detail of the forgery of the papers; any persons feeling at all interested upon that subject, may find ample food for the gratification of such desire, in my “Confessions,” one volume octavo, published in 1805. Since the appearance of the above work, twenty-seven years have elapsed; and my feelings at the present moment are very differently attuned to what they were when the “Confessions” were written. It has been justly remarked, that there exists a time for every thing; and the shafts of persecution have been so relentlessly levelled against me for upwards of thirty years, that I begin to conceive sufficient purgation has been endured, and that every inimical feeling, which now remains, is but the foul lees of rancour, malice, and uncharitableness. However, as most of my readers, from the lapse of time, may be unable to appreciate the drift of my meaning without a clue, I will, in the most succinct manner possible, make them fully acquainted with the height and sum of my offending, and then proceed to develop the usage of a certain portion of the literary world towards me. My father, (Mr. Samuel Ireland,) a gentleman gifted with the most open heart and liberal sentiments, chanced, like many others, to be enamoured of the Fine Arts and Vertu; his assortment of pictures, prints, and drawings, was universally extolled; his library well selected; and, above all, his collection of Hogarth’s works (not even excepting that of his noble competitor for mastery, the late Earl of Exeter) was not to be surpassed. Among the strongest of his predilections, my father entertained an unbounded enthusiasm for the writings of Shakspeare: four days, at least, out of the seven, the beauties of our divine dramatist became his theme of conversation after dinner; while in the evening, still further to impress the subject upon the minds of myself and sisters, certain plays were selected, and a part allotted to each, in order that we might read aloud, and thereby acquire a knowledge of the delivery of blank verse articulately, and with proper emphasis. The comments to which these rehearsals (if I may be permitted so to call them) gave rise, were of a nature to elicit, in all its bearings, the enthusiasm entertained by my father for the bard of Avon--with him Shakspeare was no mortal, but a divinity; and frequently while expatiating upon this subject, impregnated with all the fervour of Garrick, with whom he had been on intimate terms, my father would declare, that to possess a single vestige of the poet’s hand-writing would be esteemed a gem beyond all price, and far dearer to him than his whole collection. At these conversations I was uniformly present, swallowing with avidity the honied poison; when, by way of completing this infatuation, my father, who had already produced Picturesque Tours of some of the British rivers, determined on commencing that of the Avon; and I was selected as the companion of his