August 2, 1775

William Henry Ireland (August 2, 1775 to April 17, 1835) was an English writer of some erudition, and the modern propensity to demonstrate  superiority by mocking others. We see this in his book titled:

Stultifera Navis. ..:The modern ship of fools (1807)

The chapter titles in Ireland's Ship of Fools give a good sense of the book (these and the fact it is written in verse):

Of Foolish unprofitable books
Of new Fashions and Fools that wear disguised garments
Of Old Fools who hanker after Young Women
Of Foolish Counsellors Judges and Men of Law
Of Fools who contemn and despise Religion
Of Young Fools who marry Old ones for love of Gold
Of Venal Fools
Of Fools who Masquerade at Midnight
Of Fools who delight in the Chase
Of Fools who pretend to despise Death
Of discontented and unsteady Fools
Of Fools who go to Law for Trifles
Of Fools who provide Nothing in youth to live in Age
Of Fools who are in Love
Of Foolish Astronomers and Star Gazers
Of Foolish Alchemists
Of Fools who seek Fortune at Games of Chance
Of Foolish Priests and babbling Parsons in the Choir
Of Fools who practise vileness of Manners at Table
Of Avaricious Fools
Of the vice of Sloth in Fools
Of Foolish Flatterers and Glossers
Of the Vanity of Fools
Of Usurious Fools
Of Fools who superintend the Education of Children
Of Prodigal Fools
Of curious and prying Fools
Of the Fool that is Jealous of his Wife without a Cause
Of Fools that know and are instrumental to their Wives Inconstancy
Of Fools that are Passionate at Trifles
Of Fools who rely on the stability of For tune
Of Foolish Scoffers and Backbiters
Of Fools that do other Mens Business and neglect their own
Of Fools who collect old Books and Prints
Of Foolish Antiquaries
Of the Vain Boasting of Fools
Of Ambitious Fools
Of Fools who pursue unprofitable Study
Of Foolish Poets and Authors
Of Imperial Fools
Of Fools who think none so wise as themselves
Of Fools who daily prolong their own Amendment
Of Noble Fools
Of the Diseased Fool that will not at tend to his Physician
Of Fools that willingly put themselves in the Way of Peril
Of Gentlemen Fools
Of Fools who believe in Predestination
Of Fools who do not understand a Game
Of Trading Fools
Of Fools whose Labour constitutes their pleasure
Of the Folly of all the World
Of the Reward of Wisdom

The titles above are not all inclusive of Ireland's chapters in this book.

Under the category of fools who believe in predestination Ireland cites these lines by
Samuel Butler.

Some calculate the hidden fates
Of monkeys, puppy dogs, and cats; 

Ireland's point is that this is useless.

Ireland wrote one of the most famous Shakespeare forgeries. We read:.

Most famous, perhaps, was the great Shakespeare forgery of 1795-6, perpetrated by law clerk William-Henry Ireland, who “discovered” a new Shakespeare history called Vortigern and Rowena:

Like Shakespeare before him, William-Henry drew on Holinshed’s Chronicles, a copy of which he borrowed from his father’s study. The young man wrote the play on ordinary paper in his own handwriting, explaining that it was a transcript of what Shakespeare had written. The supposed original document he produced later on, when he had time to inscribe it on antique paper in a flowery hand.


Ireland also wrote gothic novels:

The Abbess: A Romance (4 volumes), (1799)
Rimualdo: Or, The Castle of Badajos, (1800)
Gondez the Monk: A Romance of the Thirteenth Century (1805)

He was and may still be, a man of his times.