According to his confessional autobiography, William Henry Ireland (1777-1835) went to extraordinary lengths to please his father, Samuel, 是谁(就像后来的道斯一样)对所有与莎士比亚有关的东西都有着无限的痴迷. While still a teenager, 威廉·亨利自学了伪造术，并“在莎士比亚手中”伪造了多份文件，并提交给了他的父亲, a publisher of elegant, illustrated books. 塞缪尔·爱尔兰天真地出版了他儿子的作品，其中包括一封据称是伊丽莎白女王写给莎士比亚的信，感谢他“优美的诗句”.” Samuel Ireland illustrated a deluxe edition of Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments . . . of William Shakespeare with facsimiles of the documents that the younger Ireland had “discovered.” For a brief time, 塞缪尔·爱尔兰收集的莎士比亚手稿成了伦敦的热门话题，爱好者们可以在预定的时间里观看“原始”手稿.

Vortigern

William Henry Ireland’s audacious fraud quickly collapsed, however, when Samuel Ireland persuaded Richard Brinsley Sheridan to stage Vortigern, a “newly-discovered” play by Shakespeare (i.e. William Henry Ireland) at Sheridan’s Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in 1796. The ovations that greeted the opening acts of the first and only performance of Vortigern 很快，观众们发出了笑声和嘘声，这出戏在200多年后都没有再上演. John Philip Kemble, who played the lead role in the play, was not shy about expressing his doubts as to its authenticity, but Samuel Ireland died four years later, 仍然相信他的莎士比亚文献是真实的，因为他的儿子根本没有能力制造这样的赝品.

威廉·亨利·爱尔兰后来描述了他的罪行，并为几代伪造者提供了详细的指导手册 The Confessions of William Henry Ireland (London: 1805). The Confessions is a lively, detailed account, but must be used with caution; Ireland appears to have lied systematically about just about everything that happened in his life, large and small. 他似乎还相信，被他欺骗的人会庆祝他的发明天才. Until his death in 1835, he was an enormously productive, but no longer successful author. 他不得不仿造他所创作的莎士比亚文件，并将其作为他的“原创”赝品出售——伪造他的赝品.

Thomas Dowse

Thomas Dowse, whose portrait by Moses Wright was commissioned by the MHS in 1856, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1772. According to family lore, Dowse was lame from childhood because of a fall from an apple tree and the shy, reclusive boy turned to books, as he described it, for “occupation and amusement.他如饥似渴地阅读，更如饥似渴地购买——他花了60多年的时间建立了一个非凡的个人图书馆, and this the work of a man who was largely self-taught, and who first made his living as a tanner and leather dresser.

Dowse never married and worked in the leather trade until 1846, accumulating a considerable fortune that he spent on an ever-growing book collection. His library grew to consist of 4,665 volumes and his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, became something of a “public attraction” that brought distinguished visitors, especially bibliophiles, to gaze upon his books, almost all elegantly rebound in fine, gold-stamped bindings, often the work of early 19th-century Boston bookbinders. Dowse’s books had an appraised value of $40,000—an enormous sum—at a time when the balance in the Society’s funds for purchases was $527.40.

The Dowse Library: a case study in donor relations

In the 1850s, Thomas Dowse, by then in his eighties, 他开始为书寻找一个归宿，因为书是“他最珍爱的尘世之物” . . . his guides in youth, his support in manhood, and his solace in old age.” Harvard University courted him; President Josiah Quincy had offered to build a separate building to house the collection, 但道斯最终未能与哈佛达成协议——有消息称，有大学生破坏了他财产周围的围栏. MHS member George Livermore—a fellow bibliophile, 后来成为了道斯的遗产执行人——他是道斯和协会之间的中间人. In July 1856, 道斯将他的图书馆捐赠给了该协会，并一举将MHS图书馆的藏书从大约8本增加了一半,000 to 13,000 volumes. It was a timely gift; Dowse died in November of that year.

“官方说法”是，托马斯·道斯“早就熟悉这个协会的特点”, and was personally acquainted with many of the members, he felt sure, that, in their keeping, his books which had been for many years his choice and cherished friends, would be carefully preserved and properly used.” MHS President Robert C. Winthrop had a more personal explanation for the gift: late in life the reclusive Dowse, although not an MHS member, had been invited to the Society’s annual spring event for members, a strawberry festival, and although he had declined the invitation, he retained warm feelings for the kindness and respect of MHS members.

Edward Everett and Thomas Dowse

For Thomas Dowse, 爱德华·埃弗雷特积极参与国安局的事务可能是最终的认可. As reflected in his book collection, along with heroes of the American Revolution, English Civil War, and Shakespeare, Dowse greatly admired Edward Everett, a Massachusetts congressman, governor, president of Harvard, minister to the Court of St. James, secretary of state, senator, and the great orator of his age. 爱德华·埃弗雷特早期演讲的单独印刷的汇编是埃弗雷特送给道斯的礼物, and handsomely bound in two volumes by Dowse for his library. Everett, in turn, described the Dowse Library as “the most excellent library of English books, for its size, with which I am acquainted.” Dowse also left to the MHS an unfinished portrait of Everett painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1820. 埃弗雷特当时是一名26岁的哈佛大学教授，已经是历史学会的成员.

The Dowse Library room was dedicated at the Massachusetts Historical Society’s annual meeting on 9 April 1857. It is not a room that Thomas Dowse would have known; the furniture and bookcases were built for the MHS with funds provided by Dowse’s estate. In 1899, when the Society moved to its present building on Boylston Street, Dowse图书馆在波士顿市中心Tremont街的旧址被拆除，搬到了新楼. On Boylston Street, 对于搬到新填满的后湾的“荒野”的成员来说，道斯图书馆可能创造了某种熟悉的舒适感. Until 1960, it was the reading room—and when the membership was smaller, the Society’s meeting room—a role that it continues to play for many Board, committee, and smaller public meetings.