OSCAR WILDE DEAD. ENGLISH POET AND AUTHOR WHO VISITED THIS COUNTRY. Started the Sunflower Craze Among the Aesthetics, Returned Home and Became a Degenerate. WAS IMPRISONED TWO YEARS THEN WENT TO FRANCE AND LIVED IN THE LATIN QUARTER. Died in an Obscure Hotel with Lord Alfred Douglas at His Bedside—Other Deaths.

DUBLIN, Nov. 30.—A dispatch to the Evening Mail from Paris says Oscar Wilde is dead. The dispatch adds that he expired in an obscure house in the Latin Quarter from meningitis, and was received into the Catholic Church on his deathbed.

PARIS, Nov. 30.—Wilde had been living in a hotel on the Rue des Beaux Arts, where he had been known for several months under the name of Manmoth. For some time he had been indisposed. In October he was obliged to submit to a serious operation, from the effects of which he never recovered. He died at 2 o'clock this morning at the Maison du Pierier, an obscure hotel, in the presence of Lord Alfred Douglas.

The Journal says it is rumored that Wilde committed suicide.

Oscar Wilde, the son of Sir W. R. W. Wilde, was born in 1858. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1878 got the Newdigate prize for his poem "Ravenna." In 1881 he published "Poems;" in 1891, "The House of Pomegranates;" in 1893, "Lady Windermere's Fan," a play; in 1894, "A Woman of No Importance," "Intentions" and "Salome," the latter a translation from the French; in 1895 a novel, "Dorian Grey." He was known as the leader of the aesthetic school. Wilde visited and lectured in America in 1882 and 1883 and started the "sunflower" craze and various other phases of his esthetic cult. He was known, somewhat satirically, as "The Apostle of Beauty and Languidness," and it is related of him that on one occasion he entered a Chicago restaurant at the dinner hour and ordered a bouquet of Parma violets. When they came he buried his nose in them for a few minutes, got up with the remark, "I have dined," threw the startled waiter a gold piece and walked out. He was satirized under the guise of "Postlethwaite" by Du Maurier, and was the original of "Bunthorne" in Gilbert's opera of "Patience." In 1896 he was sentenced to two years at hard labor for vicious practices, and since his release from prison has lived in close retirement, usually in France, and under an assumed name.

MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. FATE OF OSCAR WILDE, ONCE THE APOSTLE OF ESTHETICISM [sic]. Became an Outcast, Whom No One Would Shelter, After His Fall—Sir Arthur Sullivan's Satire.

Chicago Tribune.

The death of Oscar Wilde followed closely after that of Sir Arthur Sullivan, the composer of the music for "Patience," the most bitter satire ever penned on the esthetic [sic] craze which made the Englishman notorious. Wilde never heard of Gilbert after the rendition of his famous satire without showing some sign of the irritation it had caused him. It remained an open wound until his death.

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on Oct. 16, 1856. He was the oldest son of Sir William Wills Wilde, who attained fame and knighthood as a specialist. Oscar's mother was one of the earlier champions of home rule in Ireland, and under the name of "Speranza" contributed numerous caustic articles on that subject. The home of the youthful Wilde was frequented by the most famous men of Europe who visited Dublin, and before the lad was eight years of age he had heard every subject possible, almost, discussed at his father's table. Always the companion of his mother, he was thrown with grown-up people, and seldom associated with children. He never attended a public school, his early education consisting of a literary instruction entirely, that being an ideal preparatory work in the estimation of his parents.

As a boy Wilde traveled extensively in France and Germany. He was not an admirer of German literature, but read the works of Goethe and Heine closely. French writings seemed to possess a fascination for him, and much of his time was spent in their study. He went to Trinity College in Dublin one year, winning a gold medal and a scholarship for his excellent work in Greek.

In 1874 he was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford. Here again he distinguished himself, obtaining a scholarship and taking two firsts during his four years' study. In 1876 he was given the first in "Moderations," and in 1878 he was again at the head in "Greats." During the closing year his poem, "Ravenna," won him the Newdigate prize.

The lectures of Ruskin fired him with admiration for Italy, and he went to Florence. When he returned to resume his studies it was with a "soul steeped with splendor of a religion preached through color and glow." The South attracted him again in 1878, and he went to Greece, returning in time only to take his degree.

His studies completed, it was natural he should seek the home of his mother in London. Cadogan House, the home of Lady Wilde, was visited by the most distinguished people in London. Her son seemed satisfied to indulge in intolerable mannerisms, but the emptiness of the family exchequer, depleted through the carelessness of his father, who paid more attention to his studies than to the care of his money, drove him to seek some livelihood.

AN APOSTLE OF ESTHETICS.

"Agnostic Estheticism" attracted him, and he became its apostle. Punch caricatured him and Gilbert ridiculed him in "Patience." His religion of color and his attempt to beautify sin soon made him notorious. His creed was expressed in these brief paragraphs:

"The tendency to sin is inborn. Sin, therefore, enters ipso facto into the scheme of the universe as much as virtue. Now, there are variations of sin as well as shades of virtue. Since virtue carried to excess is nauseating and can only be praiseworthy when practiced from ethical motives, is not its antithesis, sin, also a means to certain ends? Cannot sin be studied, in other words, with a view to its utility as a servant, instead of as a master?

"Has any one ever made a study of the possibilities of sin? Has sin ever been dissected and experimented with from worthy motives? No. The physician who exposes himself to the contagion of smallpox and consumption, that he may better know and battle with those diseases, is a hero in the cause of science. Similarly the being who exposes himself to every form of temptation and yields his soul to the debaucheries of a Tiberius at Capri, or practices the exquisite wickednesses that have rendered the name of Heliogabalus synonymous with sensual slavery, will, if prompted by worthy motives, retain every vestige of his innocence."

In 1880, when Wilde began the publication of his poems, the critics lampooned him unmercifully, and the announcement of his prospective visit to America to proclaim the doctrines which had made him the cynosure of English eyes drew bitter denouncement from the Western critics, though the reviewers of the United States were more kind than their English contemporaries.

Decorated with an enormous sunflower and resplendent in colors as rich as those of the rainbow Wilde came to America in 1881. Everywhere he was received with enthusiasm. He delivered 200 lectures while here, traveling the breadth of the continent and visiting every point of interest. His love for the euphonious and the beautiful led him often to refuse engagements when he did not like the name of the town. "Griggsville" was one of the unfortunates, and he never forgave the committee for inviting him.

While in the United States Wilde was the guest of hundreds of well-known families, letters of introduction from England giving him ready access. His tour was successful financially and he took thousands of dollars back to England with him when he departed. Upon his return to England he was received almost as enthusiastically as he had been in America.

HIS BOOKS.

The next ten years of his life were spent in lectures and the publication of his books. "Vera," a play, was given to the world in 1882. "The Happy Prince" was published in 1888. Between that year and 1891, inclusive, he wrote "Dorian Gray," "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.," "Intentions," "The [sic] House of Pomegranates," "The Sphinx," "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" and "The Duchess of Padua."

His first play to be produced was "Lady Windermere's Fan," in 1892. London gave it an enthusiastic reception, and since then it has delighted thousands of Americans, having been presented only a few weeks ago at a local theater.

"A Woman of Importance" was published in 1893, and one-act tragedy, entitled "Salome," a little later. This play was produced in Paris by Sarah Bernhardt with striking success. His subsequent works were "An Ideal Husband," "The Importance of Being In Earnest" and a book of poems, the most talked about being "Reading Gaol."

A play called "Mr. and Mrs. Daventry," said to be the most immoral ever presented in London, was given on Oct. 25, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell at the head of the cast. The playwright to whom the production was accredited was Frank Harris, but shortly after its appearance Kyrle Bellew and Mrs. James Brown Potter stated they had contracted with Oscar Wilde for a play written on the same lines. They claimed he had fulfilled his part in writing it, but had disposed of it to Harris, who had some reputation as a writer.

Wilde was married in 1884 to Miss Constance Lloyd, daughter of Horace Lloyd, a conspicuous member of the English bar. Two children were born to them—Cyril, in 1885, and Vivian the following year.

The career of Wilde reached its height in 1895. Grave offenses had followed his appearance everywhere, and his sins finally found him out. He was ostracised by society, apprehended, tried and sent to prison, the heavy gates of Reading Gaol, made more famous by his poem penned within its massive walls, opening to receive him.

He served his time patiently, but ill health aroused the sympathies of the prison officials and he was pardoned in March, 1897. No one in England had the hardihood to receive the outcast, and he crossed the channel to Paris. As long as his money held out he lodged in the Hotel Voltaire. Deserted and shunned, he soon became penniless, and the rich clothing he was wont to attire himself in gave way to glistening sleeves and tattered trousers.

He found refuge at last in the Hospital la Salpetriere. Then friends of former days came to his relief, and the hospital authorities were informed if they could save the unfortunate's life he would be taken to Scotland and cared for. After a hard fight they were unsuccessful.

Willie Wilde, a brother of Oscar, was married to Mrs. Frank Leslie in New York, but they were soon divorced.

British book production in its present state will be represented at the Paris Exhibition by a collection of 267 volumes, exclusive of Bibles and Prayer-books, especially selected by the Publishers' Association. A beautifully printed catalogue of these books has been issued, and the selections seem to have been made with much discrimination. It may be interesting to indicate their character by the following specimens taken at random: ... "The Works of Lord Byron. Edited by E. H. Coleridge, M.A." ... "Sense and Sensibility. By Jane Austen. The Winchester Edition." ... "The Happy Prince, and Other Tales. By Oscar Wilde. Illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood."... "The Life and Letters of John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's. Revised and Collected by Edmund Gosse." ... "The Poems of Shakespeare. Edited by George Wyndham."

SALE OF WILDE'S WORKS. At a sale of books in London on Saturday, a number of first editions of Oscar Wilde's works were disposed of. Prices ruled very low. The principal items were:—Newdigate Prize Poem, 'Ravenna,' original wrapper, recited in the theatre, Oxford, June 26, 1878, 7s.; 'The Picture of Dorian,' [sic] 1891, 7s; another copy one of 250 with the author's signature, 1891, 15s.; 'The Sphinx,' one of 250 copies, 1894, 38s.; 'Lady Windermere's Fan,' 1893, 14s.; 'A Woman of No Importance,' 1894, 10s. The following in one lot, realised £1 1s.: 'Intentions,' 'The Decay of Lying,' 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime,' 'Aristophanes at Oxford,' and another.

BOOKWORM. — The others are 'Lord Arthur Saville's Crime,' 'The Priest and the Acolyte,' and two volumes of poems. The book in 'Dorian Gray' is imaginary. 'Dorian Gray' itself, though full of magnificent passages, strikes me as the work of a madman, and is a brilliant fantasy, marred by loathsome suggestions and a diseased and morbid imagination. Its unhappy author will live as a playwright and poet rather than as a novelist. The kindest thing would be to forget the man and to remember his best work.

Oscar Wilde's House of Pomegranates, first edition, as new, 10s. 6d.; published 21s.—[illegible, likely dealer name] .

REVIEWS. MANQUE. "The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde." London: Methuen. 1908. 12 vols. 12s. 6d. net each. Oscar Wilde, we are told in Mr. Robert Ross's dedication of "The Duchess of Padua," "never regarded his works as an adequate expression of his extraordinary genius and his magnificent intellectual endowment".

Fully to measure that disappointment one must refer to Wilde's estimate of himself, given in his last deeply interesting volume: "The gods had given me almost everything," he tells us; "I had genius, a distinguished name, high social position, brilliancy, intellectual daring; I made art a philosophy and philosophy an art; I altered the minds of men, and the colours of things ... whatever I touched I made beautiful in a new mode of beauty; ... I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me. I summed up all systems in a phrase and all existence in an epigram." That is a large claim to make, made, be it remembered, not in the boastful hour of victory, but by a sad man looking back upon the wreckage of his ambitions and the cynical hypocrisy which had fed upon his friendship. To suchan estimate it is easy to understand that the sum of what he left behind him, even could he have seen it in the amplitude of this admirable edition, must have seemed inadequate.

And reviewing in succession these stately volumes, that supreme test of a writer's vitality, one is impressed by that very disappointment which their author has recorded. Reading, as they appeared, those brilliant, often perversely brilliant, essays of his, the stories and studies on which he lavished such fastidious workmanship, or listening to the acute observation, the assured finish of his plays, one was always most conscious of an expectation, a prevision almost, that his next work would claim, above the admiration one must lavish, the tribute of a masterpiece. And these volumes, even while they explain the fallacy of that expectation, more than confirm one's remembrance of the wonderful level of accomplishment on which almost all his work was done.

There is "Vera" indeed, a play of almost comical ineptitude, which might be described as offering not only no promise, but even a repudiation of what was to come; and there is "The Duchess of Padua", which is only better by the superiority of its models. But after these, how few lapses there are in the determination of the art or the dignity of the craftsmanship! Even those earlier fables, published with "The Happy Prince", have the sureness of touch, the glow of colour, which distinguished his work to the end. Indeed, the effect of his work suffers, when much of it is taken, by that uniformity of excellence, combined as it was, pictorially, with a somewhat limited palette; though imitation may convey a false impression, since his most frequent failing was an inability to impose a limit, to check an exuberance in idea and scene.

He was passionately sensitive to colour, he responded to every allurement of luxury, his feeling for them both, expressed repeatedly in his depiction of splendid materials and especially of gems, kept him too continuously in an expensive atmosphere. He renders it magnificently, with as sumptuous a pomp and as discriminating a refinement as did the masters whom he admired, but he renders it too often. He could only describe simplicity in terms of excess; he made even asceticism seem voluptuous; and though there was often vital truth in his point of view, his work would have frequently gained by suppressing it. It suffered in restfulness from his inability to use less than the full range of colour, and by the extreme rarity of cool pages.

Wilde is thus a surprisingly tiring author to read straight through, even though he is least fatiguing when most intellectual, and the effect is due to the pitch in tone and colour at which his work is sustained. In sheer intellectual exhibition his prose is of a clarity which often makes one wonder from what depth of thought it comes. The showman's social gift, with which personally he was so strikingly endowed, taught him how in literature to dress his shop window as though he were a mere clever retailer of other men's goods. There seemed to be no waste products in his mind, no lumber of raw material, no refuse of doubt and obstinate questioning. Even in "De Profundis", though he was seeing as he had never seen, he was seeing clearly; the mists of many a great obscurity had never dimmed his view. This clear conscious competence is Wilde's most characteristic attribute in argument. In his speech it was even more apparent than in his writing, since he set store by seeming never at a dead end, never without an explanation. It makes the reading of most of his critical work a perpetual entertainment, but it takes from it that gravity of understanding which gives the critic as artist his highest value. But it is probable that Wilde will be remembered longer as a dramatist than as critic or a poet. His poetry has, in an even fuller measure than the rest of his work, the quality of distinction, but it has likewise than the rest of it even less of spontaneity.

In drama it seemed as if he were about to break with tradition and his contemporaries, even though the first two of his plays were almost sedulously imitative, and only the last gave definite promise of emancipation. Of "Vera" nothing more need be said: one can only regret that international dishonesty in letters compels its inclusion in this edition. "The Duchess of Padua", which contains as little of Wilde's peculiar endowment, gives a hint of that sense of the theatre by which he concealed so effectively his undramatic temperament. It was to that sense that as a playwright he owed most of his success. He could not create character, though he could draw it with the most admirable definition, and even his draughtsmanship was only interested within an extremely narrow range. He had the flimsiest hold on the vitality of his puppets, but what a grip he took of their ideas! He makes us forget how completely ignorant we are of what in any crisis they would feel or do in our triumphant certainty of foretelling what they would say. As might be expected of such a gift, he is most successful where he has least to show: it is the gift of portraiture, not creation. We know his minor characters because he knew them; we are in doubt about the major because he made them—or, perhaps one should say, made them up. It was a very limited world, theatrically, at any rate, which interested him, and the same figures, sometimes with trifling, sometimes—as for example the Lords Illingworth and Darlington—with significant changes, do duty more than once. It was a corrupt world too, but its weakness, even theatrically, lay in its being insincere: it is for ever tapping its breast to prove its hollowness, even the hollowness of its disillusion. The economy in character is matched by an economy of incident; there never was a successful playwright who could do without so much. Tenuity of interest could scarcely go further than in "A Woman of No Importance".

That Wilde was tiring of his own dexterity, that he was on the way to a less monotonous source of wit, his last essay in drama seemed to indicate. Yet it is "Salome", written some years earlier, and with a scarcely expectant eye on performance, which may probably prove his most enduring monument. It is not a great play; it is a play almost entirely of atmosphere, but of an atmosphere most wonderfully contrived and sustained, which is not even imperilled by the conception of Herod as a comic character. It escapes by its period Wilde's unsavoury appreciation of his own century, and by its language his fatiguing pursuit of epigram. It is not in the French of a Frenchman, but it is a mobile, lucid and theatrically effective tongue. It reads well, and it plays, as may be seen in almost any European country but its author's, with a suggestively Eastern impressiveness which is not, however, of the East. It holds one other suggestion—a significant one—for the critic who remembers how shortly it was written after the appearance of "Les Aveugles" and "La Princesse Maleine". The recipe which Maeterlinck supplied for the production of atmosphere is used with an audacious fraternal indifference to the indication of its source. Such suggestions, used as a rule with the same indifference, one meets frequently throughout these volumes. Gautier, Baudelaire, Huysmans, Tolstoi, Verlaine were all laid under contribution.

Wilde was a discriminating and retentive reader; he cared only for the best, not even for all of that; and to what he most admired he paid the compliment of imitation. How close and quick and friendly that imitation was may perhaps be best seen in his poems, by a comparison for example of the first two stanzas of "Charmides", that rich and vivid piece of work, with the last two of "The Scholar Gipsy". It might be shown that Wilde often improves, technically, on his teachers, since for technique he had always the tenderest feeling, but one misses even in the improvement the freshness of that eternal morning of the imagination in which such things must be conceived. One misses, too, consequent on the limitations of his likings and in spite of his range of subjects, a real intimacy of acquaintance with the springs of life, a deficiency which he unaware reveals in his last pathetic volume, when through the surface of things on which he had been unprofitably feeding the verities he had forgotten were thrust into his face.

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME To the Editor of THE ACADEMY. Sir,--I was interested in the letter from a Mr. Cooke, which, under the above heading, you publish in this week's ACADEMY. The possibility had never occurred to me that any friend of Mr. Wilde's having come into possession of a relic so precious as the book referred to, would sell it. Hence my error. I have communicated the letter to the two gentlemen who are translating my book into German and French, and in the new edition of my biography I will make the necessary correction. ROBERT H. SHERARD, Guilsborough Hall, Northampton. July 7.

MR. H. B. IRVING'S PLANS. AN OSCAR WILDE COMEDY. A PROVINCIAL SPRING TOUR. Special to the "Pall Mall Gazette." It is not surprising that Mr. H. B. Irving should be feeling very well satisfied with the results of his season now about to terminate at the Shaftesbury Theatre. For to a large extent the young actor-manager has not had to depend upon his repertory of plays, so great has been the success of "The Lyons Mail." Indeed, the run of nearly 150 performances which this powerful drama has achieved constitutes (writes a correspondent) a record run for the piece.

When I sought Mr. Irving in his dressing-room at the Shaftesbury, I found him immersed in plans for his approaching spring tour of the provinces. "I shall open at Harrogate," he said, "on April 8, and my tour will last about twelve weeks. From Harrogate we shall proceed, in the order named, to Hanley, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Burton-on-Trent, Cambridge, and Oxford. At the last-named town we finish, after producing a new comedy which I am tentatively rehearsing already. What plays shall I carry on this tour? All those which I have produced at the Shaftesbury during the past season, in addition to 'The Bells' and Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy's tragedy, 'Cæsar Borgia.' Such has been its success with me here, however, that I intend mainly to depend upon 'The Lyons Mail.'"

"What about 'Hamlet'?" I asked.

"Yes, I hope to give a few performances of it on the tour, as well as of Mr. McCarthy's play."

"And what is the new comedy which you hope to produce at Oxford at the close of your spring tour?"

"It is a piece of which I dare to cherish high hopes and expectations—a comedy of the lightest texture, based upon the late Oscar Wilde's story, 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime,' which is the title (at present) designed for it. The authors are Mr. Gilbert Cannan and Mr. Howard Peacey, and it is written quite in the Wilde style. Moreover, it contains what should prove a really fine part for myself.

"I shall thus have two strong cards for my autumn season in London in two plays powerfully contrasted—one very light, one very grim—both new to the metropolis. I have not yet fixed upon a theatre for the autumn."

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME. The first volume of a new popular series of Oscar Wilde's works, in twelve volumes, each of which will be obtainable separately, is announced by Messrs. Methuen. This is "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime," the story on which Mr. H. B. Irving's recently announced play is founded. The other contents of the volume include "The Canterville Ghost," which has been described as the most amusing ghost story ever written, although it is relieved by those touches of pathos and beauty, seldom absent even from Wilde's lightest work. "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.," which first appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine" of July, 1889, is well known to all Shakespearean students.

DEATH OF OSCAR WILDE. He Expires at an Obscure Hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Is Said to Have Died from Meningitis, but There is a Rumor that He Committed Suicide.

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

PARIS, Nov. 30.—Oscar Wilde died at 2 o'clock this afternoon in the Maison du Périer, Rue des Beaux Arts, in the Latin Quarter. It is a small, obscure hotel, at which Wilde had been living for several months under the name of Manmoth [sic].

According to the accounts obtainable Wilde was operated upon six weeks ago for meningitis, caused by an abscess in the ear, which the doctors were unable to locate. He is said to have been unconscious for two days, and before that time to have been received into the Roman Catholic Church. Lord Alfred Douglas was with him when he died.

Le Journal says, however, it is rumored that Wilde committed suicide.

Wilde will be buried in this city on Monday.

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1856. He was the son of Sir William R. Willis Wilde, M.D., surgeon-oculist to Queen Victoria, antiquarian, statistician, and man of letters, and of Jane Francesca Wilde, who achieved considerable reputation as a poetess. Oscar's first schooling was at the Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, and later he studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and Magdalen College, Oxford University. The brilliancy of his parents was transmitted to him. At Trinity College he won the Berkley gold medal for Greek, and there he won many class honors at Oxford, chief among them being the Newdigate prize, with a poem entitled "Ravenna."

In 1879 he went to London, and soon became a celebrity through the aesthetic fad which he started. His craze for aestheticism, which was accompanied by eccentricities of dress, which soon made him one of the most talked about persons in London. He clad himself in black velvet, with knickerbockers, and black silk stockings, and he wore a sunflower. He was caricatured by Du Maurier in Punch, and satirized by Gilbert in "Patience." In Punch he was labeled "Postlethwaite"; in "Patience," "Bunthorne." The advertising he received was just what he wanted. He took advantage of it to effect a contract for a lecture tour in America. The tour was not the success he had anticipated, but he made some money out of it.

On his return to England Wilde dropped all his eccentricities of dress, but his other affectations became greater than ever. In the high social circles of London, to which he had entrée, he was regarded as a brilliant conversationist and poseur.

Wilde's first published book was his Newdigate prize poem, printed in 1879, and this was well received by the reviewers. After his return from the United States he applied himself industriously to literary work.

The most popular of Wilde's books was "The Picture of Dorian Gray," which had an immense sale, both in the United Kingdom and this country. It appeared first in Lippincott's Magazine, in 1895 [sic], and was afterward taken in book form, with considerable additions, by Ward, Lock & Co. After the famous trial the London publishers withdrew it from circulation, although it was inundated with orders for copies.

Among literary people "Intentions," published in 1894 [sic], is regarded as Wilde's finest prose work. It is a collection of essays, and, though full of the author's favorite paradoxes, contains much art criticism which shows evidences of careful thought. Some of the essays, notably "The Decay of Lying" and "The Critic as Artist," had previously appeared in English reviews and had attracted a good deal of attention.

Wilde's poems were first published in 1881, and a new edition was issued at the Bodley Head about ten years later. Both editions were exhausted a very short time after publication. Many isolated stanzas and lines have been quoted to show that, had he possessed the necessary perseverance and steadfastness of character, Wilde could have been one of the great poets of the nineteenth century. Many persons have also noticed the remarkable forecast of his own life which the author wrote in the dedication to this volume of verse, and the passionate regret there expressed that he had not used his gifts to better purpose.

Among Wilde's other published works, exclusive of his plays, are "The [sic] House of Pomegranates—Colored Poems in Prose," with illustrations by Arthur Ricketts [sic] and C. H. Shannon; "Salome," written in French, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley; "The Happy Prince," a volume of fairy tales, and "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime," a collection of short stories.

After Wilde's release from prison a poem was published anonymously, entitled "A [sic] Ballad of Reading Jail [sic]." It created a great deal of interest and favorable criticism, and is now known to have been written by Wilde.

Wilde was spoken of as an aspiring dramatist long before any piece signed by his name was acted. His "Salomé" was cast in the dramatic form, with "Guido Ferranti," a tragic piece briefly acted here by Lawrence Barrett, was reputed to be his work. There was a certain lyrical quality in some of its passages which credited this report.

His first acknowledged play, however, was "Lady Windermere's Fan," produced by George Alexander at the St. James's Theatre, in London, in 1892, and acted here soon afterward at Wallack's (then Palmer's) without setting the town ablaze. There was much verbal smartness in this piece, and it was no strong accusation against its merit to say its plot was antique and its stagecraft insufficient. But its insincerity and diffusiveness were not to be denied. After the first performance in London Wilde appeared on the stage of the theatre with a cigarette, and responded to a "call" that was not altogether friendly with imperturbable good humor and assurance. This served its purpose in giving this piece a unique advertisement.

His next play, "A Woman of No Importance," was acted first at the London Haymarket, with Beerbohm Tree's direction, and in New York, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, with Rose Coghlan in the title role. It was, indeed, a play of no importance, but it was well received. Miss Coghlan wisely employed her famous brother, Charles, to patch it up and lend it some sort of theatrical value. "The Importance of Being Earnest," frankly a farce and full of nimble wit, on the other hand, missed a long run at the Empire Theatre because it was too dainty and fragile to suit the taste and understanding of the ordinary theatregoer, and "An Ideal Husband," admirably staged by Daniel Frohman's company at the Lyceum, while it made no fortune and lacked vigorous dramatic spirit, was a clever piece of work which aroused the critical admiration of W. D. Howells.

Lately, various plays, signed by others, have been credited by presumably malicious gossips to the pen of Wilde. Among these have been "The Case of Rebellious Susan," by Henry Arthur Jones, the same author's "The Liars," and "Mr. and Mrs. Daventry," by Frank Harris, lately produced in London by Mrs. Patrick Campbell. But no sensible person has ever permitted himself to believe such yarns. Men of the literary standing and ability of Mr. Jones and Mr. Harris do not sign their names to the work of others for any reason.

As a dramatist, Wilde was hampered by his utter lack of sincerity and his inability to master the technical side of playwriting. But his wit, his pleasing literary facility, and his droll views of life made some of his plays effective with a limited audience.

It was in 1895 that the great scandal broke which ruined Wilde. It came about through an action brought by the Marquis of Queensberry, whose motive was the protection of his son, Lord Alfred Douglas, over whom Wilde had exercised an evil influence. The evidence at Wilde's trial shocked the civilized world and covered him with disgrace which it was not possible for him to outlive. He was sentenced to prison for a term of years. At the expiration of his sentence he quitted England. It was later learned that he had settled in Paris. From a pet of society he had become the most despised of social outcasts. Recent reports from Paris were to the effect that he was living in abject poverty.

In 1884 Wilde was married to Constance, daughter of Horace Lloyd, barrister. They had two children, Cyril and Vivian, both of whom survive.

Messrs. Methuen and Co. last year issued a limited edition of the works of Oscar Wilde, in twelve volumes, priced at 12s. 6d. each—the first collected edition of the complete works published. Under the terms of the issue a reprint was precluded, but the reception of the edition was such that the publishers are now bringing out a new edition, smaller and cheaper and lacking some of the special matter included last year, but still in refined and attractive form. The volumes are handsomely bound, the paper and printing are all that could be desired by the most fastidious—and all admirers of Wilde are inclined to be fastidious—and the price (5s.) places the edition within the reach of all who are likely to be interested. Three of the twelve works have now been issued. A beginning has been made with the brilliant satire on palmistry, 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime'—appropriately, because Mr. H. B. Irving is about to produce a play founded on the murder of Lady Windermere's objectionable little 'cheiromantist.' This has been followed by 'The Duchess of Padua,' that striking tragedy which this country has not yet had an opportunity of seeing on the stage, although the play has been performed in America, Germany, and Russia. The third volume contains the poems, almost Byronic denunciations, many of them, which reveal for us more of Wilde's inner nature than any other of his works. The poems include two discovered by Mr. Ross, the editor, since the uniform edition was published last year. One of these has a pathetic interest. Who can read the following verse without pitying thoughts on Wilde's last few years of life?—

But what of life whose bitter hungry sea

Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night

Covers the days which never more return?

Ambition, love, and all the thoughts that burn

We lose too soon, and only find delight

In withered husks of some dead memory.

The edition will be in twelve volumes, all of which are to be published before the end of the year.

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME AND OTHER STORIES. By Oscar Wilde. (Methuen.) 5s. net.

This is the first instalment of what may be called a popular edition, to be issued in twelve volumes, of the works of Oscar Wilde. It will not be exhaustive, for it does not contain some of the special material exclusive to the limited edition recently issued by Messrs. Methuen; and one or two gaps are to be noticed in the list of contents. The remaining volumes, which will be issued at fortnightly intervals, will contain, in order, "The Duchess of Padua," "Poems" (including "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"), "Lady Windermere's Fan," "A Woman of No Importance," "An Ideal Husband," "The Importance of Being Earnest," "A House of Pomegranates," "Intentions," "De Profundis" and "Prison Letters," "Essays," and, in the concluding volume, "Salome," "A Florentine Tragedy" and "La Sainte Courtisane." The new edition is delightful to read and handle, and one could not wish a more attractive setting of witty and exquisite English. It should be mentioned that the volumes will be sold separately.

It is a little over twenty years since the first of the stories in this volume, which delighted by its polish and paradox while it alarmed some by its lighthearted treatment of the reprehensible crime of murder, was first given to the world. That world has spun a good way along its grooves since 1887, and the fact of the change is brought home by the inconspicuousness—almost, think of it!—the obviousness—of the Wilde paradox. The epigrams at which the eighties held their sides do not strike one to-day as particularly arresting. Probably that is because his habit of brilliant and audacious witticism has been absorbed into the current of contemporary thought; for a paradox is like a lighted match in a dark room till some one turns up the gas. At all events, the general illumination in the matter of the freer treatment of august and old-established conventions has increased greatly in the interval, for better or worse; and so there is a certain danger that some day the wit of Oscar Wilde will be found to be old-fashioned—a charge which is already brought, with excellent reason, against the construction of his plays.

The other tales in this volume include "The Canterville Ghost," with its queer mingling of burlesque and pathos (the burlesque more sincere than the pathos), and its now curiously out-of-date gibe at America:—

"I don't think I should like America."

"I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities," said Virginia satirically.

"No ruins! No curiosities!" answered the Ghost; "you have your navy and your manners."

—"The Portrait of Mr. W. H.," embodying a theory of Shakespeare's sonnets which has everything in its favour except evidence; and the smaller sketches of "The Sphinx Without a Secret" and "The Model Millionaire."

"Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" is, it is said, to be made the basis of a play for production by Mr. H. B. Irving; but it would seem a perilous task to reduce this piece of pure persiflage to the crude terms of the footlights. Even in these days of heroic stage burglars what would the gallery say to the Murderer Triumphant?

OSCAR WILDE DEAD. ENGLISH AUTHOR AND DRAMATIST PASSES AWAY IN PARIS. UNDER AN ASSUMED NAME. RECEIVED INTO CATHOLIC CHURCH ON HIS DEATH BED. He Was One of the Most Remarkable Characters in British World of Letters and Died an Exile From His Native Land.

DUBLIN, Nov. 30.—A dispatch to the Evening Mail from Paris says: Oscar Wilde is dead. The dispatch adds that he expired in an obscure house in the Latin quarter from meningitis and was received into the Catholic church on his deathbed. According to the Evening Mail's dispatch, Wilde died to-day.

PARIS, Nov. 30.—Oscar Wilde had been living in a hotel on the Rue des Beaux Arts, where he had been known for several months under the name of Manmoth [sic].

For some time he had been indisposed. In October he was obliged to submit to a serious operation from the effects of which he never recovered. He died at 2 o'clock this morning at the Maison du Pierier, an obscure hotel, in the presence of Lord Alfred Douglas.

The Journal says it is rumored that Wilde committed suicide.

Wilde's full name was Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie [Wills] Wilde and he was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1856. He was a son of Sir William Robert Wills Wilde, a famous surgeon, and of Jane Francesca, a woman of great culture and known widely in the world of letters. Young Wilde studied at several famous schools and graduated at Trinity college, Dublin, where he took many medals for Greek and English verse.

Oscar Wilde went to London in 1879 and immediately became a conspicuous figure in literary and artistic circles. He was known as the apostle of the esthetic movement, and lectured on art subjects in the United States in 1882. In 1895 Wilde was condemned to penal servitude for infamous conduct. He served two years and upon his release went to Paris where he became a disreputable rake.

Among Wilde's best known literary works are "The Picture of Dorian Gray," "The Happy Prince and Other Tales," "Intentions," "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories," the tragedies of "The Duchess of Padua," "Guido Ferranti," and the following comedies: "Lady Windermere's Fan," "A Woman of No Importance," and "The Importance of Being in Earnest." The feature of Wilde's dramatic productions is a clear epigrammatic style which is clearly exemplified in "Lady Windermere's Fan," which has been played quite recently in Kansas City.

DEATH OF OSCAR WILDE. Mr. Oscar Wilde, the well-known playwright, died on Friday at three o'clock in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The cause of death was meningitis, which he had been suffering from for some time. Six weeks ago he underwent an operation, which appeared to be successful at the time, but a complication which followed proved fatal. Mr. Oscar Wilde was recently received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Mr. Wilde was born in Dublin in 1856, and was the son of Sir William R. Wills Wilde, M.D., Surgeon-Oculist to Her Majesty, antiquarian, statistician, and man of letters; and of Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde, known as a poetess and woman of letters. Oscar was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen; proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin, of which he became scholar; and, having obtained the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek, went to Oxford in 1874. He went to London, 1879, and was the originator of the Æsthetic movement. He published a volume of poems in 1880; proceeded to America in 1881, where he delivered over 200 lectures on art. He subsequently lectured on art in England and in Paris. His drama of 'Vera' was produced in New York in 1882; 'The Happy Prince and other Fairy [sic] Tales' was published in 1888. He was also the author of 'Dorian Grey,' a novel of modern life; 'The Portrait of Mr. W. H.,'; a new theory about 'Shakespeare's Sonnets'; 'Intentions,' a volume of essays and dialogues on art, containing the developed principles of his æstheticism; 'The [sic] House of Pomegranates,' a collection of 'coloured poems in prose,' as Mr. Wilde himself described it; 'The Sphinx,' a long rhymed poem; and 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime,' a volume of short stories. His blank verse tragedy, 'The Duchess of Padua,' was produced in New York in 1891; and in 1892 he made his debut in London as a dramatist with a brilliant comedy entitled 'Lady Windermere's Fan.' This was followed in 1893 by a comedy entitled 'A Woman of No Importance,' which also achieved success. His one-act tragedy, written in French, entitled 'Salome,' was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain in London on account of the Biblical character of the subject. On account of this prohibition Mr. Wilde announced his intention of becoming a French citizen. His last dramatic successes were 'An Ideal Husband,' and 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' He married, in 1884, Constance, daughter of Mr. Horace Lloyd, Q.C.

The circumstances of the scandal, which consigned him to a gaol and to oblivion, are too recent and too horrible to need recapitulation.

OSCAR WILDE DEAD.

APOSTLE OF AESTHETICISM AND LATER-DAY CONVICT.

PASSES AWAY IN OBSCURITY.

Lived in Loneliness Since Emerging from Prison and Sailed Under an Assumed Name—Visited the United States Nearly Twenty Years Ago and Had a Considerable Vogue.

Paris, Dec. 1.—Oscar Wilde is dead. He expired in an obscure house in the Latin quarter, from meningitis and was received into the Catholic church on his death bed.

Wilde had been living in a hotel in Rue des Beaux Arts where he had been known for several months under the name of Manmoth [sic].

Wilde was born in Dublin in 1856, the son of Sir William Robert Wills Wilde, a surgeon, and of Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde, a woman of letters. He was named Oscar Frugal [sic] O'Flahertie [Wills] Wilde. He studied at Trinity college, Dublin, where he attained the Berkley gold medal for Greek; took the Newdigate prize for English verse at Oxford in 1874; studied at Magdalen college and graduated in 1877. He went to London two years later and became the apostle of the aesthetic movement and was satirized under the name Portlethwaite [sic] in Punch. He lectured on art subjects in the United States in 1882 and subsequently in London and Paris and was condemned in 1895 to penal servitude for two years for infamous conduct. He has been out three years and lost in obscurity. Very recently he has been credited with the authorship of a notable play which has attained great success abroad. He published his Poems in 1880. Then came The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel, The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888), Inventions [sic], essays (1891) Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (1891), the tragedies Guido Ferranti (1890), the Duchess of Padua and a number of comedies, including Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, and The Importance of Being Earnest. His aestheticism had a sort of blue-glass vogue.

REPORTED DEATH OF OSCAR WILDE.

VICTIM OF MENINGITIS IN PARIS.

The Paris correspondent of the "Dublin Evening Mail" telegraphs that Mr. Oscar Wilde, the well-known playwright, died yesterday at three o'clock in the Latin Quarter. The cause of death was meningitis, which he had been suffering from for some time. Two days ago he became unconscious. Six weeks ago he underwent an operation, which appeared to be successful at the time, but a complication which followed proved fatal. Mr. Oscar Wilde was recently received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Wilde was born in Dublin in 1856, the son of Sir William R. Willis [sic] Wilde, Surgeon Oculist [sic] to Her Majesty, antiquarian, statistician, and man of letters; and of Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde, known as a poetess and woman of letters. Oscar was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen; proceded to Trinity College, Dublin, of which he became scholar; and, having obtained the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek, went to Oxford in 1874. He obtained first Emyship at Magdalen College; a first-class in moderation, 1876; and a first-class in greats; and the Newdigate prize for an English poem on 'Ravenna,' 1878. He went to London, 1879, and was the originator of the Æsthetic movement. He published a volume of poems in 1880; proceed to America in 1881, where he delivered over 200 lectures on art. He subsequently lectured on art in England and in Paris. His drama of 'Vera' was produced in Newtales [sic] York in 1882; 'The Happy Prince and other Fairy [sic] Tales' was published in 1888. He was also the author of 'Dorian Grey [sic],' a novel of modern life; 'The Portrait of Mr. W. H.,' a new theory about 'Shakespeare's Sonnets'; 'Intentions,' a volume of essays and dialogues on art, containing the developed principles of his æstheticism; 'The [sic] House of Pomegranates,' a collection of 'coloured poems in prose,' as Mr. Wilde himself described it; 'The Sphinx,' a long rhymed poem poef [sic]; and 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime,' a volume of short stories. His blank verse tragedy, 'The Duchess of Padua,' was produced in New York in 1891; and in 1892 he made his debut in London as a dramatist with a brilliant comedy entitled 'Lady Windermere's Fan.' This was followed in 1893 by a comedy entitled 'A Woman of No Importance,' which also achieved success. His one-act tragedy, written in French, entitled 'Salome,' was prohibited by the Lord Chamberlain in London on account of the Biblical character of the subject. On account of this prohibition, Mr. Wilde announced his intention of becoming a French citizen. His last dramatic successes were 'An Ideal Husband' and 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' He married in 1884, Constance, daughter of Mr. Horace Lloyd Q.C.

The circumstances of the scandal, which consigned him to a gaol and to oblivion, are too recent and too horrible to need recapitulation.

THE WILDE REVIVAL.

Recollections of Oscar Wilde. By Ernest La Jeunesse, Andre Gide and Franz Blei. Translated by Percival Pollard. Boston: John W. Luce & Co. 99 pages. Price, $1.00.

The Canterville Ghost. By Oscar Wilde. Boston: John W. Luce & Co. 124 pages, Illustrated. Price, $1.00.

THE revival of interest in Oscar Wilde is being fanned by the discussion of "Salome," but it was a very real phenomenon before Conried thought of bringing Richard Strauss' tonal tragedy to the Metropolitan Opera house. In Europe, and especially in Germany, Wilde's fame has overshadowed that of all contemporary English authors. For example, a series of monographs upon the world's great writers is being issued by a Berlin publisher, and among one hundred volumes that have appeared or are announced three English names are represented—Shakespeare, Swinburne and Wilde. There are translations, editions de luxe, biographies, a whole Wilde literature; university professors lecture on Wilde and his plays are frequently performed. The cult has now spread to England and America; all of Wilde's books have been republished; "De Profundis" caused him to be regarded in a new light, and Sherard's life will lead to a further understanding of the man and his works.

The little volume of "Recollections," by two Frenchmen and one German, is full of interest and pathos. It is only Gide, however, who has any real recollections to present. Some of Wilde's conversations and discourses which he reports are remarkable. There is a parable about Jesus' return to Nazareth which is full of poetic beauty and dramatic pathos—a veritable cameo of pagan pessimism:

When Jesus returned to Nazareth, he said, Nazareth was so changed that He did not know the place. The Nazareth of His day had been full of misery and tears; this town laughed and sang. And as the Lord descended into the town He saw flower-laden slaves hastening up the white steps of a marble house. He went into the house and saw in a jasper hall, reclining upon a marble couch, one in whose hair were twined red roses and whose lips were red with wine. And the Lord stepped behind him, touched his shoulder and spoke to him: "Why do you spend your life like this?" The man turned around, knew Him and said: "I was a leper once, and you healed me—how else should I live?"

And the Lord left the house and returned upon the street. And after a little while He saw one whose face and garments were painted, and whose feet were shod with pearls. And after her followed a youth, softly, slowly, like a hunter, and his coat was of two colors and lust was in his eyes. But the face of the woman was the lovely face of a goddess. And the Lord touched the youth's hand and said: "Why look you upon this woman?" And the youth turned around and knew Him, and said: "I was blind and you restored my sight. Upon what else should I look?"

And the Lord approached the woman: "The way you go is the way of sin; why do you go that way?" And the woman knew Him and said: "The way I go is a joyful way and you forgave me my sins."

Then the Lord's heart filled with sorrow, and he wished to depart from the town. And as He came to the gates, a youth was sitting by the roadside, weeping. The Lord approached him, touched his hair and said to him: "Why do you weep?"

And the youth looked up, knew Him and said: "I was dead, and you waked me from the dead. What else should I do but weep?"

M. Gide has drawn a wonderful portrait of Wilde, the decadent genius, from the rising to the setting of his sun. M. La Jeunesse, on the contrary, gives us an impressionistic monotone of his dark days—the pity and despair of the end. As for Herr Blei's pages, they are hopelessly flat and commonplace; what the Germans would call "geistreicheind," describing a snobbish affectation of wit and profundity for which no other language furnishes a sufficiently contemptuous term.

"The Canterville Ghost" is a tale written by Wilde in a vein of whimsical humor. The poor old specter returning to his ancestral halls to find them in possession of an American intruder is conceived in the spirit of Stockton and Jerome, rather than in that of Bulwer Lytton and the S. P. R., but there is a vein of paradoxical satire which adds a more distinguished touch.

"The Canterville Ghost," by Oscar Wilde. Published by John W. Luce & Co., Boston. "The Canterville Ghost" is one of those earlier works of Wilde that, like his plays, might have been "written on a bet." It is light and sparkling on the surface; it has characteristic depths beneath. The story is of the haunted Castle of Canterville leased for a home by the American minister, Mr. Hiram B. Otis, whose wife was Miss Lucretia R. Tappan of West Fifty-third street, and whose daughter, Virginia, is the heroine of the tale, with a ghost for the hero.

The ghost is a patient, amiable sort of creature, who quite fails to impress the practical American tenants. Persistently he pursues his methods; all the old tricks of chain-clanking, groaning and pale lights fail in effect, and the Otis family only respond with a disappointing pity for the spook and his sorry doom of haunting Canterville chase.

Finally in desperation the wraith appears to Virginia, who expresses her sympathy. Whereupon he explains to her his necessity of haunting the chase until the time

'When a golden girl can win

Prayer from the lips of sin;

When the barren almond bears,

And a little child gives away its tears.'

Virginia graciously assists in the accomplishment of these things, and the next day are found the bones of the original of the ghost, so to speak, which are duly interred in the old churchyard. For souvenir of her service to the ghost Virginia treasures a necklace of rare Venetian workmanship.

However, the substance of the story is less important than its telling. The satire is delightfully diverting. There is young Washington Otis, for instance, who has 'qualified himself for American diplomacy by leading the german at the Newport Casino for three successive seasons.' Also Mrs. Otis, who was quite English and 'an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.' And the table talk of the Otis family, which was that of 'cultured Americans of the better class, such as the immense superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport over Sarah Bernhardt as an actress; the difficulty of obtaining green corn, buckwheat cakes and hominy, even in the best English houses; the importance of Boston in the development of the world-soul,' and a few other like things.

OSCAR WILDE DEAD.

Oscar Wilde died yesterday afternoon of meningitis, at a small hotel in the Latin quarter of Paris, where he was living under an assumed name. It is stated that he was recently received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Oscar Wilde was born in 1858, and was the son of Sir W. R. W. Wilde. In his youth, of great promise, he was very prominent at Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1878 carried off the Newdigate prize for his poem "Ravenna." After his graduation from the famous old English university he embarked on a literary career, which was remarkable for its brilliancy and eccentricity. In 1881 he published his first volume of poems. In 1891 the "House of Pomegranates" appeared, and was well received. In 1893 he attained considerable reputation by his play, "Lady Windermere's Fan." After this came "A Woman of No Importance," "Intentions," and "Salome" (from the French). His weird novel, "Dorian Gray," appeared in 1895, published first in this country by the Lippincotts.

Oscar Wilde was considered a man of brilliant, but erratic, genius. As a writer of epigrams, pungent sophisms, and the like he had few equals. He was a leader of the so called esthetic school, and became the social craze of two continents. During his visit to America he created a great sensation by wearing a sunflower as a boutonniere and by introducing other fads of his peculiar cult.

In 1896 he was condemned to two years' hard labor for vicious practices. Upon his release from prison he spent most of his time in Paris. He is said to have resumed his literary labors, but all of his work was published over a nom de plume. Several plays which have been successes in both London and New York during the last two years were pronounced to be the product of his pen, although accredited to other playwrights.

Wilde's wife was Miss Constance Lloyd, a talented woman, who entertained much in London. The couple had two boys, Vivian and Clarence, now aged 18 and 16, with whose education Oscar took much pains. His home life up to the time of his trouble is spoken of as having been beautiful. Lady Wilde died in February, 1896.

Le Journal says it is rumored that Wilde committed suicide.

On Thursday, June 5, a dramatic recital was given at this hall by Miss Florence Bourne and Mr. F. Rawson Buckley, the programme including a performance of Palmistry. Slight as is the work of this little piece, there is a good deal of dramatic interest in it, and Mr. Lumley's dialogue contains many really epigrammatic sayings, set off, it is true, by sundry forced and laboured attempts at wit. It was, on the whole, very well played, Mr. Rawson Buckley acting with mingled naïveté and grave dignity as the sailor Mannering, and Miss Florence Bourne being successful enough in her endeavour to realize the rather complex character of Mr. Lumley's heroine. Palmistry was received with much favour. A musical voice is one of the chief qualifications of a reciter, and this requisite Miss Bourne possesses, though her voice is not under perfect control, and she occasionally falls into the deep, respectful tones that mark the style of Miss Mary Anderson. Miss Bourne has clearly the poetic temperament, and this was shown in her recitals both of Dante Rossetti's "The Blessed Damozel," which is regarded by many people as one of the finest pieces of imaginative poetry ever written, and of Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince." Perhaps, in "The Blessed Damozel," her utterances were now and then a little too deliberate, but certainly few reciters could have brought out better the mysticism of the poem. Miss Bourne showed considerable mimetic power in "The Happy Prince," which is written after the manner of Hans Christian Andersen. The last item, from Brinton[?]'s "The Romance of Britomarte," given by Mr. Buckley, are rather too long for entertainments of sort. Mr. Buckley was satisfactory enough in this Cavalier story about the trooper Ralph Lee, his brown mare Britomarte, and the Lady Gwendolen, but he sometimes took the pace too fast. In the always amusing "The Bishop and the Caterpillar," he showed an excellent comic method. Miss Alice Bocquet quite deserved the encore which she obtained, for a very pretty new song by Madge Conroy, "Love sailed away." Signor A. Meo played violin solos, and Miss Catchpole officiated on the piano. The entertainment was wound up by the performance in costume, of two of the forest scenes from As You Like It. Mr. Buckley looked exceedingly handsome as Orlando, and spoke his lines with intelligence and admirable elocutionary effect. Miss Bourne's costume as Rosalind was too much like that of a sweet girl graduate, and there is no reason for making a long mantle act as substitute for skirts. Her acting was if anything too girl-like, especially as regards the later scenes; again Miss Bourne displayed a cultured and thoughtful manner. She was most successful in the purely comedy passages.

The world will never wax too old to care for fairy tales. In every heart there is a corner in which its childhood lingers, and that can still be entranced by the delightful impossibilities of stories of adventure with fairies and giants. To write a good fairy story is to give proof, not of fancy only, but of artistic, mastery tact in the choice of words. Mr Oscar Wilde shows in this volume that he can write such fairy stories. He carries us to a realm of imagination; there he weaves delicate parables with an admirable touch of naiveté in their form. Perhaps 'The Happy Prince' is our favourite of these stories. Its theme of pity touching a young heart, removed by the circumstances of its worldly state from the suffering of the majority of beings, is the leading idea of the story of Buddha, retold with sweetness and brevity. The chastening touch of sympathy for others' griefs never came to Mr Wilde's happy prince during his lifetime, but the golden statue of the prince weeps as it stands on its tall pillar overlooking the city and all the sorrow there contained. The swallow upon whom the tears of the statue falls questions it as to the cause of its sorrow. 'When I was alive and had a human heart,' answered the statue, 'I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the great hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall; but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy, indeed, I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died; and now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead, yet I cannot choose but weep.'Of the other stories, 'The Selfish Giant' has the same leading motif of the power of tenderness and love, and it is handled with that old-world simplicity of touch which is full of charm.

MY DEAR MR. WYNDHAM,—To the critic it is indeed fortunate just at this season of the year when the flood of Christmas literature is upon us, that the ingenuity of man has invented one wide and comprehensive adjective which may be safely used to describe every product of the professional bookmaker issued in its brilliant binding by the ever-increasing army of publishers. The word "seasonable," however, is scarcely ever more mis-applied than in its application to literature. Of "seasonable" literature this year there is none. Of seasonable books there are a few waifs and strays, mere flotsam and jetsam thrown up by the sea of publication. Not that this fact detracts at all from the value of the volumes that will presently be welcomed by the coming generation with eager glances and warm words of thanks either as Christmas gifts or hard-won prizes that will be lasting memento of a half-year's work. In reality it is only to some of the books for the very little ones that the distinctive adjective may be truthfully employed, books such as that in which Jules Garnier illustrates with such fidelity and grace the many scenes which make up the circus entertainment(¹), or the pictorially-told stories of "Red Riding Hood" and "Cinderella"(²), whose claim to be so considered dates from the time when the first novelist sitting by his pile of blazing logs, whispered his fancies to the ailing little one that sheltered upon his breast from the cold winds. Perhaps it is because the elder children would resent being dosed with Santa Claus stories, because they are cynically critical upon the great question of ghosts, indifferent to the weird effects of snow pictures, that the scenes of the seasonable stories of to-day are nearly all laid in torrid lands, while the spooks have some more scientific foundation than the night-wanderers were accustomed to have but a few years ago. The glamour of ghosts has departed, and to-day young England is fed upon tales of derring-do and adventure that would have made mythological heroes quake in their sandals had they been asked to perform them. Not that all are of this stamp. There is one volume whose leaves will be carelessly turned by many an indifferent hand as it lies on the drawing-room table. It looks so like the adult picture-book that it requires an effort to sit down and read it. "The House of Pomegranates"(³) is so finely printed, its architecture, so to speak, so perfect, that one feels instinctively that it is a sort of show building, not for workaday use. Nevertheless, it is not so. Let it but pass into the children's hands, and its value will be more easily gauged. They will live the fabled lives of the inmates of this enchanted house. Mr. Wilde will have made so plain to them, with his simple, direct English, a new world of beauty, that they will straightway enter in and take possession. A book it is which one should read young, that as years go by one could enter into a fuller appreciation of it. It would be possible to dream for hours over a book of this sort, and awake soothed and refreshed, but imagine a slumber in which the dramatis [personae] of a Mashonaland romance held dream-carnival. The "Fossicker,"(⁴) who gives his title to the volume, is a gold-seeker, who has found and made his home in the veritable Ophir, and the adventures of the heroes who seek his retreat would put a Stanley to the blush. There is enough compressed adventure therein to have supplied at least half-a-dozen volumes, and it is given in such a taking form that you might imagine the author to be a recruiting-sergeant in the employ of the Chartered Company. In spite, however, of its hair-breadth escapes, it just lacks that air of reality which the boy's classic must possess, and which makes him believe in "Robinson Crusoe," a new edition of which has just been published by Messrs. Cassell(⁵). Of course, there is nothing remarkable in that. Crusoe's reincarnation is more than annual, but this time he cannot slip by the crowd without notice, for the volume is [illustrated] with illustrations that would give life to a far less notable character, and in this case are worthy of the subject.

We unblushingly confess that we were strongly prejudiced against this sumptuously-printed book by four full-page illustrations, for which, we believe, Mr. Ch. Shannon is responsible. If a tolerably thick tissue paper be placed over an ordinary woodcut the general effect of them will be fairly realised ; but when, by painful investigation, we get some glimmering of what the blurred and indistinct things aim at we search in vain for a single line or form that is beautiful, and for any meaning that is not idiotic. More preposterously perverse stuff was never printed and miscalled 'design' and 'decoration.' Some smaller illustrations, which we take to be by C. Ricketts (we sincerely trust we are not attributing these productions wrongly to the two coworkers), though not always quite right ore beautiful, always command our respect, and generally our admiration. They are somewhat too reminiscent of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but they are most careful and painstaking, and the artist has always had a beautiful ideal in his mind. From the full-page rubbish no good can by any possibility come : from the artist who designed these small woodcuts very great things may reasonably be hoped. Over and over again we took up the book, but only to put it down again as those 'designs' sickened us. But we have mustered courage at last to try the text, and we find the stories really beautiful. But for whom are they written ? They take the guise of fairy stories—they deal with an impossible world, where dead thorns blossom, and men cut away their souls and live with mermaiden in the deep blue sea, and souls go wandering by themselves picking up wonderful lore, and all the laws of gravity and time and space and matter are nought—a world on which grown people sometimes cast a backward glance, half-pitying, half-envying their childhood selves which could believe all the fairness real. But the meanings infused into these fairy stories go deep, and touch matters of most grave and serious import. 'The Young King,' for instance, touches the problems of labour, the tyranny of wealth, of ague, and fever, and plague, and such grimly earnest and real things. We admire most the very pathetic story of the Infanta's Birthday—sad in its ending, but in workmanship daintily and delicately fine. All through the book shows real literary craftmanship of a high order.

[The] Young King; the Birthday of the Infanta," [and] other Beautiful Tales," writes Mr. Wilde as [a cap]tion over his "House of Pomegranates." [A de]lightful touch of a charming vanity, which [refers] to itself at itself. Those who have [heard] Mr. Wilde lecture know the smile. [It is] the smile of a Narcissus with a gift of [talk.]

Narcissus is sometimes born so, and then [is] saved from drowning, and lives to write [a charm]ing autobiography, or give us some other [gift] of his dear self with a daring [hand] that wins the world. So Mr. Wilde has [built] us this "house not made with [hands,"] "this house of pomegranates gathered in [hi]s garden. And with him went two dream-[mak]ing artists, by name Ricketts and Shannon, [who in] a nook of the green place they dreamed [in the] grass, and builded the house together [to the] sound of the double flute. Forgive [me if] this reads more like a fairy [tale] than a review. Were I to write to [him f]or at this moment, I must begin "Fair Sir," [and] truly I should bid him see that "seven [stars] were woven into my robe."

[What] a marvellous eye Mr. Wilde has for such [minute] detail, and what a knowledge of precious [things!] His memory must surely be like the treasure [chambe]rs of his own King of Ashter, wherein were— [the] tortoiseshells full of pearls, and hollowed [ivory] ones of great size piled up with red rubies. [Gold] was stored in coffers of elephant hide, and [fragrant] dust in leather bottles. There were opals [and sap]phires, the former in cups of crystal, and [the latt]er in cups of jade. Round green emeralds [were arrang]ed in order upon thin plates of ivory, and in [a corner] were silk bags filled, some with turquoise [gems] and others with beryls. . . . And yet [you] have [here] but a tithe of what was there."

[He] has often admired the dainty magic with [which] Keats was able to transmute mere confec-[tion] into—

Candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;<br>

Jellies smoother than the creamy curd,<br>

[And] lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon."

[He] possessed the same power, especially over [richly] vowelled names. "These delicates" are [handle]d "with glowing hand" all through these [beauti]ful stories. The hand is perhaps too glowing [in its] profusion. It is apt to neglect proportion. [Nev]er mind that, read this sentence from "The [Birth]day of the Infanta." Maybe you have known [it l]ong ago—that sentence telling of the wood-[land] life of the little dwarf:—

[When t]he wind dances he knew—the mad dance [of enter]tainment with the autumn, the light dance in [the s]andals over the corn, the dance with white [snow] wreaths in winter, and the blossom dance [throug]h the orchards in spring.

[The] tragedy of a toadstool, that dreamed it was [a] rose worthy to be worn in the little [Infanta']-s bosom—is the story of the poor [little] dwarf, who never having seen his face, and knowing nought of a cul-[ture]d passion for the ugly, dreamed that the [Infanta] loved him for his beauty, when she laughed [to wat]ch him dance. Then, seeking her through [the] place, he comes to a mirrored room, where all [things] strangely repeat themselves. "Was it Echo? [Did] she mock the eye, as she mocked the voice?" [So] tenderly does Mr. Wilde tell how at last he [finds] himself in the monstrous little reflection [that mi]mics him in the glass, very tenderly does he [lay] his little broken-hearted figure upon the floor. [But] why need we choose no favourite out of these four [tales]? — but this and "The Fisherman and his Soul" [are fi]ne. The latter, the longest and most elab-[orate]ly-wrought of the four, and "The Star-[Child"] — I have not, I believe, previously appeared. ["The] Fisherman and his Soul" strikes one first [as one] of good fairy tales, with its simplicity of [manner], and then, how strange to watch the various [on]es shooting out from the one smooth stem, [hung] with clusters of blossom and strange [birds] and songs. It is art's miracle of the mango—

[I] speak of the "get-up" and "illustrations" [of this] book as things apart seems absurd, for, [indeed,] this is one of those rare books of which we [speak of] not the body from the soul. It is a unity. [It] should really be spoken of as a whole. [The] cover, designs, and stories seem not separate [things,] but only different ways of expressing the [same] strange fantasy. But I have spoken of the [stories] apart. Why not the pictures? But they [are hard]er for me to write about than the stories. [Especial]ly Mr. Shannon's dim "dreams" or rather [the sil]very ghosts of dreams. There is something [very] fascinating about these silvery grey [impres]sions, faint as the faintest grey of dawn—so [faint] that one at first almost takes the page for a [blank.] But gradually they grow on one like [the] fields in the moonlight. And the best [of] them is actually of the moonlight, [where] the fisherman far away out on the moonlit [sea dr]aws up the little mermaid in his net and [wears] such a secret sweet smile, as he doats on [his st]range haul. Mr. Ricketts' quaint symbolic [art no] less beautifully accompanies that more [narrat]ive side of Mr. Wilde's writing of which I [have sp]oken. Are we never to have another num-[ber of] "The Germ"?

Mr. Oscar Wylde [sic], though no longer the professed exponent of the principles of æstheticism, still keeps himself well before the public. Mr. Wylde has just published a short story [sic] entitled "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime." Of this book the critics say the writer takes neither himself, nor his tale, nor his readers seriously. "Lord Arthur Savile" is a "Bab Ballad" in prose. Two or three other stories are bound up in the same cover and none are above the average. While "'prentice hans" are advised to try short stories in the way of beginning, it is small encouragement to learn that not one short story in a hundred makes a mark. I met Mr. Oscar Wylde and his wife at a matinée last week—he still adipose and clean shaven, with an unctuous smile; she still pretty, and evidently appreciative of the distinction her husband's fame bestows upon her.

Mr. Oscar Wylde [sic], though no longer the professed exponent of the principles of æstheticism, still keeps himself well before the public. Mr. Wylde has just published a short story [sic] entitled "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime." Of this book the critics say the writer takes neither himself, nor his tale, nor his readers seriously. "Lord Arthur Savile" is a "Bab Ballad" in prose. Two or three other stories are bound up in the same cover and none are above the average. While "'prentice hans" are advised to try short stories in the way of beginning, it is small encouragement to learn that not one short story in a hundred makes a mark. I met Mr. Oscar Wylde and his wife at a matinée last week—he still adipose and clean shaven, with an unctuous smile; she still pretty, and evidently appreciative of the distinction her husband's fame bestows upon her.

Lord Arthur Savile's crime' is the title of a bright little volume of stories by Oscar Wilde. The opnion once prevalent that Oscar Wilde was an impressionist crank was entirely erroneous. He can write pure, charming English and has a light, humorous fancy which is very attractive. He is certainly capable of more serious work if he choose to exert himself.

Mr Oscar Wilde's joke does not greatly amuse one. This little book has not the picturesque quality of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray,' which at times was, perhaps, garish. Nor is the humour of the dry and keen sort which flashes like rapiers—property rapiers, perhaps in the essays such as 'The Art of Lying.' There is plenty of humour, indeed, in 'The Canterville Ghost,' and how the American leasees of a baronial mansion dispossessed the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville, who had murdered his wife in the 13th century, harassing him into giving up the ghost actually by rubbing out th eblood stains from the floor with Pinkerton's Champion Stain Remover, and offering him Rising Sun Lubricator to ease his chains from clanking, and so on. However, Mr Wilde's humour is of the exotic kind, and it is a long time ago since it ceased to be natural. Clever he must always be, but such a book as 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime'will neither lay hold on the imagination or ticle any but the most passing sense of humour.

"Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and Other Stories," by Oscar Wilde, is a vastly amusing little volume. It is cheap in price, it is artistically bound and printed, and the four tales it contains are all interesting. The two longer ones, "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" and "The Canterville Ghost," are perhaps the best. The first of these is delightfully whimsical. Young Lord Arthur, engaged to the beautiful Sybil Merton—Mr. Oscar Wilde is evidently fond of the name Sybil—spends an evening with a duchess who has a fad for chiromancy. While there he is induced to have his hand examined by the eminent specialist Mr. Podgers. Podgers announces that the Lord Arthur is destined to commit a murder. This upsets the equanimity of the young man. Clearly he cannot marry Sybil—at least not till he has got the murder over. So he ruminates thereon, postpones the wedding, and decides to put away his estimable old aunt, Lady Clementina Beauchamp. This aged dame suffers from heartburn, so he prescribes one of his infallible pilules in which he has put a deadly dose of aconite. She promises to take it, but neglects to do so, and dies shortly afterwards a natural death. Thus foiled, Lord Arthur attempts to blow up the Dean of Chichester, another distant relative, with an alarum clock set with dynamite, but unluckily the thing won't work, and once more he has to put off the wedding. In the end he comes across the redoubtable Podgers himself strolling one dark night along the Embankment, so he catches him by the coat tails and flings him into the river. A few days afterwards, to his intense relief, he reads in the paper an announcement of the suicide of Podgers, and his conscience being thus clear he marries the beautiful Sybil, and all ends happily. "The Canterville Ghost" is perhaps not so amusing as Mr. Andrew Lang's "In Castle Perilous," of which it may remind the reader; but it is nevertheless very funny. It would be unfair to the author to say anything about the plot of this or the other two tales left; but readers may be assured that they will not be bored for a moment during the perusal of them. The little volume is not nearly so replete with paradoxical turns as the "Picture of Dorian Gray," but the good things are not wanting. Of the Lady Windermere the author says, "She was now forty years of age, childless, and with that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of remaining young." "If a woman can't make her mistakes charming, she is only a female," says another. A young girl tries to persuade the ghost to emigrate to America, but the shade demurs on the ground that he thinks he would not like it. "I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities," says the maid, satirically. "No ruins! no curiosities!" answers the ghost. "You have your navy and your manners." Surely this is very excellent persiflage.

Books were taken first. They were a miscellaneous lot, and, it may be said, fetched more than they were worth. A parcel of "Dorian Grey" [sic] and Oscar Wilde's poems realised £2 2s.; a bundle of MSS. (really type-written) brought £5 15s.; and a parcel of books containing three copies of "Salome," [sic] bound in silk, "The Spirit Lamp," and Wilde's poems were knocked down for the sum of £4 15s. For a copy of "The Happy Princess; and Other Tales" [sic] (of which only seventy-five copies were printed), three copies of "The Sphrinx," [sic] bound in vellum, two large paper copies of "Lady Windermere's Fan," two copies of "Salome," and one of "A Woman of No Importance"—all sold in a bundle—£8 5s. was taken. Five copies of "Dorian Grey" [sic] fetched £3 3s. Thirteen volumes of the Parnell Commission were among the things found in the Wilde library.

FAIRY TALES.

"The House of Joy." By Laurence Housman. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1895.

THAT the publication of fairy tales should be coincident with the vulgar delights of Christmas is merely another proof of our invincible conservatism. The custom dates back, no doubt, to the pompous age of periwigs, when the assumption first arose that fairy tales were written for the delectation of extreme youth. As a matter of fact, however, neither the old French nor Scandinavian writers of fantastic tales had any idea of purveying milk food for babes. It seems probable that the stories of Perrault and Madame D'Aulnoy grew out of a survival of the heroic sentiment which inspired the semi-civilized mysticism of the folk-songs, perverted from grave issues to gay by the quickening spirit of the Renaissance. The gods of Greece came to life again in the form of elves and dryads, who through supernatural agencies swayed the destinies of the human race. It is impossible, within the scope of this article, to trace the history of the fairy tale, bound up as it is with the history of mediæval minstrelsy and tinged with memories both of Oriental traditions and of Norse mythology. In the eighteenth century the writing of fairy tales became a fashionable pastime among the fair triflers who, a century later, took to the compilation of journals with the same zest. Madame D'Aulnoy and her companions concerned themselves chiefly with composing parables of love, most of which have a marked Boccaccian flavour, and which were certainly never intended for the perusal of the modern "young person."

Turning northward we see the genius of Hans Andersen, and find the fairy tale purged from all licentious symbolism, simplified, and at the same time sublimated. But Andersen, with all his naïve soul and his pellucid fancy, had no actual intention of addressing himself to children. He began by writing plays, and only turned to the babes and sucklings when their insensate parents would have none of him. He came to his own generation, but they received him not, being greedy of sensation and trivial actualities. So the children, attracted as youth always is to the beautiful and the incomprehensible, adopted Hans Andersen and chose a part far better than they knew. Yet the real wonder of his work escapes the child, and must always escape him, notwithstanding the fact that it has been written to be understood by a child. For although Andersen had the soul of a child, he had the eyes of a man; and although he looked out on life as on a land that is very far off, his point of view was a man's point of view. He saw human nature as one who gazes through an inverted lens, infinitely distinct in its remoteness. But the greatest wonder of Andersen is his voice, unlike all others. True, there are infantine chords in it—notes as of flute and viol, most limpid of sounds. Yet also there is the human plaint, full of anguish and disillusionment, and the uncertain semi-tones of love-doubts and despairs. His women, too, are enchantments for all time, as potent as any in fiction. To have dalliance with "The Stork King's Daughter," to feel the Ice-Maiden's kisses on one's feet—for these appreciations one must have put away childish things.

But with the birth of the Philistine passion for reality the fiction of phantasy, which might be described as the foam on the wave of romantic literature, survived the discredit which fell upon the latter because the crude judgment of a gross epoch mistook its delicacy for puerility. So when the sham virtues of Pamela were delighting the adults of Richardson's generation, its youth was being nourished on fabled loves and elemental passions such as were afterwards depicted by Andersen. Gradually, however, the morbid craving for truth in fiction spread to the schoolroom, as the child began to kick against the pricks of convention in company with its parents. Modern youth, that desires above all things the knowledge of good and evil, seeks in literature what it dares not ask of life. As a result French novels fill the shelves that were wont to shelter fairy tales, and these being rejected are reserved to the class for whom they were originally written—to the lovers of literature who were once in love with life. We are surely nearing a reaction against the Zolaesque tradition; in France the tide has already turned. Even here the number of those who suffer from a nostalgia of illusion increases every day. These are they who read fairy tales.

They who write them are, however, fewer in number, and are, with one or two exceptions, inconsiderable. The combination of qualities essential to the production of great fables is infinitely rare. An ardent fancy united to a certain perception of the simple issues of life, and a style that is exquisitely pure and felicitous, may bring forth fairy tales meet to follow after the works of Andersen and Perrault. Those who concern themselves with this branch of literature—Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Joseph Jacobs to wit—are for the most part content to dress up the treasures of the past in garments that become them not. Since the publication of "The House of Pomegranates," nothing so worthy has been done in the domain of modern fairy tale as Mr. Laurence Housman's "House of Joy." It contains eight stories illustrated by the author. The pictures are distinguished by that archaic sentiment and that wonderful beauty of line which are already associated with the name of Laurence Housman. Among the tales several are admirable, and one is a gem. "The Story of the Heroes" and "The White King" are as good as Andersen at his best, coloured with a curiously modern tinge. Even in the most melancholy of Andersen's tales the lightness of his heart shines through, but one never feels that Laurence Housman's heart is light. His style, fastidious and graceful though it is, lacks the magic of the Scandinavian, the silver tone which even a translation has failed to obscure. This is, of course, to compare Mr. Laurence Housman with the greatest master of his art, and the "House of Joy" justifies us of the comparison. The worst one can urge against its author is that he is too obviously in earnest, too surely born in the nineteenth century. At a feast of divine unreason one should forget to count the cost.

Sir Frank Lockwood said he would take the circumstances in chronological order, and the case for the prosecution was opened by calling on the witness Edward Shelley, the young man who was employed by the Bodley Head publishers. Shelley repeated his story of the beginning and progress of his intimacy with Oscar. It began in 1891; in March, 1893, they quarrelled, and witness wrote to Wilde that he would not see him again. He spoke of impropriety. "I was entrapped. He knew I admired him very much; and he took advantage of me—of my admiration, and of—I won't say innocence—I don't know what to call it." These are some of the letters which Shelley wrote to Oscar:—

Sunday Evening, February 21, 1892.—Dear Mr. Oscar Wilde,—I must again thank you for "The House of Pomegranates" [a book of stories which the witness parenthetically explained were "not fit for children"] and the theatre ticket. It was very good of you to send them to me, and I shall never forget your kindness. What a triumph was yours last night [the first night of "Lady Windermere's Fan."] The play is the best I have seen on the stage, with such beauty of form and wit that it adds a new phase of pleasure to existence. Could Lady Blessington live anew, the conversations would make her jealous. George Meredith might have signed it. How miserably poor everything seems beside it! Except, of course, your books. But then your books are part of yourself.

Of all writers Mr. Wilde must be judged by his aim to be enjoyed. He is not a writer for the easily irritated, or the man who expects to order his novelists about like shopmen. People with strong preconceptions, and water-tight formulas may as well give him up at once. It is only people with bend in them, those who don't mind what he says so long as he says it piquantly, it is only those who "ever know the inmost shrine of Art"—as practised by Oscar Wilde.

It is such an obliging reader who would venture to tell him that, with every admission, these stories must never be placed on the same shelf with "Dorian Gray," the "Intentions," the charming "Fairy Tales," or those early "Poems." That they can contain wit goes without saying, but then a story should be more than a succession of sparks; that the central ideas of the first and second—"The Sphinx without a Secret"—are comic is admitted, and the latter is certainly the best of the four; but Mr. Wilde has not been patient enough in his treatment. He has attempted burlesque—and burlesque a form now practised at present by many painstaking people, who thus earn

A PRECARIOUS LIVELIHOOD.

Mr. Wilde would not take the bread out of their mouths! No; he is too real a humorist to be allowed this descent to burlesque. We, his admirers, must sorrowfully, but firmly, forbid it. Let him give us a comedy, if he will—some more "Intentions," or another story-criticism like "The Portrait of Mr. W. H."; but no more "Lord Arthur Savile's Crimes." The reader may be curious as to what Lord Arthur's crime was. Well, being out one evening at Lady Windermere's he must perforce submit to examination by that lady's new lion a cheiromantist, Mr. Podgers.

"Dear me, you are so original," had murmured the Duchess of Paisley, "trying to remember what a cheiromantist really was, and hoping it was not the same as a cheiropodist."

Mr. Podgers, on examining "the hand," was noticed by Lord Arthur to turn pale, but he managed to smooth it over and give him a commonplace reading. However, come Podgers by himself, and offering him a big cheque, he extorted the truth.

MURDER

was written upon his hand. Lord Arthur became appropriately desperate, and felt at once that with such a doom menacing him it would be wrong for him to prolong his engagement with the lovely Sybil Merton. The only alternative, since the deed apparently must be done, was to get it over as soon as possible. It is hard, but it is duty, it is "for her sake." He thereupon makes two unsuccessful attempts on a dowager aunt and his venerable uncle the Dean of Chichester; but the deed being yet to do, he roams in deep dejection one night along the Thames Embankment. And, behold, there is Mr. Podgers leaning dreamily over the parapet. A brilliant idea comes to Lord Arthur. Quickly seizing him by the calves, he topples him over into the stream. A splash, a gurgle, a floating hat, and all is over. The prophet has thus fulfilled his own prophecy. An evening paper confirms the suicide of the famous cheiromantist, and his fate thus fulfilled, Lord Arthur, released at last, flies to the arms of his dear Sybil to offer her his future—now without a cloud. The point of the story is, of course, in its sub-title—"A Study of Duty."

The story which gives this little book its name is a piece of logico-whimsicality by Mr. Oscar W. S. Gilbert Wilde. Its subtitle is 'A Study in Duty', just as the subtitle of 'The Pirates of Penzance' was 'The Slave of Duty'. The hero of the opera committed piracy, the hero of the story commits murder, from a sense of duty. In both the author has an odd semblance of satirizing something--heaven only knows what. It is irony in the air---or rather in a vacuum---but it makes pleasant enough reading none the less. 'The Sphinx without a Secret' is a subject for a sketch by M. Oscar Ivanovitch Wilde-Turgueneff [sic], lt is a psychological study with the psychology Ieft out, 'The Canterville Ghost' is a skit on psychical research by Mr. O. A, Lang-Wilde--which accounts for its being a trifle langweilig. The author appears to have taken his inspiration from the following passage in ' The Tour to the Hebrides' : Boswed' Would not you, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does if you saw a ghost?' Johnson: 'I hope not. If I did, I should frighten the ghost'. The ' hylo-idealistic romance' (so the sub title runs) is very like 'In Castle Perilous', but not so amusing. The fourth and last story, entitled 'The Model Millionaire', is an edifying fairy tale by Herr Hans O. Andersen-Wilde. The moral is that if, on encountering a picturesque beggar, you find that you have only a sovereign and some coppers in your pocket, the prudent course is to give him the sovereign on the chance of his turning out to be Baron Hirsch in disguise. There is at least an even chance that he will employ your sovereign in disguising himself---in drink, But the generous soul will decline to dwell on such sordid contingencies. On the whole, the booklet may be commended as very pretty railway reading, for a short journey. It will carry you pleasantly as far as Hitchin; if you are going on to Peterborough, you had better lay in Tit Bits as well.

Mr. Oscar Wilde's 'House of Pomegranates' is a quaintly-bound volume of fairy tales, printed in old-fashioned type, and garnished with fantastic illustrations.

Oscar Wilde's volume of poems was scarcely as successful as his book of fanciful tales, A House of Pomegranates, wherein the bewildering, gorgeous word painting bears no relation to the ideas or stories.

Mr. Oscar Wilde has been good enough to explain, since the publication of his book that it was intended neither for the 'British Child' nor for the 'British Public', but for the cultured few who can appreciate its subtle charms. The same exiguous but admiring band will doubtless comprehend why a volume of allegories should be described as A House of Pomegranates, which we must confess is not apparent to our perverse and blunted intellect. It consists of four storeys (we mean stories), 'The Young King', 'The Birthday of the Infanta', 'The Fisherman and his Soul', and 'The Star-Child', each dedicated to a lady of Mr. Wilde's acquaintance, and all characterized by the peculiar faults and virtues of his highly artificial style. The allegory, as we have had occasion to remark on former occasions, when discussing the work of Lady Dilke and Miss Olive Schreiner in this particular field, is one of the most difficult of literary forms. In Mr. Wilde's House of Pomegranates there is too much straining after effect and too many wordy descriptions; but at the same time there is a good deal of forcible and poetic writing scattered through its pages, and its scenes have more colour and consistence than those which we criticized in 'Dreams' and 'The Shrine of Love'. Mr. Wilde resembles the modern manager who crowds his stage with aesthetic upholstery and bric-à-brac until the characters have scarcely room to walk about. Take this inventory of the contents of a chamber in the young king's palace, which reads for all the world like an extract from a catalogue at Christie's ... The adornment of these 'beautiful tales', as Mr. Wilde modestly calls them, has been entrusted to Messrs. C. Ricketts and C.H. Shannon, and for combined ugliness and obscurity it would be hard, we imagine, to beat them. The full-page illustrations are so indistinctly printed that whatever excellence they may possess is lost to view, while the grotesque black-and-white woodcuts are hideous to behold. It is, perhaps, as well that the book is not meant for the 'British Child'; for it would certainly make him scream, according to his disposition, with terror or amusement.

Mr and Mrs Oscar Wilde. Novels are, comparatively speaking, easy work to the makers of them; so are magazine articles; and so are lots of other thingsalso, when you just know what you want to do, and can put yourself in touch with the folk whom you want to influence. But to be in sympathy with children, to know what will please them, and be capable of putting yourself sufficiently in their place to use the words, phrases, sentences, to express the ideas, which will best suit them, and appeal to their [sic] infantine senses, demands students of juvenile nature for the work. Mr and Mrs Oscar Wilde possess charming children of their own, and have utilised their acquaintance with the infant world in giving to it some delightful fairy tales, which even the which even the elders must appreciate."The Happy Prince, and Other Tales". illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, and published by David Nutt, is one of the happiest works which Mr Oscar Wilde has ever produced; whilst Mrs Wilde's fairy tales, also published recently, and entitled "There was Once," are a charming reproduction of the old stories, familiar to our childish days, which Nisbet has brought out.

Four fanciful little stories in a pretty little book. They are trivial, but bright and entertaining.

The success of Oscar Wilde as playwright, essayist, and story-teller is one of the wonders of recent years. When he came to this country a decade ago he was covered with scorn and ridicule. Nevertheless, he succeeded in having his first play, 'Vera,' produced in New York. It was scored by the critics here, and, after running for a few weeks, it was never heard of again. But even at this period Oscar was imbued with that sublime conceit which has helped him so much in his career. One night, after a performance of his play, he was walking uptown with a well-known writer of this city, and talking about himself as usual. 'Ah!' he cried, in a fine frenzy of enthusiasm, 'do you know what I need most in the world?' His friend gave up the conundrum, and Oscar went on: 'Well, I need worship. I must have worship.' Then, after a moment's silence, he added: 'In that respect, I resemble God Almighty.' Oscar carried from America $20,000, the proceeds of his lecture tour. He went back to London, where for several years, he has indulged with the famous 'Jimmy Whistler, the artist, in a warfare of the wits. At the present time of course, Oscar is ahead, for he has struck a vein of 'devilish' cynicism and perverted humor. His book of essays, which he called 'Intentions', is, however, a really fine achievement, and it would give Oscar a place in literature if he had not written wicked plays. Nothing, too, could be finer in its way than his 'House of Pomegranates,' luxurious in fancy and in diction, as well as in its manner of publication. 'Dorian Gray,' his novel, however, is distinctly inferior to these, and must be regarded as a comparative failure. Oscar i smarried to one of the most beautiful of the London aesthetes, and his home is a bower of soft draperies and rich and harmonious colors.

Oscar Wilde, in constructing his 'House of Pomegranates,' uses as materials 'The Young King,' 'The Birthday of the Infanta,' 'The Fisherman and His Soul,' and 'The Star Child.' The first story relates to the young Italian Prince who, lapped in luxury, and with an intense love of the beautiful, sees at last how much sowrrow and misery are [sic] in this world. Steepted in pleasures, he at once renounces and, clad in a goatskin, wanders through the country. 'He is a dreamer of dreams,' cry his astonished people while mocking him. But his soul is chastened, and one day in a chapel, from a stained glass window, the light takes the shape of an angelic figure that crowns him, and then indeed is he King. The most charming of the stories is 'The Birthday of the Infanta.' Mr. Wilde is in sympathy with the sombre magnificence of old Spain. It is the Infanta's natal day, and before her dances the ugliest of dwarfs. He is not conscious how horrible is his guise. She laughs at his hideousness as would any child. She gives him a fower and he loses his heart. He wanders through the palace and sees for the first time his reflection in a mirror. He knows he is a misshapen and hunchbacked monster. 'Then he crawled, like some wounded thing, into the shadow, and lay there moaning.' The Infanta would have him dance again, and the Chamberlain smites him with his glove. The dwarf is motionless. 'Mi bella Princesa, your funny little dwarf will never dance again.' 'But why will he not dance again? ' asked the Infanta, laughing. 'Because his heart is broken,' answered the Chamberlain. 'For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts,' she cried, and she ran into the garden. The make-up of the book is exceptionally good.

Oscar Wilde's first new book is to be a collection of short fairy tales for the holidays. It will be entitled 'The [sic] House of Pomegranates,' and is to be lavishly illustrated and brought out between gorgeous covers.

They [Wilde's books] are unlikely to be removed from the Brooklyn Library.

The action of the City Library of St. Louis and the Free Library of Newark, N.J., in withdrawing from their shelves all books written by Oscar Wilde that may happen to be there is drawing some ridicule upon those institutions. The opinion most generally expressed is that the books are no worse now that Wilde’s personal wickedness is exposed than they were before; and if they contained nothing harmful when placed there, they have not been made harmful by the recent disclosures of the man’s character.

Willis A. Bardwell, librarian of the Brooklyn Library, smiled when a Standard Union reporter asked him what he thought of the action of the two libraries named.

“They are only advertising Wilde’s books,” he said. “If they don’t want people to read them, it would have been better for them to have let the matter alone. A man’s character does not necessarily affect his book, however; and if a work that is good in itself, or harmless, is to be condemned because a cloud comes over the reputation of its author, there would be no knowing where to begin or end the process of weeding out.

“The best way to create a demand for a bad book is to make it known that it is bad. If a bad book happens to find its way into a library collection, it is easy to withdraw it without making a fuss about it. “As to Wilde’s books, there are but a few of them in the Brooklyn Library, and there is no apparent reason why they should be withdrawn from circulation. Some of them are books for the young, and none of them are recent. We have bought none of his recent works, and, of course, would buy none now. But it isn’t at all likely that it will be necessary to destroy or hide those which we have.”

By examination of the catalogues, the reporter found that there are only six volumes of Wilde’s writings in the library. These are: 'Intentions', a collection of essays; 'Poems' (published in 1881); 'The Happy Prince and Other Tales'; 'A House of Pomegranates'; 'Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, and Other Stories'; and 'The Young King and The Star-Child.''

Dirty Linen

Los Angeles, April 10.—(To the Editor of The Times:)

Fair play is a word which should find an echo in every human heart; that it does not is obvious and likewise regrettable. A very scandalous lawsuit in London has just immersed in an unutterable mire an English author who, in his writings, has made it his pastime to taunt the Philistine. The Philistine is now tasting the sweets of revenge, and Oscar Wilde is nailed to the pillory of—what shall we call it?—righteous indignation or revolted public opinion.

His crime, if he be criminal, is one which in polite circles is labeled indecent; the most lenient critic would certainly call it unaesthetic. But here the philosophical doubt asserts itself—who is the more blamable of the two, Oscar Wilde, perhaps an unconscious erotomaniac, or the Marquis of Queensberry, that prize-ring tactician who drags his son into the nauseating cesspool wherein he would fain drown the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray?

Wilde may be a doomed man; but what is the future reserved, through the sottish interference of his father, to the youthful Lord Alfred Douglas? To put the question is to answer it. We have here once again the proof that inquisitorial zeal is worse than apathetic indifference. The mantle of charity covers a multitude of sins; and was it ever more necessary than in this sad case? The French are right: “Il faut laver son linge sale en famille.”

No one can deny that Oscar Wilde possesses in a high degree the marks of decadentism: its love of the artificial, its aversion to nature and all forms of activity and movement, its preference for diabolism, sadism, and unnatural depravity, its megalomaniacal contempt for man, and its exaggeration of the role of art.

His efforts may be classed under three headings: prose, poems, and plays. His poems are in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites, but are rather feeble imitations of Swinburne and Rossetti, and of dreary inanity. His prose works, on the contrary, are worthy of attention: Intentions, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime are very clever paradoxes; but that a paradox may become a reality Oscar Wilde seems to have once proven by taking on himself the part of Dorian Gray. The Happy Prince and others are very pretty tales.

His dramatic works comprise: Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, The Duchess of Padua, Salome, and An Ideal Husband. As a playwright, Oscar Wilde has been very successful; his pieces are the triumph of the epigram, and it must be conceded that he often uses this incisive weapon with great effect.

But alongside his literary efforts, even perhaps overtowering them, Wilde’s personal eccentricities have held the public in suspense, wondering what his next move would be.

He is fond of dressing in queer costumes which recall partly the fashions of the Middle Ages, partly the Rococo modes. He pretends to have given up the dress of the present time because it offends his sense of the beautiful; but this is only a pretext in which probably he himself does not believe, for when not posing I understand that he is rather inclined to be slovenly and to give the beautiful the “grand bounce,” so far as his vestments are concerned. What really determines his actions is the hysterical craving to be noticed, to occupy the attention of the world with himself, to get talked about. This craving must be more than amply satisfied just at present, in which moment he is for the first time in his life unwillingly the cynosure of all eyes.

It is a well-known fact that he once walked down Pall Mall in the afternoon dressed in doublet and breeches, with a picturesque biretta on his head and a sunflower in his hand, the quasi-heraldic symbol of the Aesthetes.

Oscar Wilde affects a superb disdain for nature, and says of her in his book Intentions: “Whatever actually occurs is spoiled for art. All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.”

He is a “cultivator of the ego,” and feels deliciously indignant at the fact that nature dares to be indifferent to the charms of his person. He writes: “Nature is so indifferent, so unappreciative. Whenever I am walking in the park here, I always feel that I am no more to her than the cattle that browse on the slope.”

With regard to himself and the human species, he says: “Ah, don’t say that you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.”

These citations could be multiplied ad infinitum, but I shall close these lines with a poem by Oscar Wilde. It is rather appropriate:

TAEDIUM VITAE

“To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear

This paltry age’s gaudy livery,

To let each base hand filch my treasury,

To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,

And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom, I swear

I love it not. These things are less to me

Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,

Less than the thistledown of summer air,

Which hath no seed; better to stand aloft

Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life,

Knowing me not; better the lowliest roof

Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,

Than even go back to that hoarse cave of strife

Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.”

The first of Mr. Oscar Wilde's allegories or parables, or whatever he may call them, is admirable. A young king, who is a passionate lover of the beautiful, dreams on the eve of his coronation sundry dreams in which he sees how the splendors on which his heart is set are won by the sufferings and death of thousands of unknown toilers. So struck is he by these visions, that he will have none of the glories with which it is intended to adorn him for his coronation. He goes to the church with a rude cloak of sheepskin and a leathern tunic, and a wreath of wild briar round his head; but the sunlight streaming through the painted window envelops him with such a splendor that none can refuse to honor him. The 'Birthday of the Infanta' shows the pathos of a loving soul lodged in a deformed body. As to 'The Fisherman and his Soul', we cannot exactly see the scope of it. The fisherman gets rid of his soul in order to win the love of a mermaid, and the soul sent out without a heart commits all kinds of atrocities. That is a fine idea; but the purport of the whole eludes us. Mr. Wilde writes, as usual, in a highly ornate style. (Spectator)

Oscar Wilde's little book 'Happy Prince and Other Tales,' is a very attractive piece of book-making. 'The Remarkable Rocket,' a delicate satire, is especially charming and is cleverly carried to a finish.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales is the name of a story book by Oscar Wilde. It has five stories in it, illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. Oscar's tales are not too bad, and will remind the reader of Hans Andersen.

Oscar Wilde has done some capital work in the 'Happy Prince and Other Tales'—a collection of five fairy stories, all told in simple style, but full of pathos and breathing the spirit of charity and good will. 'The Happy Prince', which gives the title to the book, is an admirable tale of the way a swallow and a statue helped to feed the hungry and clothe the destitute in a great city. The volume is artisically illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacob Hood.

Oscar Wilde has written some clever and readable fairy stories which are published under the title of 'The Happy Prince and other Tales' (Roberts, $1.00). The tales are, apparently, written with a purpose, and are more like elaborate fables than fairy stories in the ordinary meaning. The illustrations are by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood.

Five excellent fairy tales are grouped together in this volume, with illustrations by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. The stories are happy conceits worked out in a way sure to captivate imaginative children and give them much pleasure, while even older readers can learn truths from these allegories.

The Happy Prince and other tales, by Oscar Wilde, is a reproduction of this well-remembered person's fairy tales, in which there is really origiinality [sic] of imagination and cleverness in composition. The book is a thin one, the tales not being many in number. It is handsomely illustrated by Walter Crane and is beautifully printed.

The Happy Prince and other tales, by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, is a dainty and beautiful little volume of really meritorious literary character. Our old friend, Oscar Wilde, did not impress us formerly with his intellectual power or literary skill. He seemed to be the apostle of a limp and languid aestheticism, and the object of mild laughter. But we must acknowledge his real gift and grace in these very charming stories. The illustrations are, of course, excellent, and the typographical work is exquisitely done. Fairy tales ought always to be thus elegantly printed and illustrated. We congratulate Oscar, and thank him for his tales, and forgive him all his old trespasses agains the common sense of the age.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales' is the title of a little volume by Oscar Wilde. The illustrations are by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. The contents include The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The devoted [sic] Friend, and The Remarkable Rocket. The tales are apparently written for a purpose, and are more like elaborate fables than fairy stories in the ordinary meaning.

Mr. Oscar Wilde has had so much abuse for certain calculated eccentricities in which he indulged during a tour of the United States that it is pleasant to find him on the title page of a book which can be praised without reserve. 'The Remarkable Rocket', 'The Devoted Friend,''The Selfish Giant', and 'The Nightingale and the Rose' are very dainty little fairy stories which will charm the young, yet afford zest to other persons by reason of the satirical, though not unkindly, flavor in them. 'The Happy Prince' has an element of pathos, such as we find in Hans Christian Andersen's unrivaled [sic] tales for children. The woodcuts are pleasant fancies, though somewhat used in the print, to employ a term that is often inexact when applied to pictures in modern books.

Mr. Oscar Wilde appears to much better advantage as a writer of short tales, as seen in the new volume 'The Happy Prince and Other Tales,' than in—well, for instance, than in [sic] walking down Picadilly with a lily in his mediæval hand. The story which lends its name to the title rôle is full of delicate, beautiful fancy, and a vein of shrewd wit runs through it, while one entitled 'The Devoted Friend' is one of great pathos and power, and 'The Remarkable Rocket' is as piquant a little sarcasm as one can imagine, brilliantly embodied.

Enw llyfr Mr. Oscar Wilde ydyw The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Mae y bymthegfed gyfrol o'r. 'National Biography wedi cyrhaedd yr enw Drake. Tybir y gorphenir y gwaith mewn 50 o gyfrolau.

A friend recently presented me with a copy of a certain American magazine called Current Literature, and drew my attention to a somewhat extraordinary statement purporting to emanate from that high authority on aestheticism—Mr. Oscar Wilde. The latest manoeuvre of this gentleman, in the way of an eccentric scene—a theatrical audience, cigarette in hand, and his display of a new (and artificial) product of the vegetable kingdom—are, of course, matters of public comment. These little fads, which please those who mistake pinchbeck and cheap notoriety for legitimate fame, sensible persons can afford to ignore, to pity, or even to laugh at; but when Mr. Oscar Wilde takes to patronising Nature as the mere slave of Art, I think it is high time to protest against the absolute rant and foolishness which pass muster with a certain section of society as the expression of highly aesthetic thought.

The passage attributed to Mr. Oscar Wilde runs as follows. Being in violent admiration of the cover of his latest book, A House of Pomegranates, he declares that: “The artistic beauty of the cover of my book resides in the delicate tracing of arabesques, and the massing of many coral-red lines on a ground of white ivory, the colour-effect culminating in certain high gilt notes, and being made still more pleasurable by an overlapping band of moss-green cloth that holds the book together.” If this is a piece of Mr. Oscar Wilde’s humour, it is uncommonly well done; if it is reality, then affectation has reached a deeper depth of fatuity than most people may have believed possible of attainment. We have not yet finished, however. “Then,” says the American magazine, “he delivers this dictum (there is nothing like being emphatic): ‘A thing in Nature becomes much lovelier if it reminds us of a thing in Art; but a thing in Art gains no real beauty through reminding us of a thing in Nature.’” But it is too condescending; nay, more, it is very good of Mr. Oscar Wilde to patronise poor effete Nature from the standpoint of Art (with a capital A), although it is not certain that students of Nature, or genuine students of the art which seeks to portray Nature exactly and lovingly, will feel thankful for his patronage.

This latest “dictum” is a piece of egregious and, to the scientific mind, revolting nonsense. If it means anything, it implies that the beauty of the flower and leaf, or the delicate tints on the inside of a shell, are not to be loved and admired for themselves alone. They can only become “much lovelier” when they remind us each of “a thing in Art”—say, some aesthetic daub executed by Mr. Oscar Wilde or by one of his artistic friends. Again, when I look at a landscape with the purple hills and the heather, or when I revel in a Thames meadow with its willows, bright and peaceful in the noonday sun, I am to think it much lovelier if it reminds me of “a thing in Art”—what thing precisely, Mr. Oscar Wilde may find it somewhat beyond his powers to explain. The real fact is that persons who rant and rave in this fashion are superior to everything in Nature and Art alike; yet they forget that “the massing of many coral-red lines on a ground of white ivory,” if it gives any pleasure at all to the senses, must have derived its origin in some anterior phase or effect which could only have come from Nature, the despised. When all is said and done, aesthetic cranks conveniently forget that it is to Nature they owe alike all their being and whatever sense of beauty they possess. Even “moss-green cloth,” I take it, derives its very being from Nature. Are we to suppose Mr. Oscar Wilde and his compeers labour under the delusion that they invented either the colour or the plant?

This sumptuous volume of stories by Mr. Oscar Wilde is a welcome Christmas visitor. The elaborate design and decoration of the book is the joint work of Mr. C. Ricketts and Mr. C. H. Shannon. We cannot say that the outside altogether pleases us, but the interior is artistically a thing of beauty. The thick creamy satin paper, the beautiful type meandering within a wide meadow of margin, the exquisite illustrations, the delicate diaphanous visions depicted on plates prefixed to each story—all minister to that sense of beauty which Mr. Wilde has done so much to stimulate. Mr. Wilde here appears as a story-teller pure and simple, narrator of things that never were, but that enchant us just the same—or rather very much more—taking us, as they do, out of the sordid grime of the present into some fairy-like realm of the imagination, where, nevertheless, the groundwork and elements of human passion—love, fear, happiness, remorse, fidelity, courage—are presented to us disconnected from troublesome psychological and ethical problems, and we see the essential factors of human life in simple combinations. One is reminded of such a masterpiece of story-telling as 'The Earthly Paradise,' by this volume of Mr. Wilde's. One is verse and the other prose, but there is the same simple directness of narrative, the same force of language, the same frank delight in sensuous beauty, in colour, form, and sound, and brooding over all the same sense of sympathy and pity. The four tales are quite separate, but they may be said to be united in one way, for they are all informed with the one idea of love as the great bond of union, the great solvent of human problems, the healing and purifying power of life. Mr. Wilde rightly holds that art should be loved for its own sake and not for any moral to be wrenched out of it by the analytic rack and thumb-screw, and we are far from desiring to compress these charming romantic essences into moral pills and potions. Yet there is a kind of spiritual inference to be made from each of these stories; and that inference is, 'Give all to love.'

The first story in the volume is that of "The Young King," a child of the old King's only daughter by a secret marriage with a stranger beneath her in station: a noble boy, wild-eyed and open-mouthed like a brown woodland faun. He is discovered in his beautiful apartment on the night before his coronation day. He sinks down on his bed, on the silk coverlet of which are embroidered pale poppies, "as though they had fallen from the tired hands of sleep," and he dreams. He is no longer in his palace, but in a low attic, where gaunt weavers bend over their looms, and pale children, whose faces are pinched with famine and whose thin hands tremble, are working in the foul and heavy air. The King speaks to a weaver, who tells him he works for a master who is a man just like himself, with this difference, "that he wears fine clothes while I go in rags, and that while I am weak from hunger he suffers not a little from overfeeding." And the King learns with terror that these miserable people are actually weaving his own coronation robe.

He wakes to find the great honey-coloured moon hanging in the dusky air, and then sleeps and dreams again. This time he is on the deck of a galley rowed by slaves chained together, the burning sun scorching their naked backs, and negroes lashing them with whips of hide. The youngest of them is sent down into the sea to dive for pearls. When he comes up his face is deadly pale, the blood gushing from ears and nostrils. "He quivered for a little, and then he was still. The negroes shrugged their shoulders and threw the body overboard." And then the King learns that the precious pearl this wretched victim brought from the depths of the sea is for his own sceptre. He cries, wakes, then falls asleep and dreams again.

He now sees men toiling in a dark forest filled with poisonous flowers and adders, tearing up the rocks with axes, and Avarice and Death watching them from a dark cavern. Death wants a third of them, but Avarice will not give any up. Whereon Death scatters blight, fever, and pestilence around, "and out of the slime at the bottom of the valley crept dragons and horrible things with scales;" and the young King is told that these wretched men are searching for rubies for his own crown. The royal boy with his wild eyes, offspring of a love other than the conventional arrangements royalty recognises, cannot endure this.

On the coronation day when the robe, crown, and sceptre are brought to him he orders them away, puts on a leather tunic and rough cloak, and a spray of wild briar for a crown. He is mocked as the King's fool and thrust from the cathedral portals by the soldiers. The old Bishop remonstrates, but he presses on to the altar and stands before the image of Christ. And there, through the painted windows came the sunlight streaming upon him. "The gates of the jewelled shrine flew open, and from the crystal of the many-rayed monstrance shone a marvellous and mystical light. He stood there in a King's raiment, and the glory of God filled the place, and the Saints in their carven niches seemed to move." The people fell on their knees, the organ pealed forth its music, and the young King was not only King, but hero, prophet, angel.

The second story of this pretty volume is of "The Birthday of the Infanta." In the revels that take place mingles and acts a little dwarf, who has been purchased from his father, a poor charcoal-burner. The young Infanta is so amused by him that she flings him a white rose which she has worn in her hair. The little dwarf, ignorant alike of the ways of Princesses and of his own lack of comeliness, supposes she loves him, and he dreams of the happy life they will have in the forest, and of how he will guard over her and be her devoted slave. Eager to see her, he pushes his way into the palace and passes through splendid halls, but finds her not. Ultimately he comes to a mirror, which first reveals to him what an ugly mis-shapen abortion he is, and his vision of happiness is gone.

The Infanta comes in at the moment and finds her amusing dwarf lying on the ground in agony, with the petals of the rose she had flung to him torn in pieces around him. His sobs grow fainter and fainter, till they cease and he is still. The Chamberlain puts his hand on the dwarf's heart, and finds that it has ceased to beat. The Infanta frowns and cries in a pretty pet, "For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts." With which significant command this story ends.

We have not left ourselves space to tell about the other two stories—"The Fisherman and his Soul" and the "Star Child." The former turns on a fisherman preferring the love of a mermaid to his own soul, which a young witch enables him to get rid of. The latter tells of a child wrapped in a gold vestment found by two poor wood-cutters in a forest, and taken by one of them home. The child repays his kindness with cruelty and disdain, and grows up selfish and wicked, denying and outraging his own mother, who comes to him in the guise of a poor beggar-woman. He repents, grows merciful, seeks her over the earth, suffers, and yet, while suffering, redeems his own soul by acts of kindness, and finally finds his father and mother, and the kingdom to which he is heir.

All through these charming tales Mr. Wilde revels in descriptive colouring which, merged in the texture of the story, makes the book inwardly as well as outwardly beautiful, and a dominating sympathetic imagination pervades it all.

All readers of the Philistine persuasion will do well to avoid "The House of Pomegranates." To read it will simply rub them up the wrong way and upset them for days. Indeed, I do not know to whom I ought to recommend it. It is over the heads of the majority of children, and yet it is not, I imagine, intended for the mature. The stories are full of fancy and poetic thought, but it is possible to read between the lines and to find meanings which, if put into the text, would have spoiled the allegories. Mr. Wilde is far too wise to allow his morals to be obtrusive.

The stories in the volume are four in number, and my favourites are "The Fisherman and His Soul" and "The Birthday of the Infanta." In the former are some masterly bits of description, and the moral of the tale (if the author will excuse me for mentioning that rococo word a second time)—namely, that it is far better to be under the guidance of love without a soul than to be soulful without love—is admirable.

Of the illustrations I frankly confess I am not sufficiently "advanced" to speak. No doubt they are beautiful, but my eyes are holden and I cannot see.

Mr. Oscar Wilde describes his House of Pomegranates as a collection of ‘beautiful tales.’ Of course, no one should know better than the author the peculiar virtues of his literary architecture, but in the minds of modest people he might have advertised his wares by the publication of an outside opinion. There is, nevertheless, some fine writing in 'A House of Pomegranates, and the admirers of this modern philosopher will find more entertainment in its pages than in such works as 'Dreams' and 'The Shrine of Love'. The great fault of Oscar Wilde is, as a subtle citic put it, his resemblance to a theatrical manager who crowds his stage with aesthetic upholstery and bric-a-brac until the characters have scarcely room to walk about.

Nominally, we presume, Mr. Oscar Wilde’s new volume, A House of Pomegranates (Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co.), is intended for the children, it being supposed that only the children like and read tales of fantasy such as are to be found within these pages. As a matter of fact, 'A House of Pomegranates,' with its strong flavour of mediævalism in ornament and illustration, will almost certainly appeal most irresistibly to the adult reader, by whom alone can the skilfulness of Mr. Wilde's prose style and the undercurrent of reflection in his work be at all proprerly appreciated. Here are four tales—marked by much grace of form and fancy, and set forth with all possible richness in the way of type, sumptuous paper, quaint woodcut, and elaborate binding—making up a volume very characteristic of its writer, and highly creditable to the taste and enterprise of its producers.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales is the prettiest child's story-book we have had since Alice in Wonderland. Like its famous predecessor, it is as readable and as intelligible by 'grown-up' people as by those to whom it is supposed to be addressed, and is flavoured by its author, Mr. Oscar Wilde, with pleasantest wit and most graceful humour.

Woman has fallen from her high estate, and is now used 'to point a moral, and adorn a tale.' Formerly she was the angel, possessor of all virtues: now, under the process of education, she is subject to lectures, scoldings, and mild sarcasms. Here is Mr Oscar Wilde, in his book of fairy tales, just published, administering the latter in his first story—'The Happy Prince.'A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. "How wonderful the stars are," he said to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!" "I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State ball," she answered; "I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.'" Well, the lover's observations are not strikingly original, and possibly the beautiful girl had heard the remarks before, and considered that as the lover was not an astronomer, and not likely to communicate any startling intelligence, he might confine his attentions to sparkling beings nearer hand. And what more interesting to a lover who is not yet a husband than that the fair one is to appear more dazzling in a ball dress, trimmed with passion-flowers—as pretty and delicate an allusion, if not so exalted, as the stars. If the Prince had been as sensible as princes in fairy tales ought to be he would have entered heartily into the discussion of the mundane subject.

The past week has seen the publication of many notable books, of which, perhaps, the most important are Mr Andrew Lang's 'Euterpe.' Mr Frederic Harrison's 'Cromwell,' and Mr Oscar Wilde's volume of children's stories. Of the first of these it is, perhaps, idle to speak. Mr Lang contributes an essay on the Religion and Good Faith of Herodotus to the second book of Herodotus. This version was Englished in 1584 by 'B.R,' and bears the title of 'The Elizabethan Herodotus.' Clearly it is a valuable book, beautifully printed on hand made paper, but the edition is limited to 500 copies.

Mr Oscar Wilde’s 'Happy Prince, and Other Tales,' is more accessible, and would make a capital present to a boy or girl friend. Mr Wilde proved many years ago that he had inherited his mother’s poetical genius, [sic] althouh his many mannerisms and eccentricities prevented us from taking him quite seriously. In this volume he proves himself to [sic] posses a most attractive prose style. The interest in 'Happy Prince' is enhanced by Mr Walter Crane and Mr Jacomb Hood’s illustrations,

When to the gift of genius is added the gift of the power to use it, what may we not expect from one so richly endowed? Mr. Oscar Wilde to a poetic imagination adds the brilliancy which not even the most prejudiced among the 'hated Saxons' can refuse to acknowledge as a product of Ireland. Then, to make the balance true, we have in him the addition of Oxford 'Culture,' whereby natural genius is reduced to working order; and, from a wilde jungle, transformed into an exquisite pleasure ground, not too prim and precise for fancy's bright children to wander in, or too mundane and commonplace for the gambols of the fairies at midnight. In The Happy Prince and other stories, four in number, which make up this charming volume Mr. Wilde shows that he has not only a poetic imagination and brilliant wit, but a remarkably keen eyesight into human nature. Those who have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Wilde will be in no way surprised to find the critical faculty in him sharp as a two-edged sword ; those who know him only as the great Apostle of the Æsthetes, posing perpetually with a “ Lily in his medieval hand ” will be perplexed and astonished to find in these fables evidences that the author is as well versed in the faults and foibles of men and women as he is in the mystery of beauty, and in the precious secrets she whispers to those of her worshippers who are ardent and true.

For myself, I may as well confess honestly I never expected to read from the pen of Mr. Oscar Wilde such a story as ' The Selfish Giant.' That it is beautifully told in pure and simple English goes without saying, but it carries in the exquisite heart of it the true meaning of the good news of God revealed to us by the death on Calvary—the good news that Love is not only the vanquisher of Death, but the one means whereby we rise to the life immortal. How exquisite is the description of the ice-bound garden of the Giant. I must quote some of it :—" Then the spring came ...

It would seem to be a very difficult task to be original in fairy tales---harder, even, than in most 'walks of literature', where, as Emerson reminded us, 'everything has been said before'. To write an original story for children---which shall at the same time be readable and amusing---the author of ' Alice in Wonderland ' has, perhaps, attained nearest, ir this generation, to that ideal of perfection. But Mr. Oscar Wilde, if he echoes Hans Andersen, echoes him very pleasantly. 'These five tales are all cleverly told, and contain some pretty flights of imagination, many quaint conceits, and plenty of smart sayings. If it was Andersen's one fault that he soared occasionally above the children's heads, no one will be inclined to blame Mr. Oscar Wilde for that---for is it not the fashion of the present day to write neither exclusively for children nor for 'grownups', but for both (or neither)? The stories have 'a moral', not & la Mrs. Sherwood, but daintily hidden, for, as Mr. Wilde makes a duck say to a linnet (in a tale called 'The Devoted Friend'), 'to tell a story with a moral is always a very dangerous thing to do'. 'Every good story-teller', a waterrat goes on to inform us, 'now-a-days starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle, That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pond with a young man, He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, and whenever the young man made any remark he always answered, 'Pooh!' A recipe is given for friendship in the same story, 'A true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good'. Mr, Oscar Wilde is rather severe on young ladies of the present day. Here is an extract from the first story, 'The Happy Prince': ' A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. 'How wonderful the stars are;' he said to her, 'and how wonderfal is the power of love!' 'I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State ball', she answered; 'I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy. ' A student listening to a nightingale, pulls a note-book and a lead pencil out of his pocket. 'She has form', be said to himself; 'has she got feeling? Tam afraid not; in fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity... , Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice, What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good!' It would be a shame to extract any more of the plums with which this little volume is filled, The book is very prettily got up, and the illustrations are by Mr. Walter Crane and Mr. Jacomb Hood. The author of the 'Baby's Opera' is, we need not say, an ideal illustrator of fairy tales; and some of the children in Mr. Jacomb Hood's vignettes seem to have stepped out of his pretty picture in this year's Grosvenor, Indeed, if we are not mistaken, one of the vignettes is a sketch of the leading group in that composition.

Need we say that Mr. Wilde's book is daintily got up? Pure white is its apparel, with a slight ornamentation of red and black: no common gold. The tales, compounded of pretty thoughts and harmless fun, seem designed to inculcate the gentler moralities—patience, courtesy, kindliness, universal sympathy. Perhaps there is most poetry in ‘The Nightingale and the Rose :' certainly it is poetical, and told in prose to match. The prize of humour we should assign, with some hesitation, to 'The Remarkable Rocket;' the very real humour of 'The Devoted Friend' being lost in the pathos of the story. Hans is something more than a rocket, and we end by getting indignant over his treatment. Every one will like the 'Selfish Giant'—once he has opened his garden to the Divine Child. 'The Happy Prince,' another wise and graceful fable, completes the list: the five can easily be read in an evening. A few illustrations are contributed by Mr. Walter Crane and Mr. Jacomb Hood.

Once more I write to you for help. You boys and girls are as necessary to our work as your fathers and mothers. If England is ever to be made a happy country, you will have to do your part, and perhaps give up a good deal for the sake of others. We are going to have a very hard winter indeed, much harder than for many years past. There is so little work and so little money that I am afraid many a home will lack food and firing, and hundreds of little ones go hungry and ill-clad to school. Yesterday I saw just opposite our Boys' Club some little girls dancing to a street organ, one wee bairnie I noticed especi ally looked quite happy while she was dancing and seemed to be enjoying herself, although she bad no shoes or stockings, and had a dress on that must have belonged to her mother; it was so big, but the moment the organ stopped playing a cloud of unhappiness seemed to settle down on her face, and a look of care that one so often sees here blotted out all the brightness. No wonder, for she had a drunken mother who neglected her all day and beat her at night. Often she was locked out of doors for hours together, and would have to sit on the doorstep and wait till eleven o'clock, when mother came home drunk from the gin-palace. I don't want you to think that all poor people are bad and ill-treat their children, because that is not a bit true. I know many fathers who have gone for days without proper food in order that their children might have enough, but what I do want you to remember is that whether the fathers and mothers are good or bad, the little boys and girls are not to blame, and you can help to make them happy if only for a little while.

I wonder whether you know Oscar Wilde's story of the statue and the swallow. It is about a prince who was so good and true to his people that when he died they set up a great statue of him in the city, and it was called "The Statue of the Happy Prince."

No expense was spared to make it beautiful—the eyes were of magnificent diamonds, the sword-hilt was all studded with precious stones, and the armour with small plates of gold.

The story is that one day a swallow, flying by, perched on the shoulders of the statue for a moment’s rest, and was greatly surprised to see tears trickling down the prince’s cheek. When asked why he wept, the prince made answer: “Because I see so much misery all around me every day—so many people cold and hungry and unhappy, so many children sick and crying for food, and no one to care for them, and I myself cannot help.” The heart of the little swallow was touched, and he asked how he, a poor little bird, could help. The prince said: “Look at that poor beggar there; all his life he has been unfortunate. He has no friends, and no one to love him. Take him one of these precious stones so that he may be able to get food and clothing.” The swallow picked a big ruby out of the sword-hilt and flew off with it; and the poor old beggar found a friend at last before he died. So day after day the tender-hearted prince and the gentle bird ministered to the wants of the poor, the sick, and the suffering throughout the great city. At last, even the diamonds in the eyes of the statue had been taken away; and as it was getting towards winter, and the warm sun had long ceased to shine, the poor little swallow felt that he must leave the cold city and fly to a warmer clime or he would perish of cold. But the prince entreated him to stay, for without that swallow, he said, he could not help the people, and now he had no eyes to see their pain and distress. So the swallow stayed on until at last all the jewels and gold plates of the armour were used up, and then it was too late for him to fly away from the country. The hard winter found him still trying to save the poor and needy, but one bitterly cold night he was frozen to death, and there at the feet of the good prince the swallow lay quite stiff and dead.

The brave little bird had given his life for the people. Next morning, as the mayor and aldermen of the city were walking through the streets, they saw the statue stripped of its jewels and gold, and said it was a disgrace to the place. They issued an order that it should be taken away and melted down. This was done, but the iron heart of the statue would not melt with the heat as quickly as the bronze did, so it was thrown on the dust heap with the dead swallow. And when the angel sent out by God to collect what was of most worth everywhere came to the city, he took the iron heart of the statue and the little dead swallow as the most precious things it held.

There is no need for me to say anything about the lesson my story teaches. Last winter some of you sent money for teas and entertainments at Christmas, and for the children’s dinners; some of you sent toys, picture books, etc., to be given away at those teas; some sent clothes and books. See if you can do the same again and get your friends to help. Anyway, do all you can, and you will make me happy: you will bring happiness to your own hearts, and into the lives of your little brothers and sisters in East London. Above all, you will make Jesus Christ glad, for He grieves very much to see the children suffer and wants us all to help them if we can.

With much love and best wishes for a merry Christmas.—Your big brother, Percy Alden. Mansfield House, Canning Town, E.

The reputation of this author as a teacher of æsthetic social philosophy should not deter anybody from enjoying such delightful little parables as he sets before us, much in the vein of Hans Christian Andersen, gracefully fantastic, quaint, and amusing, with lessons of kindness and gentleness in each simple story. They are those of the golden statue perched on high, whihch saw and pitied the woes of the poor in the city, and sent the swallow to carry its jewelled ornaments for their relief ; the nightingale with its breast pierced by a thorn, singing its life away for a red rose to be given as a pledge of love ; the giant's garden where it was always winter because he shut out the children, but where the sun shone and the flowers instantly blossomed when he let them in ; with the one-sided friendship of Hans and the Miller, and the overweening conceit of the Rocket thinking itself superior to other fireworks

Fairy tales were more popular in former generations than at the present day, but they may still have admirers, and be read by young and old ; the theatres seem to have exhausted most of the interest felt in them, and another kind of spectacular drama, as well as another description of sensational literature, claim attention. Mr. Oscar Wilde has written a volume of stories of this nature, wherein graceful fancies and romantic conceits are woven with appropriate skill. [Proceeds to publish excerpts of "The Happy Prince", [sic] "The Giant and the Children", and "The Nightingale and the Rose"]

I have not had time to do more than glance, in the most cursory manner, at 'The Happy Prince and Other Tales,' by Mr. Oscar Wilde, but that which I have seen in turning over the pages of the dainty book, leads me to say with emphasis that the author ought to write a fairy play for acting. He has all the literary gifts and graces requisite for such a work, and his touch in colour and quaintly-expressed form is essentially dramatic. After reading the stories I dare say I shall feel impelled to say that his humour is at once like unto the humour of one Lewis Carrol, and suggestive of that of the author of 'The Ugly Duckling,' with a blend of Oscar [sic] Wild.

Several stories in the nature of fairy tales are included in this book. They are well written, and with just sufficient moral to be acceptable to the young reader. There are a few full-page and some smaller illustrations

Mr. Oscar Wilde is about to follow the example of all who make a hit in the field of fiction. He is going to republish some short stories contributed to the magazines in the days when he was a more notorious but less famous man than he now is. The temptation profitably to get rid of one's early work is of course, very great, and it is seldom resisted. In the present case, the author has done his best to improve his youthful efforts by re-writing, re-casting and revising where necessary. Four stories have been deemed worthy of republication---'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime', 'The Canterville Ghost', 'The Sphinx secret and 'A Model Millionaire'. The first named story will give the volume its title. It will be published simultaneously in England and America.

Mr Oscar Wilde has put together a few elegant literary trifles in a tasteful—perhaps we should say æsthetic—little volume under the title of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories. The stories are ingeniously constructed and delicately finished, and charmingly defiant of fictional use and wont. Lord Arthur Savile's story is what may for the nonce be called an idyllic tragedy. It opens in Lady Windermer's crowded drawing-room among the lions and the duchesses. The prize lion of the evening is Mr Pogson, a cheiromantist. Among other hands submitted to him is Lord Arthur's. At the first glance his face becomes a picture of horror, but he evidently keeps back the cause of his emotion, and says but a few commonplace things. Sir Arthur afterwards privately extracts from him th efact that he had read murder in his hand. He is shocked at first, and being a man of punctilious honour, and never doubting that he must commit murder, he concludes that it is his duty to give up Sybil Merton. It would be wrong to ask her to marry a man doomed to be a murderer. On reflection it occurs to him that if the murder ould be got well over and done with, he might then marry Sybil without dread of the future. His mind is soon made up, and he fixes on a suitable victim. His well-laid plan fails, and he tries again. As on the first occasion, he lays his plan very ingeniously so that the victim may be killed without risk to himself, or any bloody business wrought by his own hand. Again th eplot miscarries. After two failures he is disgusted, and inclined to give way to despair ; but walking along the Thames Embankment he comes suddenly on Pogson, the cheiromantist, seizes him instantaneously, and hurls him into the river. Pogson is supposed to be a suicide. Lord Arthur has got it over. He goes off in hot haste and wants to marry Sybil next day; does marry her soon, and lives happily ever afterwards. He is always a devout believer in cheiromancy, to which, he says, he owes all the happiness of his life. It may seem hardly fair to the author to give this outline of his story, but there is no other way of giving a notion of his method. The story, like those that follow, is amusing and full of smart things. It is just credible that underneath its playful form there lurks a deep satire upon fashionable society ; or, perhaps, the fun is directed against the current fashions of fiction. Whether the story is a satire, a parody, or merely a piece of elegant fooling, it is an amusing trifle enough ; and what is said of one is said of all the trifles in this book.

By an interesting coincidence, we have before us at this moment a couple of volumes from the pen respectively o fLady Wilde, and of her son, Mr. Oscar Wilde ... Mr. Oscar Wilde's contribution is a little book comprising of four short stories, the first of which 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime,' gives its name to the volume (Osgood, M'Ilvaine and Co.). These tales have not the special and peculiar merit of Mr. Wilde's fairy stories or even of his 'Dorian Gray.' They are slight in idea and structure, but at least they are not commonplace: they strike a note of their own, and are therefore considerably above the average of such productions. They may be read with pleasure, if without much sense of being impressed. The get-up of the booklet is particularly neat, and does much credit to the publishers.

Four stories, of a light and amusing kind, make up Mr. Wilde's little volume. The motif of them all may be described as the extraordinary in real life. The hero of the first tale has his character told by a palmistry professor, and immediately sets to work on the murder which the man of palms had seen in his hand. He makes ineffectual attempts upon two of his relations with aconitine and dynamite, and finally fulfils his destiny by throwing the chiromantist himself into the Thames. Another story is the record of an unexplained mystery. The 'Model Millionaire' is a case of entertaining angels unawares and with beneficial result; while the 'Canterville Ghost' —described as a Hylo-Idealistic Romance—has sufficient elements of suggestiveness to invite a reading.

Fiction with a strongly marked character of its own is always welcome, and Oscar Wilde's little book 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and Other Stories' (Osgood, McIlvaine, & Co.), deserves to be read. Of the four tales here brought together one, 'The Model Millionaire,' is of the slightest possible description, whilst 'The Sphinx without a Secret' is hardly satisfying. But 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' and 'The Canterville Ghost' possess an originality of treatment as well as of design which must endear them to the judicious reader. Of course, each story abounds in smart sayings characteristic of their author.

Two of Mr. Oscar Wilde's stories, 'The Happy Prince and other Tales,' have been translated into Dutch. Mrs, Twiss, a Dutch lady of considerable gifts and culture—and position—met with the book at the house of one of the author's friends in London, and, allured by 'a taste' of it, procured a copy to read on the homeward journey to Utrecht, in and near which city she resides. To promote a deserving charitable object Mrs. Twiss got up a dolls’ bazaar, and contributed versions of two of Mr. Oscar Wilde's delightful fairy tales, done into choice Dutch by her own hand. A large number of copies were sold, and there is a consequent demand in that part of the Netherlands for other stories from the same pen.

There would seem to be quite a revival in Fairy literature. Within a very recent period many pretentious volumes have been published dealing with goblin and elfin lore—some treatises, almost scientific in their hard matter-of-fact, dry, grave, and serious analysis of the popular stories, point out the origin of them, detecting resemblances between them and Persian myths or Saga’s songs, explaining [sic] andexploding with a vandalism that spares no illusions, however cherished or time sanctified—others simply relating, as if with faith and credence, the legends whose recital has for many an age brightened the hearthsides and brought pleasure not unmixed with ill-mastered dread to the hearts of successive generations of listeners. Into these latter, however, the spirit of modern utilitarianism—if it may be styled sohas in a manner infused itself; and in the deft hands of th elater reciter they take a new character, hiding a moral or a sting under their seeming innocent guilelessness. Poor fairy and spire, they have been in these latter days remorselessly hauled into politics and chained to the wheel of its iron ear. Few things now, indeed, are altogether what they seem; something lurks under all the outward appearances, and, perhaps, one should not wonder that even the children’s fairy tale should undergo the new influence and change like all things else. Just as, taught by sad encessity, we have learned to search in almost everything for its cunningly hidden undermeaning or point, so one in reading the simplest composition is harassed at every stage by the oppressive self-suggested questions—Is that anything new? Is there any political reference in it? Is there any social grievance hinted at here? Mr. Oscar wilde with his “Happy Prince” and his “Remarkable Rocket”broke up new ground, and others have been not slow to follow him. Oftener than not, it is the case that the first in the field has the greatest success, and so it seems to be here. Mr. Frank Hudson is charming, bright, racy, humorous, and winning, but in some of his work he lacks the lightness of touch, fineness, indefinable grace, and delicate fancy that are never wanting in Mr. Wilde. He has, however, qualities of his own which, in part though not entirely, make up for this deficiency. He is less subtle; his meaning is more easily apprehended. Yet perhaps by reason of this very circumstance, he loses something of his intended effect. His stories are aimed at “little people and big,” and precisely because they are more appropriate for youthful reading—through the simplicity of both substance and style—they are less suitable for adults. Conversely, those works that lend themselves to “reading between the lines,” which have a weightier purpose, are less effective in engaging and delighting the young. In most of Oscar Wilde’s fanciful and highly poetical works of this kind, it might be said that his cunning and skill interlace pleasure and profit so seamlessly that each story is equally enjoyable for readers of all ages. To say that Mr. Hudson falls short of him is, after all, not a severe criticism. No one could read these little stories and maintain an unfriendly critical attitude toward them. They are like good wine, bearing their own commendation, making argument about their excellence unnecessary. The first story is perhaps …

This is a child's book of charming stories, aptly illustrated by Walter Crane and Jocomb [sic] Hood. There are five stories; "The Happy Prince," "The Nightingale and the Rose," "The Selfish Giant," "The Deserted [sic] Friend,"and "The Remarkable Rocket." The stories are all thoughtful stories, teaching good lessons, and worthy of the best words of praise for their literary excellence.

Those of us who have been brought up on a youthful diet of Hans Andersen and Grimm are apt to scan with dubious and critical glance all more modern fairy tales, expecting to find therein little else than copies, more or less shadowy, from one or other of these beloved originals; but Mr. Oscar Wilde, in the pretty little volume before us, provides quite fresh and very dainty fare, which it is, indeed, difficult to praise too highly. The stories seem to us all that such stories ought to be—rich in fancy, felicitous in expression, abounding both in humour and in pathos, and far more poetic than many a so-called “poem.” They are not children’s stories, for although clever children will, no doubt, enjoy them, it would be impossible for them to seize the point of the many witty and satirical touches so neatly introduced throughout, or to appreciate the finish and refinement of Mr. Oscar Wilde’s style. Of the five tales composing the volume, “The Happy Prince” is, perhaps, the best as a whole; but in “The Nightingale and the Rose” the pathos strikes deepest, while “The Devoted Friend” is a very clever satire. We feel much tempted to copious quotation, but are checked by the difficulty of choosing where all is so uniformly good, and, therefore, are fain to refer our readers to the little book itself, confident that they will endorse our praise, and echo our hope that Mr. Wilde may, ere long, give us something more in the same and healthy vein.

“The dullness,” says the Sunday Sun, “which has settled down upon the literary world will be slightly relieved during the coming week by the publication, through Messrs. Osgood, McIlvaine, & Co., of a volume of short stories from the pen of Mr. Oscar Wilde. The book will contain four tales, none of which, however, will be new. The first—that which gives the volume its title—is called ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’; the second is known as ‘The Canterville Ghost’; the third as ‘The Sphinx Without a Secret’; and the fourth as ‘A Model Millionaire.’ The stories made their first appearance many years ago, and were probably forgotten by everyone but Mr. Wilde himself. He has now very carefully revised them.”

Mr. Wilde's character is, in fact, a compound of an artistic temperament and a business head, and all through life he has made his art subserve his personal advantage, and used his tastes as a means of advertising his literary and dramatic wares. The second period of Mr. Wilde's career was when he became, from a society personage, a writer of novels. By far his best-known book is the 'Dorian Gray,' which was the subject of such a savage onslaught by Mr. Carson. It is sufficient to say here that that was the weakest part of Mr. Carson's case. It is, perhaps, just possible to read into the book the construction he wished to put upon it, but it is not one that would occur to any ordinarily healthy-minded person upon reading it. And the artist cannot be held to be responsible for an unclean mind in his reader. It is interesting to note, however, that in seeking to escape from worse consequences Mr. Wilde and his counsel consented to allow this construction to be placed upon the book in order that the libel might be held to be justified by his literary teaching alone. On its own merits the worst that can be said of "Dorian Gray" is that it is a wholesale plagiarism from Poe's short tale, "Arthur Wilson," and from a French novel, Huysman's a Rebours. This taste for borrowing other people's ideas is, however, a feature of Mr. Wilde's whole career. Mr. Whistler recently accused Mr. George Moore of making himself notorious by 'writing about my paintings.' But before that he had accused Mr. Wilde in 'The gentle art of making enemies' of stealing his epigrams. In 'Salome' [sic], his French drama about the daughter of Herodias, the style is simply a replica of what is known as the 'Maeterlinckian echo,' the dramatist who has been described by Mr. Beerbohm Tree as 'the Belgian Shakespeare.' But it is the third and latest stage of Oscar's career, that of a society dramatist, which has brought him at once most solid reputation and most golden shekels. The author of four such successful plays as 'Lady Windermere's Fan,' 'A Woman of No Importance,' 'An Ideal Husband,' and 'The Importance of Being Earnest' becomes known to a far wider section of the English public, and is a far more important personage than a mere society poseur, or even an epigrammatic novelist. This latest Oscar is decidedly the best and founds his success on real dramatic talent. If he had only been able to cast the slough of his former selves he might have become a foremost influence in the evolution of the British drama. But all such hopes are now for ever at an end. Two of his plays are at the present moment running at West End theatres. The most successful is 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' It is a farce of the most artificial type, and it is significant of Oscar Wilde's genius that he is always most successful when he is least real. He requires an atmosphere such as farce-land affords; any approach to actual life is fatal to the illusion of his works. The same is seen in his books. Perhaps his least known book, 'Lord Arthur Saville's Crime,' is also his most artistic; the author is at his best when frivolling with the idea of a man who feels impelled by Fate to commit murder, because it has been foretold by a palmist from his hand that he will do so, and is only anxious to get it over before he is married. But real humour and real earnest are equally alien to his artificial atmosphere. It is probable that he would have never brought the action which has turned out so fatally for him, but for the rough horseplay of that bunch of carrots which Lord Queensberry kept in readiness for presentation at each first night.

Mr. Oscar Wilde has written a pile of fairy tales, entitled [sic] "The House of Pomegranates". If for no other reason except the wonderfully lavish manner in which the volume has been turned out the take ought to have a capital sale for ornamental purposes. The [sic] drawing are printed by the best photochemical process, and on what is known as patent line paper. The decorations and ... are by Messrs. C. Ricketts and C.S. Shannon. The favorable reception of this work may act as a slight balm to the feelings of Mrs. Wilde, at whose house in Tite street, Chelsea, a robbery was committed, and a quantity of her husband's silver stolen.

It is not often in these days that we come across good fairy tales which are not translations. English and American writers do not excel in imaginative literature. The scientific spirit of the nineteenth century has killed the creative spirit, and we even find children in these degenerate days who only like stories of ‘real people’ and who are growing up with no knowledge of the world of dreams and fancies, dead to anything that is not a hard, practical fact. The fairy tales before us from the pen of Oscar Wilde are the best of his literary productions. They show that he can do something more than adore a sunflower and worship a lily and that he really does possess a delicate fancy and a fine imagination. There is a peculiar and fascinating charm about the dainty little yolume before us and every one of the five fairy tales it contains is delightful reading. First there is the story of “The Happy Prince,” with its pathetic account of the softening of his hard lead heart. Then there is the romantic story of ‘The Nightingale and the Rose,” the touching tale of ‘The Selfish Giant,”’ and lastly, “The Deyoted Friend” and “The Remarkable Rocket.” All the stories are allegorical and illustrate some moral truth, and are written with an artistic simplicity which makes them equally agreeable to young and old.

Oscar Wilde has not lost a bit of the style which recently brought him so prominently before the public. In his book, "The Happy Prince and Other Tales," the reader will still discover the harmelss ideals of the knight of the sunflower. Dodd, Mead & Co., publishers. For sale in this city by Judd the bookseller

Mr. Oscar Wilde, after having given the public some remarkable fiction and criticism, has returned to his old love, the poetic fairy tale, and in “A House of Pomegranates” exhibits a literary skill far in advance of that which went to the making of “The Happy Prince,” good as that work unquestionably was. “The Young King, The Birthday of the Infanta, and other Beautiful Tales” is the sub-title which Mr. Wilde, with a pardonable touch of vanity, gives to his book, which has evidently taxed all the cunning of the printer; for both in the matter of arrangement of type and illustrations it is daringly original. The larger drawings, by Mr. Shannon, depicting the subjects of each of the four tales, are as delicately fantastic as the tales themselves, and seem on a second study to grow in the imagination just as the tales themselves do. Of these the best in our opinion is the one which bears the title of “The Fisherman and his Soul,” though it is somewhat difficult to decide between this and “The Birthday of the Infanta,” which is highly poetic in its treatment, and does not appeal to the fantasy so much as the former tale. The plot of it is so slender that it would be unfair to reveal even its main outlines, but not the least pathetic portion is concerned with with a little dwarf who dances before a princess on her birthday, and excites her to laughter, whereupon he, who has never seen his own face, imagines that the princess is in love with him.

Among other pretty things, his creator says of him [...]. Here is prose-poetry deftly written, and an art that knows how to conceal art. Sometimes, however, the straining after effect is obvious, as in the following description of the mermaid, who is the central figure in the delightful story of ‘The Fisherman and His Soul,' [...] These caprices are but occasional, and they are not unpleasing to the adult reader who is not so foolish as to despise fairy tales, or to avoid the reading of good English prose when he can get it. Among the gift-books of the present season, 'The [sic] House of Pomegranates' deserves a high rank.

Mr. Oscar Wilde's graceful fancies will please many people, both great and small, whot urn the pages of 'The Happy Orince, and Other Tales'(David Nutt) in search of amusement. Here, in new language and clothed in fresh raiment, are some of the good young kings, the talkative birds, beasts, and things with which all versed in fairy lore are familiar by long acquaintance. The swallow, for instance, in the frontispiece which Mr. Walter Crane has drawn for the white-bound volume, loved one of the river reeds,but deserted her in autumn because she was of such an obstinately stay-at-home disposition, and journeyed southward with much adventure. Then, again, we have a tale of a rose, a nightingale, and an enamoured student, 'wit hair as dark as the hyacinth blossom'—three pensive individualities not associated here for the first time. As for goblins, Mr. Wilde is a proclaimed enemy of them in any form, and as a professional despiser of giants he will have nothing to do with anay such; all his pages are tuneful and pretty, nearly everybody in them virtuous and happy, while the world wears perpetual holiday green under endless vistas of almond-blossomed thickets.

There is a genuine poetical inspiration in Mr. Oscar Wilde's tales, which are published by Mr, David Nutt. The form into which he weaves his ideas is invariably graceful, while the moral, not obtrusively pointed, is yet sufficiently discernible, This dainty volume, bound in a fashion worthy of the text, is charmingly illustrated by Messrs. Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood.

Since Hans Andersen published his last volume a more charming selection of stories than Mr. Oscar Wilde's 'Happy Prince and Other Tales' has not appeared. The lightness and delicacy of touch, the tenderness, the quaint humour with a soupçon of satire that is invariably clever, the gentleness and the unaffected pathos---all those characteristics which made Hans Andersen the 'most fascinating of story-writers, are to be found in every tale in the present collection. More worthy of remark still, is the foot that the spiritual feeling which runs through so many of Hans Andersen's stories is to be found in almost every page of Mr. Oscar Wilde's volume. That childlike simplicity and grace, so rarely to be met with in stories for children, but so indispensable to this form of literature, may also be found in every page, and entitle the author to be regarded as the most accomplished artist who has set about the difficult task of moulding these prose-poems to stimulate the imagination and to direct into right channels the overflowing fancy of young people. It might be thought that a writer like Mr. Wilde, who possesses so highly-cultured an artistic faculty, would overelaborate such a dainty little story as 'The Happy Prince', thereby giving it an artificial, if not an affected, tone; but the author proves himself to be so admirable an artist hat he even knows when to discard every semblance of art, and to appeal directly to the heart of an audience. This must be noticed in almost every story in the collection. There is no affectation of feeling--children are the first to perceive anything of this sort, and ecline to be moved by it to tears or even to thought--but the author is invariably in touch with the little circle gathered round him, and never lets a stilted or unnatural sentence escape from his lips. He never ceases to be entertaining, and this is equivalent to stating that he never becomes didactic. Children have to endure enough that is didactic without having their storybooks written in in this strain. As for the 'moral' in these tales it appears not at the end of each, like the red danger-signal at the end of a train--for people to avoid, but it is to be found in every sentence in the book. The child---nay, the mind, who does not feel the better for reading such a tale as 'The Happy Prince' is to be pitied. 'The Nightingale and the Rose' is not so pathetic, but it is equally clever. The 'moral' is Mr Oscar Wilde's satiric vein. The student who has been disappointed in love, exclaims, 'What a silly thing Love is! It is not half so useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to Philosophy and study Metaphysics'… Nothing could be better than this, which may be accepted as an example of the quaint humour of the volume. The story of 'The Devoted Friend' is a charming satire upon the sentamentalists [sic]. 'The Remarkable Rocket' abounds in subtle touches of the same character, which cannot but be relished by old as well as young readers. The book is rendered additionally charming by the beautiful binding and the delicately-drawn illustrations by Mr Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood.

We have read worse fairy stories than 'The Happy Prince and Other Tales' by Oscar Wilde (David Nutt), and many very much better. The masterpieces in the way of fairy stories have, surely, been already written; and no man can fairly hope, in this country, and at this period, to come near the great models. Fairy stories today must necessarily be ghosts and echoes of other fairy stories; and ghosts and echoes Mr. Wilde's stories are---ghosts of Hans Andersen, echoes of 'Carmen Sylva'. 'The Happy Prince' is the best; 'The Remarkable Rocket' the funniest. They are all well written, and they at least serve to show how admirably English printers can print if they try. The illustrations are by Messrs, Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, and they too, are admirable. The shell of the book is excellent, the kernel somewhat insipid; or, to vary the metaphor, we may say that the jewel is out-valued by its setting.

A very dainty little book has been produced by Mr. Oscar Wilde and Mr. Walter Crane, The stories are not very strong as to plot, but the style is delightful, easy, and flowing, and never ' precious’. The covert humour is of that better kind which comes so near to tears, The stories are scarcely for children, but rather for their grown-up admirers. What has a child to do with the rose which is perfected by the nightingale's self-sacrifice, who, for lore's sake, 'leans her breast until a thorn', and, dying, is absorbed into tho most beautiful rose in the world? Even the story of the selfish giant whose trees languish while the children are excluded, a story which ends with a suggestion of the legend of St. Christopher, is scarcely for children. But the great unsuitability lies in the note of wasted goodness, which is struck with a powerful hand. Virtue should never fail of its reward in a child's story; whereas Mr, Oscar Wilde has let his imagination play among the sad realities of life. The story of the miller in particular, with the fine talk about friendship and his cruel usage of his little friend, touches the deeper pathos of life: and when the generous devotion and self-forgetfulness of Hans ends in a swift and unheroic death---as the world counts heroism,---we recognise the irony of fate, which has no existence for a child. The self-importance of the miller and also of the Remarkable Rocket is full of clever hits at coxcombs, Mr. Oscar Wilde must have conceived the story of the Happy Prince as he sat one day in the enclosure which surrounds the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, But our Golden Prince has not yet found out a way to make us happy by the disposal of his burnished surface. There are some of us who wish he would.

That Mr Oscar Wilde is an 'æsthete' of course everybody knows, That he is a poet of remark. able sweetness, if somewhat of the fleshly school, all persons of culture know, 'That he is now the editor of a ladies' journal and is deeply concerned with matters of dress and fasbion is also no secret; but that he is a charming writer of fairy tales the present volume for the first time reveals. It is difficult to speak too highly of these tales. There are five of them, and each with a charm of its own, so that one can hardly decide which is best. The story of 'The Happy Prince' is the conception of a poet and the execution of an artist. Even still more poetical is 'The Nightingale and the Rose', a prose idyll with a most prosaic but truthful ending, 'The story of 'The Devoted Friend' is perhaps too much of a satire to be so well appreciated by young readers as it deserves, but it is very clever; while the story of 'The Remarkable Rocket' has a moral which the youngest who runs may read. The grace of Mr Oscar Wilde's narrative is not less conspicuous than the humour and shrewd sarcasm which sparkle through it. As a story-book this is most attractive in itself, but it is made still more so by the pencils of Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, whose illustrations are exquisite. It is altogether the most delightful publication of the kind since last fairy tale season.

Mr OSCAR WILDE'S volume of short tales, entitled Lord Arthur Savile's Crime; and other Stories, is, as might have been expected, full of clever attempts in epigram and fantasy. Nevertheless, the stories may be read as motel of defective art. Their wildly improbable and extravagantly fanciful nature suggests comparison with such works as The Dynamiter, but the superiority of Mr. Stevenson as an artist will at once be felt. 'However fanciful a story may be, it should yet be consistent with laws of its own, its several parts should hang together, and the style should be suitable to the subject. This is a principle of art which the true artist never allows himself to lose tight of, and in consequence his wildest tales have a logic and reality of their own, and the reader's imagination is carried along with them. But Mr. Wilde's stories are like the remembrance of a dream in waking hours; there is a complete want of harmony about them; they are not written in one key, and the style continually changes, as if the author had himself not decided what style to adopt. Moreover, though happy enough in dialogue, he seems to possess little purely narrative skill, and his style is never really dramatic because always, self-conscious and affected. Lastly, Mr. Wilde has overweighted his narrative with superfluous descriptions, and needlessly elaborate details, which, instead of adding to the vividness and general humour of the situation, seem out of place, and therefore heavy.

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime is the story of a young man, of excellent character and benevolent disposition, who is told by a chiromantist that 'Murder' is written on the palm of his hand, and that he is fated to kill some one. He is engaged to a charming young lady, but feels that to marry her with this crime still hanging over him would be inconsistent with his high principles. He must commit his crime first, and then 'he could take her to his arms, knowing that she would never have to blush for him, never have to hang her head in shame'. Putting all selfish considerations aside, therefore, he at once begins to search for a victim, and first tries to poison an old lady. 'This failing, he next attempts to blow up his uncle, the Dean of Chichester, but with no satisfactory results. Depressed and discouraged by these failures, he walks one night down to the Thames Embankment. There he discovers the little chiromantist, who is the author of all his troubles, leaning over the parapet : >>A brilliant idea flashed across him, and he stole softly up behind. In a moment he had seized Mr. Podgers by the legs and flung him into the Thames. There was a coarse oath, a heavy splash, and all was still Lord Arthur looked anxiously over, but could see nothing of the chiromantist but a tall bat, pirouetting in an eddy of moonlit water. ... At 'last he seemed to have realized the decree of destiny. He heaved a deep sigh of relief, and Sybil's name came to bis lips. >>'Have you dropped anything, sir?' said a voice behind him suddenly. He turned round and saw a policeman with a bull's eye lantern, >>'Nothing of any importance, sergeant', he answered smiling. There is abundance of humour, if not of novelty, in the idea of this story, yet somehow the reader is left with an impression that the idea is much better than the treatment of it. The variety of tone which we have already noticed produces a feeling of dissatisfaction and unrest. The opening, with its cynical remarks end reflections on society and life in general, reminds one of Dorian Gray. The author then proceeds in highflown melodramatic language to describe in a ludicrously elaborate way the horror of the hero when he is made aware of his fate; and then once more the style changes abruptly, and becomes as farcical as that of Mr. Anstey. The same incongruity occurs in 'The Canterville Ghost'. Again the idea is so good that one regrets it has not been more satisfactorily worked out. A haunted house is sold by a 'degenerate heir to an American family. Hitherto the ghost has had it all his own way, and has successfully haunted for several centuries; but, after the United States minister, his wife, bis daughter, and his twin sons are established at Canterville Chase, he is mortified and insulted every time he appears by finding that he can in no way terrify or appal them, and is merely a butt for the Practical jokes of the twins. They frighten him with a bogey of their own making, they rub out his ineradicable bloodstain with 'Pinkerton's Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent'. The father presents him with a bottle of the 'Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator' to oil his chains, and the mother---who is 'an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language '---offers him a bottle of 'Dr. Dobell's Tincture' as a cure for indigestion. But the story is spoilt by the character of the ghost himself, who is neither one thing nor the other, neither flesh nor spirit. He never eats or sleeps, and can vanish into air and assume any shape he likes; but he suffers acutely when he knocks his shine, and he trips up over his winding-sheet when he runs, and talks to the minister's daughter about 'the / cheap severity of abstract ethics'. The end, moreover, of the story is absurdly incongruous 'and out of place. Mr. Wilde has talked, lectured, and written so much upon art that we may suppose him to be, in his own eyes, an authority on the subject. It is, therefore, the more surprising to find in these stories a want of artistic finish which we would only expect in a youthful beginner. Mr. Wilde is fond of epigram; he tells us, in the opening scene of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, that at Lady Windermere's party there were 'several royal academicians disguised as artists'; we feel that he would himself be able to assume this disguise with greater success if he would try 'sometimes to be less clever and more natural. His stories might then have a more plausible ring in them, and his really bright wit a worthier setting.

Those people who have known Oscar Wilde only as an eccentric esthete, writing 'soulfully intense' poetry, may perhaps be surprised to learn that he possesses true literary ability, which has shown itself from time to time in some really excellent work. Under the title of 'The Happy Prince, and Other Tales', he has presented a collection of short fairy stories, some of which deserve to be classed with the best that has ever been written in that line. The style is excellent and the thought full of refinement, which finds expression in beautiful language. Perhaps the two most charming stories are the first one, which gives its name to the volume, and another, called 'The Selfish Giant'. The book is attractively bound in cloth covers of dainty coloring, and its artistic and appropriate illustrations, by Walter Craine and Jacomb Hood, add much to its value and beauty.

The Happy Prince, and other Tales ('The Nightingale and the Rose'; the 'Remarkable Rocket'; the 'Selfish Giant'; the 'Devoted Friend') the latest work of Oscar Wild [sic], the celebrated (but now reformed) English aesthete, comes out in a pretty volume, illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, in their peculiar and interesting manner. The stories are in every way charming, and will win and enchain the interest of all readers, and especially of young people. (Roberts Bros.)

Oscar Wilde has written some clever and readable fairy stories which are published under the title of 'The Happy Prince and other Tales' (Roberts, $1.00). The tales are, apparently, written with a purpose, and are more like elaborated fables than fairy stories in the ordinary meaning. The illustrations are by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood.

In the volume before us Mr. Oscar Wilde comes forward in a new and favourable light as a writer of fairy tales. 'The 'Happy Prince' and the four accompanying tales are full of graceful fancies and quaint conceits, and will afford equal pleasure to grown-up and to youthful readers. High spirits and buoyancy are not to be looked for in these stories, but the best of them are marked by pathos and poetic feeling, relieved by humorous touches, generally of a very happy kind. The two concluding tales are written in a satirical strain that borders on the cynical; but the selfishness and folly at which they are aimed are fair objects for satire.

The statue of the Happy Prince stood high above the city on a tall column. ' He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he bad two bright sapphires, and a large ruby glowed on his sword-hilt'. A swallow, off to Egypt for the winter, alighted on the statue. His rest was disturbed by the tears that fell from the eyes of the Happy Prince, weeping over a poor mother and her sick child. 'Swallow', said the Prince, who must have been a countryman of Mr. Wilde's, 'will you not bring (sic) her the ruby out of my sword-hilt?' The swallow did not like it at first, but she consented to stay and bring---or take---the ruby to the poor widow. Next day the swallow was anxious to be off, but the Prince pressed him to stay and do another kindness.

[The Poor Student]

...

The Selfish Giant

' The Selfish Giant' is a very happy and beautiful apologue, which is not without a present application.

...

The giant got no Spring or Summer until he let the children in, It would be well if a like treatment could be applied to some giants with empty gardens not a hundred miles from Fleet-street. But the prettiest story among the number is that of 'The Nightingale and the Rose'. A young student was searching everywhere for a red rose, and could not find one. The girl he loved bad promised to dance with him if he brought her one. What, he thought, was the use of all his learning if for the want of a red rose his life was made wretched. 'Here, at last, is a true lover', said the Nightingale. 'Night after night have I sang of him, though I knew him not; night after night have I told his story to the stars, and now I see him'. And she resolved to find him a rose, even though (as it turned out) it was at the sacrifice of her life.

...

The Student and the Nightingale

But the young lady was hardly worthy of such a sacrifice. 'Iam afraid it will not go with my dress', she answered; 'and, besides, the Chamberlain's nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers'. So the poor student threw the rose into the gutter, and was fain to act on the advice proffered to Rousseau, to eave ladies alone and study mathematics.

We must leave the reader to make further acquaintance for himself with the pleasant conceits to be found in Mr. Wilde's book; with theduck who instructed her young : ' You will never be in the best society unless you can stand on your heads'; with the remarkable rocket who knew he would make a sensation; and with the swallow of which all the Sparrows said : 'What a distinguished stranger' so that he enjoyed himself very much. The volume is very tastefully bound and printed, and is illustrated by such masters of the craft as Mr. Walter Crane and Mr, Jacomb Hood. Both its own merits and the well-known Personality of the author are likely, we imagine, to secure for [sic] it a deserved success among the lighter literature of the season.

Mr. Oscar Wilde has proved himself to be the possessor of a rare faculty, a faculty which unfortunately is becoming rarer year by year, namely, that of being able to write good fairy stories, such as tend to stimulate human sympathies. In 'The Happy Prince and other Tales' will be found a group of graceful fancies, very readable indeed, and clearly the products of a reflective mind. The book is handsome in appearance and is illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood.

An attractive piece of book-making, in a very different field, is Oscar Wilde's 'Happy Prince, and Other Tales' (Roberts Brothers). The telling of these stories is in a charming manner---especially in the tale of 'The Remarkable Rocket', a delicate satire, which is cleverly carried to a clean finish.

Oscar Wilde has desisted for space from mere paradox, and gives us (am I late in thus noticing it) Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and other Stories. (London, J. R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co.) Macte virtute, say I; the tag is old, but 'twill serve. If you want to laugh heartily, read Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, the story of a deeply conscientious man to whom murder very properly presents itself as a duty. Then, if you wish to laugh even more violently, read The Canterville Ghost, in which Oscar goes two or three better than Mr. W.S. Gilbert. I am specially thankful to OSCAR. When he is on humour bent, he doesn't dig me in the ribs and ask me to notice what a wonderfully funny dog he is going to be. He lets his fun take care of itself, a permission which it uses with great discretion. Please, Oscar, give us some more of the same sort, and pray introduce me once 'more later on to the Duchess of Cheshire [Virginia]. If she continues to be as delightful as she was in her sweet girlhood, I envy his Grace.

A beautifully executed book of fairy tales, in parchment cover, rubricated ttle, and thick paper page of most ample margin, and the whole illustrated by Messrs. Crane and Hood, the former contributing some charming drawings for the whole page, engravings, and the talent of the, later being displayed in the delicate fairy fancies that form the headings of each of the tales. And very pretty are the fables that Mr. Oscar Wilde has here strung together, tender and graceful as befits the school of which he is choragus, and not without a touch of humour. Of 'the remarkable Rocket', we are told that he spoke with 'a slow, distinct voice as if he was dictating his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder of the person to whom he was talking'. 'Then there is the mother Duck, who ' kept saying to her little ones * you will never be in society unless you can stand on your beads', and every now and then she showed them how it was done. But the little ducks paid no attention. They were so young that they did not know what an advantage it is to be in society'.

The attractive appearance of this pretty little book is hardly justified by its contents. Though we often 'admire Mr. Wilde and are always ready to acknowledge his genius in these whimsical little stories, and especially in the first which gives its title to the book, he seems to be playing with his powers and trying to make nonsense appear as though it had some undercurrent of truth, or was cast in the form of an allegory. The story is only worth reading for the witty and epigrammatic little remarks scattered through it in the characteristic Wildeian vein, such as the 'several Royal Academicians disguised as artists', who came to Lady Windermere's reception. The following speech by the same lady is redolent also of the great Oscar: ‘The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding. No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing'.

AMONG the books adapted alike to young and old it would be difficult to match for charm of style or beauty of sentiment this collection of exquisite tales by Oscar Wilde. They are, indeed, veritable poems in prose, and could have been writ- ten only by one who was truly a poet at heart. Rarely have the virtues and failings of poor humanity been touched with a gentler hand than in the legends of 'The Happy Prince' and 'The Selfish Giant;' rarely has false amity been more keenly satirized than in the story of 'The Devoted Friend;' every lover should read 'The Nightingale and the Rose; ' and how many self-important people we know to whom we would like to commend a careful perusal of 'The Remarkable Rocket!' But the real charm of all these stories is in the fact that they convey a moral without indulging in bald didacticism. The grace of imagination and felicity of expression are ample sources of fascination. One reads on delighted and entranced, and at the end realizes that a great truth has been illuminated by the light of something very like genius. It is a small book as books go, but we are inclined to prophesy that few volumes of the present season will meet with a more hearty welcome. It is made, too, in a most at- tractive manner. What Walter Crane's illus- trations are we all know, and Mr. Hood's vignettes are dainty bits of drawing. One glimpse of the pretty cover will be enough to excite pleasant anticipations. He must be dull indeed who does not find those anticipations realized.

Those who recall the sensational and almost notorious career of Oscar Wilde as a lecturer in this country, or who have read his erotic poetry, some of which strove to out-Swinburne Swinburne, will hardly be prepared to find him essaying to write a juvenile, The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, But the unexpected often happens: the later Swinburne has been devoting himself to innocent if extravagant panegyrics of a child's laugh; and the maturing Wilde here proffers five little stories, gracefully written in half-rhythmical prose, free from eccentricities or objectionable utterances, and distinctly ethical and helpful throughout. In fact, it is not too much to say that no more original and attractive children's stories of the supernatural have appeared for some years than The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince, in these pages. The conventional pictures by Walter Crane, accompanying the stories, have already been mentioned here, in a review of the art of the past holiday season; the other drawings, by Jacomb Hood, are daintier and more natural. (74x54 inches, cloth, pp. viii, 116. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Price, $1.00.)

These odd fairy stories are in quite an original vein, and have here a warmth of feeling and there a flavor of irony not always present in productions of this kind. The illustrations are also striking, and have an odd harmony with the text. (Roberts Bros.)

The modern fairy-tale, like the children's illustrated books of to-day, is addressed far more to the cultivated taste of the parent than to the undiscriminating fancy of the child, which only asks to be fed, no matter how simple and monotonous the food. The tellers of folk-lore stories and the honest old fairy tale, took a genuine interest in the thrilling adventures of the hero and heroine, and the inevitable triumph of innocence and virtue. But the modern fairy tale is generally cast in a studiously graceful form, a little vein of satire often runs through it, there is a sort of secret understanding with the mature reader, & constant appeal to a sophisticated intelligence underneath the simple story. The charming illustrations of Walter Crane, with the lithe, white maidens and Carpaccio-like youths, are not farther from the antiquated woodcut of knight and lady and dragon, than Hans Andersen is from the Grimms' stories. We say Hans Andersen because Mr. Wilde's tales are unmistakably modelled both in subject and treatment on the work of that most fanciful and delicious of dreamers, a sleep-walker in the land of the unreal. Any one might imagine that this passage from the ' Remarkable Rocket', had been taken from Andersen's tales. 'But I like arguments', said the Rocket. 'I hope not', said the Frog, complacently, ' arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions. Good bye a second time; I see my daughters in the distance;' and the Frogswam away. ....... 'There is no good talking to him', said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; 'no good at all, for he has gone away'. Swell, that is his loss, not mine', answered the Rocket. 'I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he paid no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't un-derstand a single word of what I am saying'. 'Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy', said the Dragonfly; and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away into the sky. How very silly of him not to stay here!' said the Rocket. 'I am sure that he has not often got such a chance of improving his mind. However, I don't care a bit. Genius like mine is sure to be appreciated some day'. And he sauk down a little deeper into the mud. This is Hans Andersen over again, and in the Happy Prince there is the most unmistakable reminiscence of the ' Mad King's Daughter'. Mr. Wilde has advanced in age, and possibly also in sedateness, since he published his first volumes, at any rate, these little stories, trifling as they are, show that his mind has progressed in healthy line, for the stories are altogether very graceful and attractive, and are flawless in moral. 'The Devoted Friend', in particular, is a clever little tale with a moral that experience of ife has brought home to most grown people. The 'Selfish Giant' embodies a very pretty fancy and the 'Rose and the Nightingale' pays the proper tribute to Poetry and Love, the two divinities that rt. Wilde worshiped so ardently in his verse. These stories, however, have, like his verse, rather fancy than the greater gift; a faculty for language and a facility for poetic expression; but always pervaded by some dominant style, the impress of a foreign and stronger hand. Mr. Crane's three full-page illustrations are as charming as his beautiful clean-cut drawings always are, and the letter press and the pretty design on the cover are fully equal in taste and finish to English books of this class.

This year the horns of Elfland announce a couple of fairy tales from widely differing sources. 'The King of the Golden River' (Lee & Shepard), written by John Ruskin, M.A., in 1841, with no other purpose than the amiable one of pleasing a child-friend, is illustrated with lively drawings by Richard Doyle. The theme is an old legend of Styria, and the treatment of the clear, straightforward kind that makes it easy to read aloud to very little people. Overall, the magic of Ruskin's style gleams like sunrise on mountaintop and valley. The second essay in fairy-lore is 'The Happy Prince, and Other Tales', by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, and published by Roberts Brothers. The stories are gracefully and poetically phrased, after the manner of Hans Andersen; but the simplicity seems labored, and here and there a Song-of-Solomon element creeps in, which will hardly recommend the book to parents. Witness the rhapsody of the nightingale, in 'The Nightingale and the Rose'. 'Here, at last, is a true lover. His hair is as dark as the hyacinth blossom, and his lips are as red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon fis brow'. We regret to state that a rude comment already overheard from two school-boys upon the subject of this hero stigmatizes him as a ' duffer who ought to get a kick'. It is fair to point out avein of agreeable humor in some of these tales, such as the 'Devoted Friend', wherein the Duck observes that the Water-Rat has a great many good points, but for her part she has a mother's feelings, and can never look at a confirmed bachelor without tears coming into her eyes. And the illustrations and general make-up of the little book are charming.

The gift of writing fairy tales is rare, and Mr. Oscar Wilde', says the London Atheneum', shows that he possesses it in a rare degree. 'The Happy Prince, and Other Stories', are full of charming fancies and quaint humor. Though with a distinct character of their own, they are not unworthy to compare with Hans Andersen, and it is Not easy to give higher praise than this. There is a piquant touch of contemporary satire which differentiates Mr. Wilde from the teller of pure fairy tales; but it is so delicately introduced that the illusion is not destroyed, and a child would delight in the tales without being worried or troubled by their application, while children of larger growth will enjoy them and profit by them. The illustrations are charming'. (Roberts. $1.)

Messrs. Roberts Brothers publish 'The Happy Prince ' and other tales, by Oscar Wilde, with illustrations by Walter Crane and Jacomb-Hood. Really, these five tales are very fine. 'The Nightingale and the Rose' tells a pathetic story of a young man who loved deeply and of a young woman who did not know the great worth of such love. Now, the plain English of it is that a young man who loves is usually honest about it, and that a young woman who does not love in return is very apt to make light of both the young man and the unaccepted lover. But a young woman who boasts of such things, usually called a 'rejected' lover, very rarely finds true love, whether in herself or in others. For she has despised the most precious thing in all the world. The little volume will make many friends for Mr. Wilde.

Thoroughly beautiful. We know not when we have read short stories of fancy so lovely as these five, both for matter and for style. The language has a beautiful simplicity and rare charm. The substance of the stories is uncommon and full of picturesque imagery. The first three, namely, The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, are exceedingly delicate and tender. The last two, The Devoted Friend, and the Remarkable Rocket, are shrewd and incisive. The manufacture of the book is very tasteful in type, paper and cover. The illustrations are dainty. It would be a pretty gift for young or old. J. V. B.

A House of Pomegranates is a highly decorated quarto volume, printed on paper nearly as thick as cardboard, and profusely illustrated---in a word, it is nothing if not a table-book. Mr. Oscar Wilde's little stories are fanciful and pretty---prettier than the illustrations, some of which---several of the female figures especially---are downright ugly. As for the all but invisible full-sheet engravings---if engravings they are; for it is difficult to speak certainly of things one cannot see---they present, to our eyes, very much the aspect of ordinary prints seen through the veil of protecting tissue paper. But with all the recherche of which the volume bears such evident tokens---within and without---'the trail of the 'Zeit Gheist ' (to garble a well-worn quotation) is over it still'. However Mr. Oscar Wilde may struggle and strive after originality, he cannot emancipate himself from the dull uniformity of contemporary thought and sentiment. The best story by far, and the one which shows the smallest traces of this deadening influence, is 'The Fisherman's Soul' [sic]. 'Il y a de belles choses là dedans', as French professors say in praise of a pupil's version.

The first of Mr. Oscar Wilde's allegories or parables, or whatever he may call them, is admirable. A young king, who is a passionate lover of the beautiful, dreams on the eve of his coronation sundry dreams in which he sees how the splendors on which his heart is set are won by the sufferings and death of thousands of unknown toilers. So struck is he by these visions, that he will have none of the glories with which it is intended to adorn him for his coronation. He goes to the church with a rude cloak of sheepskin and a leathern tunic, and a wreath of wild briar round his head; but the sunlight streaming through the painted window envelops him with such a splendor that none can refuse to honor him. The 'Birthday of the Infanta' shows the pathos of a loving soul lodged in a deformed body. As to 'The Fisherman and his Soul', we cannot exactly see the scope of it. The fisherman gets rid of his soul in order to win the love of a mermaid, and the soul sent out without a heart commits all kinds of atrocities. That is a fine idea; but the purport of the whole eludes us. Mr. Wilde writes, as usual, in a highly ornate style, often beautiful, but somewhat fatiguing.

We fear that Mr. Oscar Wilde's enemies (supposing him to be capable of possessing any) must have seen in this handsome book a deliberate provocation to the bourgeois au front glabre. Amid the pomegranates and other trimmings on the cover, there is a back view of a peacock which looks for all the world like that of an elderly spinster with her hands behind her back, and her profile turned towards the beholder. Mr. Shannon and Mr. Ricketts have sprinkled the pages with devices rare and strange in the latest and straitest school of Neo-Preraphaelitism, and the chief illustrations in the book are of a most absolute fancy. Mr. Wilde has, we observe, protested in the public press against the judgment that they are invisible, and, strictly speaking, they are not. But being printed in very faint grisaille on very deeply cream-tinted plate paper, they put on about as much invisibility as is possible to things visible, and as they are arranged, neither facing letterpress nor with the usual tissue guard, but with a blank sheet of paper of the same tint and substance opposite them, a hasty person might really open the leaves and wonder which side the illustration was. Nevertheless, we rather like them, for when you can see them, they are by no means uncomely, and they suit their text---a compliment which we are frequently unable to pay to much more commonplace instances of the art of book illustration.

In the case of the text, also, hasty judgment is likely to be unduly harsh judgment. The pomegranates that compose the house---the grains that make up the pomegranate would have been a better metaphor---are four in number, and are all tales of the Märchen order, though one is something even more of a fabliau than of a Märchen. This is called 'The Birthday of the Infanta', and tells, to put it very shortly, how a certain little Spanish princess had an ugly dwarf who loved her, and died of a broken heart when he found out, not only how ugly he himself was, but how his beloved mistress thought of him as nothing but a fantastic toy. 'Tis an ower true tale. But we are not sure that Mr. Wilde's manner of telling it is quite the right one. The first and the last of the four, 'The Young King', and 'The Star Child', are pretty enough moralities; the first of halfmediaeval, half-modern Socialist strain. The other tells how a child was cured of cruelty, partly by some metaphysical aid, partly (we do not know whether Mr. Wilde intended to draw this part of the moral, but he has) by sound beatings and a not excessive allowance of bread and water.

But the third piece, 'The Fisherman and his Soul', is much longer, as long, indeed, as any two of them, and to our fancy a good deal better. It tells how a fisherman fell in love with a mermaid, and, to gain her, consented to part with, but not in the ordinary fashion to sell, his soul; how after a time he grew weary of his happiness, went to look after his soul, and found her, divorced as she was from his or any heart, a rather unpleasant, not to say immoral, companion; how he in vain endeavoured to return once more to his mermaid and only found her dead, when he and she and the soul were reunited once for all; and how, when the dead bodies of the pair were found and buried in unhallowed ground, there came a miracle converting to charity the heart of the parish priest who had cast them out. The separate ingredients of the piece are, of course, not very novel; but, to tell the truth, the separate ingredients of a story of this kind hardly can be, and Mr. Wilde has put them together with considerable skill, and communicated to the whole an agreeable character. The little mermaid is very nice, both when she is caught literally napping, and when she sings, and when she explains the necessity of her lover parting with his soul if he will have her. Also the young witch (to whom, when the parish priest has, not unnaturally, declined to unsoul him, the fisherman goes) is pleasing. She had red hair, and in gold tissue embroidered with peacock's eyes and a little green velvet cap she must have looked very well. The Sabbath, too, is good (there are too few Sabbaths in English), though the gentlemanly Satan is not new. Good, too, is the business-like manner in which the fisherman separates his soul from him by a device not impossibly suggested by one Adelbert von Chamisso, a person of ability. The adventures of the discarded and heartless soul are of merit, and it is a very good touch to make the fisherman's final, and hardly conscious, desertion of his mermaid-love turn on nothing more than a sudden fancy to dance, and the remembrance that she had no feet and could not dance with him. It is particularly satisfactory to learn that the mermaid's tail was of pearl-and-silver. There has been an impression in many circles that mermaids' tails are green, and we have always thought that it would be unpleasant to embrace a person with a green tail. But pearl-and-silver is quite different.

This consists of four stories---'The Young King', 'The Birthday of the Infanta', 'The Fisherman and his Soul, and 'The Star Child'. They are each distinguished by the delicate grace which the author is capable of imparting to works of romance, and are extremely fascinating. 'The Young King' shows how that monarch, a lad of but sixteen, had, on succeeding to the throne of his father, a strange and secret yearning for the beautiful. One day he feels peculiarly drowsy. 'Outside he could see the huge dome of the cathedral, looming like a bubble over the shadowy houses, and the weary sentinels pacing up and down on the misty terrace by the river. Far away in an orchard a nightingale was singing. A faint perfume of jasmin [sic] came through the open window. He brushed his brown curls back from his forehead, and, taking up a lute, let his fingers stray across the chords. His heavy eyelids drooped, and a strange languor came over him. Never before had he felt so keenly or with such exquisite joy the magic and the mystery of beautiful things'. He now has three dreams and in these dreams he is shown how the beautiful jewels and dresses he so much admires are produced---the men who lose their lives in diving for pearls, the poor labourers, young and old, who toil at weaving. And the young king's eyes are marvellously opened, and he refuses the bright things he would otherwise have joyously accepted. It is a beautifully told allegory, and the same may be said of the other contents of the volume. The design and decoration of the book are by C. Ricketts and C. H. Shannon.

Of illustrated books recently published, the following demand more than a mere note; there would not be room else to show the character of the illustrations, which are in each case so important a feature. For the sake of his reputation as a worshipper at the shrine of Beauty it is to be regretted that Mr, Oscar Wilde has told us that he 'admires immensely' the design of the cover for his new book of fairy tales---it may reasonably be supposed that the cover of a book should in itself be attractive, even if it be ugly, for it must be admitted that there is sometimes an extraordinary attractiveness and fascination about ugliness; but ... Wilde's cover is not ugly enough to be fascinating, though it would be difficult to find a design ... similar purpose so devoid of charm.

No more need have been said about this cover had not Mr. Wilde attempted to defend it, and by description and argument, ... tried to make us like it against our better judgment. A critic wrote that a portion of the design of the left hand side of the cover reminded him of 'an Indian club with a house-painter's brush on the top of it', while a portion on the right suggested to him the idea of 'a chimney pot hat with a sponge in it'. As a matter of fact, the one is intended to be a back view of a peacock, and the other to be some sort of fountain; but they certainly are more like the objects mentioned by the critic, In the Speaker of December 5th, Mr. Wilde attempts to show that it does not matter what the details of a design suggest---peacocks, pomegranates, splashing fountains of gold water, or Indian clubs and chimney-pot hats---it is a matter of indifference, and has nothing to do with the aesthetic quality and value of the design; and this would have been true had Mr. Wilde been speaking of forms used in repetition to produce a pattern, Almost any form may be used for this purpose, and a good result obtained; but the peacock and the fountain, or the club and chimney-pot hat, are objects separate from the pattern on the cover. They are large, independent figures, standing by themselves, and are emphasized by being in gold. Under such circumstances it matters very considerably what the form may be, though, if the form be beautiful, the object it represents may be a matter of indifference; bat, clever as Mr. Wilde may be, it will puzzle him to discover a single beautiful line or form about this disputed portion of his design. The drawings by Mr. Ricketts, which embellish but hardly illustrate the stories, have a good deal of that interest which attaches to his work generally. For such small illustrations they are, perhaps, drawn in rather too coarse a line; but Mr, Ricketts evidently admires and follows the old German and Italian line drawings, and there is no doubt about their admirable simplicity. But the coarser lines of the old engravings were due to the necessary coarseness of their execution and materials, and not to choice. The work had to obey the limits of tools, and this working within imposed limits produces what we understand as 'style'. We do not care to discuss the question whether a modern artist should impose on himself limits unavoidable by the old masters, but net necessary to us. Every artist decides such matters for himself. Personally, we prefer Mr. Ricketts when he works with a finer line; but, whatever the thickness of his line, his pen-work is always interesting and never commonplace. As to the drawings by Mr. Shannon we cannot sty anything, because we cannot see anything. We can only suppose that Mr. Wilde is ashamed of them, but, having commissioned them, felt bound to use them. They are printed on separate pages, but in so faint a tone that it is simply affectation to have printed them at all. If it is purposely done to prevent the seeing of intention in the artist's work, it is perfectly successful.

...

Thackeray and Kingsley both tried their hands at what, for the sake of a better and more comprehensive word, we call fairy-tales. The ' Rose and the Ring', and the 'Waterbabies', have become 'classics of the nursery ' and schoolroom, and for many years there have been floods of translations from Russian, Scandinavian, and Eastern sources, to say nothing of originals like 'Alice in Wonderland', or Lord Brabourne's and Mr. Andrew Lang's märchen. Mrs. Molesworth's Four-Winds Farm is a delightful book, and Mr. Oscar Wilde has written some very imaginative stories, perhaps more ethical in their suggestive meaning than we might have expected from a cynical dramatist. His House of Pomegranates is in some ways akin to Dr. George Macdonald's collection, but is more mystical and less purely fanciful. It is sumptuously decorated and illustrated by Mr. C. Ricketts and Mr. Charles Shannon, and in the descriptive passages by which the author seeks to emulate in words the patient skill of the medieval illuminator, we recognise the hand of a leader of the modern esthetic school. The following from 'The Young King' is a good specimen of Mr. Wilde's decorative word-painting:

Such passages after a while pall on the reader, as a banquet chiefly composed of luscious fruits and perfumed wines would pall on the appetite, and cause longings for a cool draught of water and the simple fare of childhood. The 'Birthday of the Infanta' is the best of the four stories in Mr. Wilde's volume; it has a less artificial air than the others, and the contrast between the stately Spanish children surrounded by their courtly retinue, and the dwarf who for the first time comes face to face with his own ugly misshapen image, and breaks his heart at the discovery, is both pathetic and dramatic.

But after all, it is to the old ' nursery classics' that we return with renewed zest, and best among all collections of old-world lore is Grimm's Household Tales. It is a veritable storehouse of legend and fairy-tale, we find most of our friends there, Cinderella perhaps a little different from her English namesake, but, at least, not barbarously maltreated as by the late George Cruickshank, who turned her story into a temperance tract. It seems necessary to scientific minds to discover scientific reasons for everything that exists, even for fairy-tales, but it is enough for most people to realise that they are the heritage of children, who, as a rule, prefer the old ' wild tales' to the most elaborate preparation of modern invention.

Those of us older readers who were brought up on the works of Mary Howitt, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Follen, Miss Martineau, and Jacob Abbot, have a strong feeling that nothing which has since appeared can surpass ourold favorites. They were treasured, read over and over again, their maxims and suggestions put into practice and made really a part of ourselves. The distractions of manifold magazines and floods of juvenile literature did not then exist; a few favorite books had the field to themselves, And even in modern times it is only those books which the children read over again and again that are of any real good tothem. A child's book that is worth reading but once is hardly worth reading at all. In spite of the large amount of trash which goes under the name of children's literature, there is a steady increase of good books for the young, books which as well eserve immortality as our old favorites.

The style of Oscar Wilde's stories of 'The Happy Prince and Other Tales' (Roberts) is pleasing, reminding one of the German fairy tale; and almost any child who enjoys Grimm and Hans Andersen will be pleased with this book. Each story bears a moral, not stated, but interwoven in the thread of the story. The happy Prince teaches the joy of doing good to others. He is a leaden statue covered with golden scales, set on a high pedestal from which he sees the suffering in the city and strives to relieve it by giving away all his fine adornings. At length he stands blind and bare,---his sapphire eyes, the golden scales of his armor, and the ruby from his sword, all gone. His friend, a litlle swallow, the bearer of his gifts to the poor, falls dead at his feet as the winter cold comes on, and the leaden heart of the Happy Prince breaks. 'Bring me the two most precious things in the city, said God to one of his angels; and the angel brought him the leaden heart and the dead bird'. Of the other stories in the volume, 'The Nightingale and the Rose' is the least pleasing, being too full of sentiment unsuited to children. ' The Selfish Giant', 'The Devoted Friend', and 'The Remarkable Rocket' are excellent. Though many children appreciate books of this class, still the fullest appreciation of them comes from the elder ones who see what is implied rather than spoken. The illustrations, by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, are pleasing as ornaments for the book, but will hardly add to a child's appreciation of it.

Mr. Oscar Wilde and Mr. Arlo Bates are both, each in his own way, bright men; but they cannot write fairy stories---it is nigh a lost art. Dr. Weir Mitchell still practices it, but he is almost alone in the field---it is in fact the field and Dr. Mitchell. 'Prince Little Boy' of a year ago is still the best new fairy book to be had. Mr, Wilde in the 'Happy Prince', in paragraph after paragraph, shoots over the children's hearts at the heads of his grown readers and he misses both. Still his stories tell themselves, there is nothing in them to keep a nervous child awake and nothing unwholesome. Mr. Arlo Bates and Miss Eleanor Putnam in 'Prince Vance' have written the conventional fairy melodrama---fairies, wizards, giants and all.

Among the books adapted alike to young and old it would be difficult to match for charm of style or beauty of sentiment this collection of exquisite tales by Oscar Wilde. They are, indeed, veritable poems in prose, and could have been written only by one who was truly a poet at heart. Rarely have the virtues and failings of poor humanity been touched with a gentler hand than in the legends of 'The Happy Prince' and 'The Selfish Giant; ' rarely has false amity been more keenly satirized than in the story of 'The Devoted Friend' every lover should read 'The Nightingale and the Rose;' and how many self-important people we know to whom we would like to commend a careful perusal of 'The Remarkable Rocket'.

But the real charm of all these stories is in the fact that they convey 'a moral without indulging in bald didacticism. 'The grace of imagination and felicity of expression are 9 ample sources of fascination. One reads on delighted and entranced, and at the end realizes that a great truth has been illuminated by the light of something very like genius. It is a small book as books go, but wer are inclined to prophesy that few volumes of the present season will meet with a more hearty welcome. It is made, too, in a most attractive manner. What Walter Crane's illustrations are we all know, and Mr. Hood's vignettes are dainty bits of drawing. One glimpse of the pretty cover will be enough to excite pleasant anticipations. He must be dull indeed who does not find those anticipations realized. Literary World.

Very pretty are the fables that Mr. Oscar Wilde has here strung together, tender and graceful, and not without a touch of humor, as in Mother Duck who 'kept saying to herlittle ones, 'You will never be in society unless you can stand on your heads,' and every now and then she showed them how it was done. But the little ducks paid no attention. They were so young that they did not know what an advantage it is to be in society."

"Five Fairy Tales"—The Happy Prince, The Selfish Giant, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Devoted Friend, The Remarkable Rocket—by Oscar Wilde, have just been published by Mr. Nutt. There are three full-page illustrations in the volume from the pencil of Walter Crane

It is a thing rarely accomplished to write a book that a child can read with interest and pleasure and his elders find instruction and profit in as well. By a curious fate "Gulliver's Travels," which Swift, in his disgust for mankind, wrote as a universal panacea, and of which only the mature mind can always see the bearing and application, has become a story for children, and the ridicule of English politics by the giant king and the comparisons to prove the inferiority of men to brutes are all passed over and unnoticed. So, too, "Robinson Crusoe," which so charms and delights the young, has ceased to be more than glanced at by the grown. Fables seem to belong to that class of literature which all can read and each age derive its own satisfaction from.

Mr. Wilde's "Tales," though couched in the form of children's stories, are more of the nature of fables, and consequently, while they fulfil all the requirements of the former they at the same time discharge the functions of the latter. Written in simple and at times poetical language, they are replete with instruction, and it is such as must be evident even to the mind of a boy or a girl of average intelligence. Apart altogether from its didactic purpose, the work, merely from an art point of view, is delightful; the descriptions of nature it contains and their fidelity and beauty would show, if no other evidence was obtainable, that Mr. Oscar Wilde has true literary talent.

The first story, from which the collection takes its name, is admirable in its conception. "High above the city on a tall column stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with leaves of fine gold; for eyes he had two bright sapphires and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt." A little swallow, who, when his friends had gone to Egypt, had stayed behind for his love, a beautiful river reed, in his selfishness deserts her. "She has no conversation," he said, "and she is always flirting with the wind. I admit she is domestic, but I love travelling and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also." He flies from her, and, coming to town, rests on the statue, but is disturbed by the weeping of the Happy Prince.

The Prince, looking from his high place, sees all the ugliness and all the wretchedness of the city, and his leaden heart is grieved. In a conversation with the selfish little swallow, he converts the latter, and makes him become his messenger of good. To the poor needle-woman, struggling to finish the lady's ball dress, that her fevered little son may have bread to eat, his envoy brings the ruby of the sword-hilt; to the impoverished writer one of the sapphire eyes, and to a little match-girl the other, while bit by bit the golden covering he gives away to relieve the needy. For, says the Prince, of all the marvellous stories, the most marvellous is the suffering of men and of women; "there is no mystery so great as misery."

The little swallow, going hither and thither, sees "the rich making merry, and the beggars sitting at their gates." He flies into dark lanes, and "sees the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets." And his little heart learns the luxury of doing good, and, refusing to go away to Egypt to avoid the cold winter, he devotes himself to the cause of charity, and at last lays down his life, dying at the Prince's feet.

Then the Mayor and Town Councillors, coming along to inspect the statue, declare it has become shabby since all its ornamentation is gone, and the Art Professor at the University pronounces it to be no longer useful since it is no longer beautiful. So the figure is pulled down and condemned to be melted down for metal, and because the dead bird was found there a proclamation is ordered forbidding birds to die there in future. A fitting commentary on the recognition which the world gives to those who devote all they have, and even their very lives, to the cause of others.

In another equally excellent tale, called "The Devoted Friend," there is a very good hit at the style of a certain well-known novelist. "You are quite behind the age," said the water-rat. "Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pool with a young man. He spoke of the matter at great length, and I'm sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head; and whenever the young man made any remark he said 'Pooh!'"

In the last of the collection, "The Remarkable Rocket," who, proving a failure at the Court fireworks, is thrown into a pond and there catches cold, so that he becomes hoarse. "What a delightful voice you have," the frog says, on hearing him.

Indeed, the book is filled with such tit-bits of humour. "I am so clever," says one speaker, "that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." "Then you should certainly," is the reply, "lecture on philosophy."

A pleasanter book for light reading could not well be imagined. It is a treat for young and old.

This is a clever book by a clever man, who has not yet altogether done justice to himself. Mr. Wilde can scarcely have intended these five tales, which (notably the first) are illustrated by Mr. Walter Crane and Mr. Jacomb Hood in a style which may be described as impressionism tempered by elegance, for boys and girls. Their note is melancholy, and a subtle sarcasm pervades them which will puzzle young readers. Take, as a specimen of this sarcasm, these two sentences from the first page of the first and best of the stories, "The Happy Prince :’— He [the statue of the Prince] was very much admired indeed. ‘He is as beautiful as a weathercock,’ remarked one of the Town Councillors, who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; ‘only not quite so useful,’ he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.” Mr. Wilde’s sarcasm occasionally seems akin to cynicism, as in " The Nightingale and the Rose,” which is a story of self-sacrifice wasted. The teaching conveyed in most of the tales, particularly in "The Happy Prince,” "The Selfish Giant,” and "The Re- markable Rocket,” is essentially sound, being to the effect that unselfishness is moral beauty, and that vain display is moral ugliness. In the literature of fable, there has probably appeared nothing so pathetic as the story of the little swallow which is included in that of "The Happy Prince.” The public will look forward with much interest to Mr. Oscar Wilde’s giving them a second instalment [sic] of his dainty wisdom.

Recent newspapers have brought the information that the authorities of the British Museum have with drawn from circulation all books written by Mr. Oscar Wilde. For this performance there has been applause on all sides. It has been hailed as a most righteous judgment and a noble act of justice. Preachers have approved, moralists have commended, the Prevention of Vice people have been loud in their praises and now the critics also come in with their cheers. For most of these there is the old excuse of utter and growling ignorance and on that score one must-we suppose-forgive them. In the present instance, however, it is cowardly and small. They have struck a man when he is down. They have kicked a body when life was nearly gone and they found pleasure in doing it-they-the erudite, the honest, the just critics.

As to certain criminal proceedings not long past, fortunately there can be but one opinion. But that Mr. Wilde may be guilty of all immoralities conceivable and inconceivable is neither here nor there. It is not the man but his work of which there is question. And sad precedentin the lives of Poe and Byron and Shelley-has lead us to see the necessity of disassociating a man from his work. In truth much of Mr. Wilde's writing is immoral. The evidence of immorality is not to be found in the records of any court of justice, however, but in the books themselves. "The Picture of Dorian Grey," "The Sphinx," and "Salome" are bad books. If the curators of the British Museum have failed in time past to see this it adds only to a belief in their stupidity. On the other hand the "Poems," "The House of Pomegranates," "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" are pure and charming. No man in our generation has written better fairy tales. These also the authorities have withdrawn from circulation.

If there ever was in any of Mr. Wilde's writings literary merit and beauty, which may perhaps originally have lead the Museum to purchase the works, the same merit and beauty still exist and will continue to exist. Once and for all, a book printed and given to the public has a life wholly its own and independent of the fortunes of its author. Even should we discover that Shakspeare himself had committed sins against a dozen decalogues, it would not alter by one hair's breadth the wonder of his poetry. This is a far cry, but the question is one of principle and justice and not of the values at stake. The performance of the curators of the British Museum is an act of bigoted and blind fury. It is narrow-minded and indiscriminating. One must protest.

In "The Happy Prince and Other Tales” (Boston: Robert Bros.; Toronto: William-son & Co.) Oscar Wilde has shown himself to be an artist in imaginative writing, as well as in dress. In these five fairy tales he displays a delicate fancy and a power of narration almost surprising, and a touch of satire adds no little to the strength of his work. “The Devoted Friend” and “The Remarkable Rocket” are the best of the stories, but all are full of power. The book contains several charming illustrations by Walter Crane and J. Hood.

THIS little collection of stories for children (hardly longer than a review article shows Mr. Oscar Wilde's genius at its best. The five tales have each a point, are admirably expressed, and show a genuine poetic feeling. What, for instance, could in its slight way be more neatly told than the story which gives the name to the book? The ' Happy Prince' is a great gold statue in the market-place of the town where he once lived and ruled, and since he has been set up on his pedestal he has seen all the woe and want of his city---for the first time. So one by one he parts with his sword-hilt jewels and his sapphire eyes to relieve his people, making a swallow his messenger, and then---but that should be left to the author.

The gift of writing fairy tales is rare, and Mr. Oscar Wilde shows that he possesses it in a rare degree. The Happy Prince, and other Stories, are full of charming fancies and quaint humour. Though with a distinct character of their own, they are not unworthy to compare with Hans Andersen, and it is not easy to give higher praise than this. There is a piquant touch of contemporary satire which differentiates Mr. Wilde from the teller of pure fairy tales; but it is so delicately introduced that the illusion is not destroyed and a child would delight in the tales without being worried or troubled by their application, while children of larger growth will enjoy them and profit by them. The illustrations are charming.

One of the chief functions of the true fairy story is to excite sympathy. Whether they are princes, peasants, or inanimate objects (Was the immortal tin soldier an inanimate object?), the joys and sorrows of the heroes and heroines of fairyland will always be real to those persons, whatever their age may be, who love the fairy story, and regard it as the most delightful form of romance. Mr. Oscar Wilde, no doubt for excellent reasons, has chosen to present his fables in the form of fairy tales to a public which, though it should count among its numbers most persons who can appreciate delicate humour and an artistic literary manner, will assuredly not be composed of children. No child will sympathize at all with Mr. Wilde's Happy Prince when he is melted down by order of the Mayor and Corporation in obedience to the dictum of the art professor at the University that, since 'he is no longer beautiful, he is no longer useful'. Children do not care for satire, and the dominant spirit of these stories is satire---a bitter satire differing widely from that of Hans Andersen, whom Mr. Wilde's literary manner so constantly recalls to us. This quality of bitterness, however, does not repel the reader (except in the story of the 'Devoted Friend', which is at once the cleverest and least agreeable in the volume), inasmuch as Mr. Wilde always contrives to leave us at the

end of every tale with a very pleasant sensation of the humorous. Perhaps the best example of Mr.Wilde's method is to be found in 'The Nightingale and the Rose'. Here the nightingale has sacrificed its life in order to obtain a red rose for the student. The student repairs with the nightingale's gift to the daughter of the Professor, in order to present the rose to her:

It may be remarked in connexion with this story that, in order to get the desired effect at the conclusion, Mr. Wilde has gone dangerously near the region of sham sentiment. It is the only place in the book where his artistic sense has stumbled a little along with his natural history.

We have the irresponsible Irishman in life, and would gladly get rid of him. We have him now in literature and in the things of the mind, and are compelled perforce to see that there is a good deal to be said for him. The men I described to you the other day under the heading, 'A Reckless Century', thought they might drink, dice, and shoot each other to their hearts' content, if they did but do it gaily and gallantly, and here now is Mr. Oscar Wilde, who does not care what strange opinions he defends or what time-honoured virtue he makes laughter of, provided he does it cleverly. Many were injured by the escapades of the rakes and duellists, but no man is likely to be the worse for Mr. Wilde's shower of paradox. We are not likely to poison any one because he writes with appreciation of Wainewright---art critic and poisoner---nor have I heard that there has been any increased mortality among deans because the good young hero of his last book tries to blow up one with an infernal machine; but upon the other hand we are likely enough to gain something of brightness and refinement from the deft and witty pages in which he sets forth these matters. 'Beer, bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made England whatshe is', wrote Mr. Wilde once; and a part of the Nemesis that has fallen upon her is a complete inability to understand anything he says. We should not find him so unintelligible---for much about him is Irish of the Irish. I see in his life and works an extravagant Celtic crusade against Anglo-Saxon stupidity. 'I labour under a perpetual fear of not being misunderstood', he wrote, a short time since, and from behind this barrier of misunderstanding he peppers John Bull with his peashooter of wit, content to know there are some few who laugh with him. There is scarcely an eminent man in London who has not one of those little peas sticking somewhere about him. 'Providence and Mr. Walter Besant have exhausted the obvious', he wrote once, to the deep indignation of Mr. Walter Besant; and of a certain notorious and clever, but coldblooded Socialist [Bernard Shaw], he said, 'he has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by all his friends'. Gradually people have begun to notice what a very great number of those little peas are lying about, and from this reckoning has sprung up a great respect for so deft a shooter, for John Bull, though he does not understand wit, respects everything that he can count up and number and prove to have bulk. He now sees beyond question that the witty sayings of this man whom he has so long despised are as plenty as the wood blocks in the pavement of Cheapside. As a last resource he has raised the cry that his tormentor is most insincere, and Mr. Wilde replies in various ways that it is quite an error to suppose that a thing is true because John Bull sincerely believes it. Upon the other hand, if he did not believe it, it might have some chance of being true. This controversy is carried on upon the part of John by the newspapers; therefore, those who only read them have as low an opinion of Mr. Wilde as those who read books have a high one. Dorian Gray with all its faults of method, is a wonderful book. The Happy Prince is a volume of as pretty fairy tales as our generation has seen; and Intentions hides within its immense paradox some of the most subtle literary criticism we are likely to see for many a long day. To this list has now been added Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and other Stories (James R.Osgood, M'Ilvaine, and Co.). It disappoints me a little, I must confess. The story it takes its name from is amusing enough in all conscience. 'The Sphinx without a Secret' has a quaint if rather meagre charm; but 'The Canterville Ghost' with its supernatural horse-play, and 'The Model Millionaire', with its conventional motive, are quite unworthy of more than a passing interest....

Surely we have in this story something of the same spirit that filled Ireland once with gallant, irresponsible ill-doing, but now it is in its right place making merry among the things of the mind, and laughing gaily at our most firm fixed convictions. In one other Londoner, the socialist, Mr. Bernard Shaw, I recognize the same spirit. His account of how the old Adam gradually changed into the great political economist Adam Smith is like Oscar Wilde in every way. These two men, together with Mr. Whistler, the painter---half an Irishman also, I believe---keep literary London continually agog to know what they will say next.

We do not like the outside of the cover of Mr Oscar Wilde's House of Pomegranates (Osgood) [sic]. The Indian club with a house-painter's brush on the top which passes muster for a peacock, and the chimney-pot hat with a sponge in it, which is meant to represent a basket containing a pomegranate, or a fountain, or something of that kind, are grotesque, but not ideally so. The inside of the cover, however, with its olive sheaves of corn falling apart, its fluttering quails, and crawling snails, delights the eye. So do the pictures and the type and the paper. Mr Ricketts has learned the art of drawing dreams and visions, and Mr Shannon can make decorative designs full of charming detail. We can well believe that the book is as delightful as it looks.

Mr. Oscar Wilde's little volume might be called a collection of skits; and this attitude of the gentleman towards matters in general is a familiar one. Yet a subjectivity of method on his part, which all who were happy enough to see him in this country a few years ago will somewhat painfully remember, nearly disappears in his stories, leaving his method freer and himself a more agreeable satirist than might have been supposed. We detect little of the rebuking knee-breeches or the exemplifying forelock here, while there is an abundance of wit and invention. 'The Canterville Ghost' and 'The Sphinx Without a Secret' are easily better than the two remaining sketches; in the former, the irreverent treatment by an American family of an English ancestral ghost is the happy subject of a happy treatment. The story which gives the book its name is a stiffish dose of trying to be funny, but its opening chapter is worth reading for as clever a picture of a social function as we have lately seen. The volume is charmingly bound and printed, only the title-page of each story betraying any eccentricity, and so we may feel that we have got off as easily as could be expected.

An author's opinion on his own work should claim a peculiar respect. Like a fond mother's, his appreciation may incline towards excess; but he, like the mother, sat up with the child. Even if the book send us to sleep, it has probably kept him awake, and that, after all, is the more favourable condition for knowledge. Recognising this, we were not annoyed---as certain critics have been annoyed---to discover, on opening this volume, that Mr. Wilde himself considers the four tales contained in it to be beautiful. We allowed at once that he was possibly, even probably, right; and any small regret at finding our judgment anticipated and our labour curtailed was obliterated in the happy reflection that Mr. Wilde had by this precaution saved himself at least three letters to the newspapers. It is unfortunate that Messrs. Ricketts and Shannon, the illustrators, were not also given a upon which to express their satisfaction with their handiwork. For lack of this, a critic in THE SPEAKER, left to judge without guidance, asserted that the gilt peacock on the cover resembled a bulging umbrella. He has since been corrected and superseded; but it cost Mr. Wilde a postage stamp. The present critic is ready to admit that for decorative ends, in certain places, a peacock which resembles a bulging umbrella may be preferable to the peacock of our gardens: and he follows up this admission with another---that, for decorative ends, the prose of Mr. Oscar Wilde is superior to the prose of other men. You may like decorative prove, or you may not. If you do not, there is no more to be said than that the book is not for your enjoyment. If you do, then the author is right in calling it a book of 'beautiful tales'. From cover to cover, in binding, paper, illustrations and letterpress, the scheme 'of the volume is a scheme of decoration. The title itself is purely decorative. 'A House of Pomegranates, by Oscar Wilde', reads beautifully, though there be no house and the pomegranates are all contributed by Messrs. Ricketts and Shannon. And the dedications are decorative; so are the margins; and so, above all, is the prose. Here is a passage selected at random---

Now whether we like this kind of thing or not, it is impossible to deny its extreme beauty in its kind. And it is just as impossible to name any other writer who could elaborate his sensuous impressions with such assiduities, minutely careful down to the two sandals on the priest's feet. Among bright colours, sweet sounds, pleasant tastes, Mr. Wilde is like his own Dorian Gray, plunging his hand in gems and letting them rain through his fingers. His pages may be cold reading; but their glitter is amazing, and the fineness of their workmanship, Nor is i¢ merely the sensuous imagery that is decorative. The structure of Mr. Wilde's prose is decorative, too. Take, for example, his description of a mermaid in the third tale :---'Her hair was as a wet fleece of gold, and each separate hair as a thread of fine gold in a cup of glass. Her body was as white ivory, and her tail was of silver and pearl. Silver and pearl was her tail, and the green weeds of the sea coiled round it; and like sea-shells were her ears, and her lips were like seacoral. The cold waves dashed over her cold breasts, and the salt glistened upon her eyelids'. Here is a deliberate and successful adaptation of the old Hebrew trick of repeating a phrase to give balance and rhythm to a sentence, or possibly for the mere pleasure of looking « second time on a cluster of beautiful words. Our poets have made splendid use of this device now and again, and perhaps it has been unduly neglected by our prosewriters. At any rate its decorative value is obvious enough here, as in the Song of Solomon, And having pointed out what we conceive to be Mr. Wilde's purpose, and added our belief that he has attained his purpose with extraordinary skill, we may simply leave readers to decide whether or not their tastes incline towards that which is 'precious' in literature. If they do, they will hardly find two better tales than 'The Young King' and 'The Fisherman and His Soul'. If they do not, the morals of these stories (which, by the way, are not merely irreproachable but beneficent) will be seen sicklied over with detail and cloying to the taste. They will desire a little more of idiom and humanity in the writing, a little less of cadence and artifice. But, after all, they will only be in the position of the critic who objected to a decorative peacock---because it differed from the peacock of his experience.

In a volume of four short stories by Mr. Oscar Wilde, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime is the most characteristic of the author's style and method. Itis described as 'astudy in duty'. Lord Arthur Savile is informed by a cheiromantist that he is destined to commit a murder. Lord Arthur accepts the decree of fate with a tranquillity tempered by impatience. He isengaged. He objects to postpone his wedding, but his ideal of duty towards his betrothed forbids him to become her husband before he has accomplished his destiny. After carefully planned but unsuccessful attempts to shorten the years of two of his relations without incurring the odium ofa scandal, he hits upon the happy expedient of drowning the cheiromantist, and squares accounts at once with fateand withher mouthpiece, In 'The Canterville Ghost', a story written in imitation of the American manner, the humour is of a more boisterous character.

A House of Pomegranates is just the sort of title one might expect from Oscar Wilde, and as a matter of course no other firm save that of Jas. R. Osgood, M'Ilvaine [sic] and Co., could fittingly publish for this author. The picture designs and decorations are by C. Ricketts and Ch, [sic] Shannon, an it must be admitted that a more charmingly got-up volume could scarcely be produced. The style is severely antique, and the colours of the kind which aestheticism dictates. So far as a special set of illustrations are concerned the non-initiated will best understand their character by saying that they resemble (while of course far surpassing) what boys call 'transfers' before these are transferred. The paper is of the choicest quality, and it would be difficult to imagine a more elegant gift. Nor is this by any means all that can be said for the volume. Mr. Wilde is always clever and abundant in allusions betraying taste and erudition. But here we have nothing savouring of his customary cynicism. On the title page it is modestly asserted that the contents are 'beautiful tales', and the promise is realised. There are four tales, or rather allegories, and as many dedications, with one extra for the book as a whole, which is to 'Constance Mary Wilde', and a perusal of one or all of 'The Young King', 'The Birthday of the Infanta', 'The Fisherman and his Soul', and 'The Star Child', will be found thoroughly seasonable and wholesome reading. Necessarily the supernatural obtrudes itself, and many situations strange and weird are encountered.

The Happy Prince and other Tales', by Oscar Wilde, were handsomely illustrated.

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and its three companion stories, will not add to their author's reputation. Mr. Oscar Wilde's previous book, though in style florid to excess, and in sentiment shallow, had at least a certain cleverness; this quality, however, is singularly absent in at least the first three of these tales. Much the best of the series is the fourth, the short sketch entitled 'A Model Millionaire', though even this brief tale is spoilt by such commonplace would-be witticisms as 'the poor should be practical and prosaic', 'it is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating'. There is much more of this commonplace padding in the story that gives its name to the book, e.g. 'actors can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or comedy', &c., 'but in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications', and so on, and so on, even to the painfully hackneyed 'the world is a stage, but the play is badly cast'. This story is an attempt to follow in the footsteps of the author of New Arabian Nights. Unfortunately for Mr. Wilde's ambition, Mr. Stevenson is a literary artist of rare originality. Such a story as this is nothing if not wrought with scrupulous delicacy of touch. It is, unfortunately, dull as well as derivative. 'The Sphinx without a Secret' is better. 'The Canterville Ghost' is, as a story, better still, though much the same kind of thing has already been far better done by Mr. Andrew Lang; but it is disfigured by some stupid vulgarisms. 'We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language'. 'And manners', an American may be prompted to add. A single example may suffice:

It is the perpetration of banalities of this kind which disgusts Englishmen as well as 'cultured Americans'. One should not judge the society of a nation by that of a parish; the company of the elect by the sinners of one's own acquaintance. Mr. Wilde's verbal missiles will serve merely to assure those whom he ridicules that another not very redoubtable warrior has bestirred himself in the camps of Philistia.

Mr. Shannon and Mr. Ricketts have sprinkled the pages with devices rare and strange in the latest and straitest school of Neo-pre-Raphaelitism, and the chief illustrations in the book are of a most absolute fancy. Nevertheless, we rather like them, for they are by no means uncomely, and they suit their text---a compliment which we are frequently unable to pay to much more commonplace in- stances of the art of book illustration. In the case of the text, also, hasty judgment is likely to be unduly harsh judgment. The pomegranates that compose the house---the grains that make up the pomegranate would have been a better metaphor---are four in number, and are all tales of the Märchen order, though one is something even more of a fabliau than of a Märchen. This is called 'The Birthday of the Infanta', and tells, to put it very shortly, how a certain little Spanish princess had an ugly dwarf who loved her, and died of a broken heart when he found out, not only how ugly he himself was, but how his beloved mistress thought of him as nothing but a fantastic toy. 'Tis an ower true tale. But we are not sure that Mr. Wilde's manner of telling it is quite the right one. The first and the last of the four, ' The Young King', and ' The Star Child', are pretty enough moralities. The third piece, 'The Fisherman and his Soul', is much longer, as long, indeed, as any two of them, and to our fancy a good deal better. It tells how a fisherman fell in love with a mermaid, and, to gain her, consented to part with his soul. Spectator.

A book that will find a place in many a Christmas stocking---though in certain parts it may be written a little above the tiny heads of its audience---is the collection of five fairy-tales by Oscar Wilde. Told in choice English, with happy diction and most delicate imagery, each allegory points a subtle moral. 'The Happy Prince' is a poem on charity; ' The Nightingale and the Rose' is a parable on sacrifice and renunciation; 'The Selfish Giant' tells its sermon in its title; 'The Devoted Friend' is an essay on friendship; and 'The Remarkable Rocket' is a bright and effective satire on vaingloriousness. There is a great deal of philosophy woven into the web of this fairy Pentameron, which gray heads as well as flaxen might read and digest to their profit. Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood have entered with zest into the spirit of the author; and from the frontispiece of 'The Happy Prince', a reminiscence of the St. George of Donatello, to the ignominious going out of 'The Remarkable Rocket', headpieces, tailpieces and all are executed in the most graceful manner.

Of all men who have consented to adorn the present age, at least within the realm of that Power upon whose domain the sun never sets, none have been the recipients of adulation so profound, intermingled with opprobium so venomous as that bestowed upon Oscar Wilde, That the philosophy for which Mr. Wilde stood, upon his advent into Letters, was, to the Philistine, a new and somewhat startling one, needs no argument; but to prove his sincerity and absoluteness of belief, in its principles, to those congregations of Canaille that he 'has addressed from time to time with his unique suavity, will undoubtedly fall to the good fortune of a future generation. Though Mr. Wilde has now for some years lain, among the data of historic literature, the famous breeches of the Clergy, as well as the flowing locks of Mediævalism, his apostleship to the Spirit of Beauty is not yet ended. Yesterday was produced Dorian Gray, over whose morality two hemispheres wrangled as a nine-days wonder. To-day is given us A House Pomegranates, which Mr. Wilde has stated in print as being; intended neither for the 'British child' nor for the 'British public'. Those for whom a volume so unusual in appearance is produced, will doubtless comprehend the subtlety with which its name was chosen; a subtlety which is brought to,so fine a point that, by no manner of dallying, could he who runs be enabled to read. The book is issued in square octavo, and is printed throughout on heavy, richly toned, Plate Paper, by the Chiswick Press. The decorations have entrusted to Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon, who have succeeded in making the volume a notable target for many who have stationed themselves outside the bastions of Materialism, to leave unmentioned the multitudes within.

A House of Pomegranates consists of four allegorical tales: the first two, 'The Young King' and 'The Birthday of the Infanta', may be said to represent the Sorrow of Knowledge, tales of beauty and of pity: the third, 'The Fisherman and his Soul', shows the Power of Love, a story of beauty and strength; while the last, 'The Star Child', in degenerating to the formula of a Teutonic fairy-tale, loses the delicacy of allegorical influence, which is felt with so much power in the others. 'The Fisherman and his Soul' is the tale that will longest be remembered, and, despite the unusual trammels which Mr. Wilde has imposed upon himself, in its motif the story remains a harmony of the most beautiful and fascinating simplicity. In it will be found specimens of the most forcible and picturesque prone ever given by its author. It is nowhere overloaded with that 'gorgeousness of jade and amethyst' which at times satiates the reader in Mr. Wilde's previous work; spices and oriental herbage are used sparingly, and the winds from the seas of the Fisherman bring only odours of salt shores.

The young sea-toiler loses his heart to a mermaid, who will not accept it while he possesses the human soul. Both Priest and Merchant scorn his desire to part with this thing which as he laments, 'I cannot see it, may not touch it, I do not know it'. A young witch, however, rids him of his encumbrance, but she sends it forth without a heart. It wanders to the east and to the south, and gains knowledge and riches unknown to man, which, on returning to its master, are offered in exchange for its old habitation; but to the Fisherman his love is greater than wealth or wisdom. A third time the Soul returns, and this time with the world's pleasures; the temptation is great. What matters it? says the Fisherman to his heart. I can come back to my love: and so to see the dancing feet of an Arab girl the briny home of the Titans is deserted. The Soul leads its master through sin and crime because it has been forced to wander without a Heart; and finally, overwhelmed at the blackness of his own Soul, the Fisherman returns to the shore of his love, where 'every morning he called to the mermaid, and every noon he called to her again, and at night time he spake her name', but she never came in answer to his call. The Soul mocked him, but he continued in his supplication, until one day the black waters arose in a storm, and brought his beloved to his feet, quite dead. The Fisherman clasped the cold form in his arms, and, his heart breaking, the angry sea lapped them both 'round. The proud anathemas of the priest were theirs, and the far corner of the Fuller's field their unmarked grave. On the anniversary of their death the prelate was to address his hearers upon the wrath of God. Arrayed in pontifical robes and exhibiting the monstrance, the odour of the white flowers on the altar troubled him, and to himself all unknown he spoke long and eloquently of God's Love. Upon inquiry, after the service, he found the strange flowers had been gathered from the far corner of the Fuller's field.

Oscar Wilde, in violent admiration of the cover of his latest book, A House of Pomegranates, says aesthetically: 'The artistic beauty of the cover of my book resides in the delicate tracing, arabesques, and massing of many coral-red lines on a ground of white ivory, the colour-effect culminating in certain high gilt notes, and being made still more pleasurable by the overlapping band of moss-green cloth that holds the book together'; then he delivers this dictum: 'A thing in Nature becomes much lovelier if it reminds us of a thing in Art, but a thing in Art gains no real beauty through reminding us of a thing in Nature'.

Mr. Oscar Wilde's little book of stories is capital. They are delightfully humorous, witty, and fresh, sparkling with good things, full of vivacity, and well put together. 'The Canterville Ghost' is a first-rate ghost story, told partly from the point of view of the ghost himself---a most refreshing novelty--and partly from that of the American family who have bought the ancestral home of the Cantervilles. 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' is a very good story, too, told in a vein of drollery which is quite distinctive. These two pieces will bear reading aloud, a decidedly severe test.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales', is a collection of fairy stories by Oscar Wilde. The stories, besides the one named, are 'The Nightingale and the Rose', 'The Selfish Giant, 'The Devoted Friend' and 'The Remarkable Rocket'. The stories are allegorical in style and well written, and are illustrated by Crane and Hood. Cloth, $1.50.

The frailest literary fabric, treated with the paradoxical brilliance and graceful epigram that this author has made entirely his own, could scarcely fail to find admiring readers of the class who prefer subtlety of style to a sensational motif. The story which occupies half the volume, and gives its name to it, is a whimsical satire on the follies of chiromancy [sic]. Lord Arthur Savile, having been told by a palmist that he is destined to commit a murder, resigns himself to his fate with considerable philosophy, determined to get the matter over with all possible despatch, in order that he may marry a lovely girl to whom he is engaged, without misgivings as to the future. The interest centres in his ineffectual attempts to give various acquaintances their quietus, until the irony of fate supplies him with a victim. The tendency of the tale is certainly immoral, or would be so if the writer were ever in earnest. 'The Sphinx without a Secret' and 'The Model Millionaire' are both delightful, and exhibit Mr. Wilde at his best. They deal with abnormal phases of human nature, which, though rare, are, nevertheless, actual. 'The Canterville Ghost' is a sort of intellectual squib, a fin de siècle ghost story, illustrating the hopeless utility of the age we live in, which robs even the supernatural of its mission.

Mr. Oscar Wilde and his coadjutors, Messrs. Ricketts and Shannon, have exhausted the resources of bizarre decoration in 'A House of Pomegranates', which being interpreted means a quartet of märchen. The book, clad in white linen, with peacocks and arabesques and all sorts of things, is printed on plate paper. Its four, principal illustrations, one for each tale, are executed in such very faint grisaille that even in strong daylight they are not easily decipherable, while artificial illumination makes the page look a blank. There is a profusion of head and tail pieces, often very pretty, not to mention occasional devices scattered over the, angles of the page and everywhere, The inevitable drawback of this sort of thing is that after it one comes to talk and think of the text as 'letterpress'. It says something for Mr. Wilde that his text is nearly if not quite good; enough to banish this injurious appellation from the reader's mind. The tales, dedicated collectively to the author's wife and individually to four other ladies---Lady Brooke, Mrs, Grenfell, the Princess of Monaco, and Miss Margot Lennant,---are, as we have said, märchen, stories of the kind which the Germans invented or resuscitated from its grave in medieval legends, stories with a dash of the supernatural, a strain of pathos, and a suspicion here and---there of persiflage. They are really good of their kind. The best is, we think, 'The Fisherman and his Soul', which is also the most elaborate. The fisherman parts with his soul (though not in the ordinary way) to gain a soulless mermaid, and joins it again only to find---that the mermaid keeps his heart. This is also the most original. 'The Infant's [sic] Birthday', in which a hideous little dwarf dies when he becomes conscious of his ugliness, is very [Hugonic?]. 'The two others, 'The Young King' and 'The Star Child', are nearer the common or Hans Andersen variety.

Mr. Oscar Wilde has a vocation. A more charming set of fairy stories will not easily be found than his four stories called A House of Pomegranates. It is full of Mr. Oscar Wilde's most happy imagery, and over all is cast the pathos and real kindliness which can be traced even in some books of Mr. Oscar Wilde which are less to our taste. Nothing can be prettier or more pathetic than tho first story of the set, 'The Young King', or more quaintly original than 'The Fisherman and his Soul', which, by the way, raises a scientific question as to whether a shadow can throw a shadow. If we wanted to pick holes, which is the last thing we desire, we should say the stories were almost too ethical. It is as if Mr. Oscar Wilde wished to teach us many things---notably the law of kindness and self-denial, and to enforce the lesson that to do wrong never produces either beauty or happiness. We hasten, however, to state that Mr. Oscar Wilde does not divorce beauty and goodness: If you are good you are beautiful, or, if he will not quite go that length, he insists on the reverse---that if you are bad you are ugly. In future it will be fair to try and read into the other works of Mr. Oscar Wilde the same teaching that is so impressed upon us in this most attractive set of stories. One word must be given to the adornment of the tales. The numerous woodcuts, rather of the style of Mr. Burne Jones, are always clever and sometimes graceful. As to the four photographs, if the fact that it requires not only a very clever person to understand them, but that this person must possess eyes of no common order to make them out, prove that the work is clever, let us at once accord that praise to them. The cover, inside and out, the print, and the margins leave nothing to be desired.

Oscar Wilde's 'A House of Pomegranates' is a queer production, queerly illustrated with very dim and indistinct cartoons of an aggravating unintelligibility. It is a collection of apologues, or fairy tales, or what you will. It is written in a kind of imitation of Biblical style, and it does not suggest or amount to much, however regarded.

Is A House of Pomegranates intended for a child's book? We confess that we do not exactly know. The ultra-aestheticism of the pictures seems unsuitable for children---as also the rather 'fleshly' style of Mr. Wilde's writing. The stories are somewhat after the manner of Hans Andersen---and have pretty poetic and imaginative flights like his; but then again they wander off too often into something between a 'Sinburnian' ecstasy and the catalogue of a high art furniture dealer. Children may be very much attached to bric-à-brac (though of this we have our doubts), but the more natural among them would certainly prefer Hansel and Grethel's sugar-house to any amount of Mr. Wilde's 'rich tapestries' and 'velvet canopies'. Would they not probably yawn over the following?—

The Countess d'Aulnoy's charming tales, it is true, abounded in sumptuary detail, but with her it formed the stage-scenery for her dwarfsand fairies. Again, Mr. Wilde's diction seems to us hardly suitable to children. Joys are 'fierce and fiery-coloured'; the King, watching his little daughter at play, thinks of her dead and embalmed mother, and (this unpleasant suggestion reminds us of Dorian Gray) 'the odours of strange spices, spices such as embalmers use, seemed to taint---or was it fancy?---the clear morning air'. Eyes are of all kinds: 'dark wood-land eyes', 'mauve-amethyst eyes', 'eyes of bossy gold'. A young boy spends a whole night 'in noting the effect of the moonlight on a silver statue of Endymion'. But all Mr. Wilde's stories, whether intended for children or not, have a deep meaning which 'he who runs may read'. This underlying allegory is their chief beauty. 'The Young King' touches on Socialistic economics; 'The Birthday of the Infanta' has a masterly touch of pathos; while 'The Fisherman and his Soul' is perhaps the most far-reaching and most elaborate effort. In this latter there are capital descriptions of the wonders of the sea, as good as some of those in Kingsley.

Sir,---I have just been sent from London a copy of the Pall Mall Gazette containing a review of my book, 'A House of Pomegranates'. The writer of this review makes a certain suggestion about my book which i beg you will allow me to correct at once. He starts by asking an extremely silly question, and that is whether or not I have written this book for the purpose of giving pleasure to the British child. Having expressed grave doubts on this subject, a subject on which I cannot conceive any fairly-educated person having any doubts at all, he proceeds, apparently quite seriously, to make the extremely limited vocabulary at the disposal of the British child the standard by which the prose of an artist is to be judged! Now in building this House of Pomegranates I had about as much intention of pleasing the British child as I had of pleasing the British public. Mamilius is as entirely delightful as Caliban is entirely detestable, but neither the standard of Mamilius nor the standard of Caliban is my standard. No artist recognizes any standard of beauty but that which is suggested by his own temperament. The artist seeks to realize in a certain material his immaterial idea of beauty, and thus to transform: an idea into an ideal. That is the way an artist makes things. That is why an artist makes things. The artist has no other object in making things. Does your reviewer imagine that Mr. Shannon, for instance, whose delicate and lovely illustrations he confesses himself quite unable to see, draws for the purpose of giving information to the blind ?---I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, Boulevard des Capucines, Paris. Oscar Wilde.

From Messrs James R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. we have a quaintly-bound and aesthetically-got-up book by Oscar Wilde, entitled A House of Pomegranates, This is the title, but the book has nothing about pomegranates. It consists of four very beautiful fairy tales----The Young King, The Birthday of the Infanta, The Fisherman and his Soul, and The Star Child. The only adjective to apply to these tales is charming. Their literary grace and poetic quality are irresistible, and the strange and wonderful designs and decorations by C. Ricketts and C. H. Shannon add a mystic and artistic interest to a beautiful book.

Mr. Oscar Wilde's numerous devotees will no doubt receive his new volume of allegories with enthusiasm, yet even they may perchance be puzzled to understand why he has named it 'A House of Pomegranates'. The tales, four in number, are for the most part charmingly written, especially 'The Fisherman and his Soul', which has much of the naive grace of the old German legends. As is often the case in the author's work, there is too much elaboration of detail and an absence of the ars celare artem, yet the stories are, without exception, marked by poetical feeling. Far less commendable are the illustrations by Messrs. C. Ricketts and C.H. Shannon. For the most part unsatisfactory, the wood-cuts are less so than the full-page illustrations, the latter being in some instances so indistinct as to be hardly comprehensible.

The straiter sect of Oscarians may perhaps shake their heads over Mr. Oscar Wilde's book, [of] reprint, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and Other Stories (London: Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co ...). Except in the description of Lord Arthur's bathroom and bath, the usual wildings of the author's fancy are for the most part absent; there are few derangements of epitaphs, and the whole, even when it is paradoxical, is paradoxical in a simple and straightforward kind of way. The topsy-turvifying in the first story, if insisted on a little too long---the great danger in all these things,---is not unfunny. Lord Arthur Savile, a young man of great beauty (and of more personal goodness than sometimes appertains to Mr, Wilde's young men of great beauty), is engaged (also a good sign) to a girl of marvellous loveliness, Suddenly he is told by a cheiromancer that he will commit a murder. Lord Arthur's high-souled chivalry concludes that it would be base to marry with this doom banging over him, and that the only thing to do is to put the marriage off and get the murder over. 'The unexpected difficulties which arise and the final success may be leftto the reader. The thing, of course, is not original: De Quincey, Champfleury, Mr. Stevenson, and others may claiin royalty on it; but it is fairly done. The other chief story, 'The Canterville Ghost', is a rather quaint combination of a burlesque and a bluette---of Mark Twain and Musaeus, The poor ghost passes into the possession of an American family, and finds all his wonted terrors frustrated by their unfeeling modernity. Yet he is 'laid' at last in the most authentic and romantic manner by Virginia, the daughter of the house. The other two stories, 'A Sphinx Without a Secret' and 'The Model Millionaire', are much slighter, but by no means bad of their kind, As an example of what Mr. Wilde's writing is like when mask and domino are off, the book is interesting.

The best ghost story is The Canterville Ghost, by Oscar Wilde.

The story which gives this little book its name is a piece of logico-whimsicality by Mr. Oscar W. S. Gilbert Wilde. Its subtitle is 'A Study in Duty', just as the subtitle of 'The Pirates of Penzance' was 'The Slave of Duty'. The hero of the opera committed piracy, the hero of the story commits murder, from a sense of duty. In both the author has an odd semblance of satirizing something--heaven only knows what. It is irony in the air---or rather in a vacuum---but it makes pleasant enough reading none the less. 'The Sphinx without a Secret' is a subject for a sketch by M. Oscar Ivanovitch Wilde-Turgueneff [sic], lt is a psychological study with the psychology Ieft out, 'The Canterville Ghost' is a skit on psychical research by Mr. O. A, Lang-Wilde--which accounts for its being a trifle langweilig. The author appears to have taken his inspiration from the following passage in ' The Tour to the Hebrides' : Boswed' Would not you, sir, start as Mr. Garrick does if you saw a ghost?' Johnson: 'I hope not. If I did, I should frighten the ghost'. The ' hylo-idealistic romance' (so the sub title runs) is very like 'In Castle Perilous', but not so amusing. The fourth and last story, entitled 'The Model Millionaire', is an edifying fairy tale by Herr Hans O. Andersen-Wilde. The moral is that if, on encountering a picturesque beggar, you find that you have only a sovereign and some coppers in your pocket, the prudent course is to give him the sovereign on the chance of his turning out to be Baron Hirsch in disguise. There is at least an even chance that he will employ your sovereign in disguising himself---in drink, But the generous soul will decline to dwell on such sordid contingencies. On the whole, the booklet may be commended as very pretty railway reading, for a short journey. It will carry you pleasantly as far as Hitchin; if you are going on to Peterborough, you had better lay in Tit Bits as well.

Mr. Oscar Wilde is about to follow the example of all who make a hit in the field of fiction. He is going to republish some short stories contributed to the magazines in the days when he was a more notorious but less famous man than he now is. The temptation profitably to get rid of one's early work is of course, very great, and it is seldom resisted. In the present case, the author has done his best to improve his youthful efforts by re-writing, re-casting and revising where necessary. Four stories have been deemed worthy of republication---'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime', 'The Canterville Ghost', 'The Sphinx secret and 'A Model Millionaire'. The first named story will give the volume its title. It will be published simultaneously in England and America.

THOUGH the public does not care much for short stories they continue to be published. The prolific Mr. Oscar Wilde obliges the town with his 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' (Osgood and McIlvaine), which need not detain us long, as indeed it does not long detain the reader. The right kind of student will enjoy no inconsiderable number of grins over Mr. Wilde's work, but the general reader will feel that he is being played with. There are times when a child could play with the general reader, his appetite for ' bob's vorths', doses of drivel at a shilling, is marvellous. Nobody knows why, out of a hundred shilling novels, perhaps one succeeds, while the others fail. Like mining ventures, the production of shilling novels is a perfect hazard,: Only one thing is certain, that the pure chaser does not like being trifled with when once he feels that he is not taken seriously. Now Mr. Wilde takes neither himself, nor his tales, nor the reader seriously, for which we would be the last to blame him. His first story, the 'Crime of Lord Arthur Savile', is a Bab Ballad, in prose, and writ large. It is an exercise in the topsy turvy, the humour of murder is the topic, and that might be left to De Quincy. Then there is a ghost of the broadly waggish kind, reminding us of other comic ghosts, but not to be favourably compared with the on of Mr. Anstey. The ghost story ends, unexpectedly, with a little sentiment. There is also two brief anecdotes; one of them was capable of being made more interesting. That is all, and the whole, though nicely printed, if not very filling at the price of one florin.

Mr. Wilde's little book is only one out of a crowd of new volumes containing brief tales. On the topic of such a a very great deal has been written of late, by critics, mainly by American critics. They speak of 'The Short Story' with deep solemnity, as if it were an important phenomenon in literature, like Tragedy, or Epic, or The Ode. Perhaps the subject is too seriously treated. There have always been differences of length in stories. Some people unfold their narrative in three volumes; some in six pages. In England, the public prefer long novels. The reason, probably, is that the attention of the reader needs only once to be fairly aroused in a long novel if the novel be readable at all. In a volume of a dozen short stories, on the other hand, the attention needs to be wakened up a dozen times, and this is fatiguing. Again, there be many authors who say that if once they have a good situation, al| good notion, they cannot afford to waste it in a few pages. Except for the manual labour they find it just as easy, and a great deal more remunerative, to fill three volumes. Thus novels; are written, and are read, on the lines oft least resistance. Some years ago Mr. FREDERICK BOYLE had a good notion, He published it as a short story, 'The Fetich City', and while it greatly impressed its readers, they were comparatively. few. Similar notions, worked out at length, were later vastly successful, and much in demand. We like body and substance and weight in a tale; we are not content with a suggestion, however admirable many of Mr. R. L. STEVENSON's short stories were excellent, but one man knows them, to twenty who know his more elaborate legends. We have, perhaps, only one modern English, or rather one Anglo-Indian author, whose brief narratives are really popular, and critics keep demanding a long one from him. Apparently, in England money and reputation can hardly be made by brevity. We have no Decameron and in our hearts privately we wonder at the fame of that collection. Hawthorne would be very little known if he were merely the author of 'Twice Told Tales' and of 'Mosses from an Old Manse'. By brief tales Poe indeed won a great reputation, but not an adequate income. As far as money-making goes, he was born too early. Were Poe living now, what a 'boom' he would enjoy and how great would be his price among the Magazines! He did not live long enough to be properly discovered, talked about, and advertised.

The reasons why short stories have not been so successful in Anglo-Saxon lands, as in the native country of the conte, are therefore sufficiently obvious. These reasons are likely to continue in force, Authors will be economical of their inventions, and the public of its attention and interest. Novels will be stuffed with padding, and will meander through three volumes. Our literary tastes will go on being leisurely. One can hardly fancy FIELDING at work on short stories, still less RICHARDSON. These great geniuses needed elbow room. SCOTT notably preferred plenty of space, though he wrote the best of all short stories, 'Wandering Willie's Tale', and others like 'The Tapestried Chamber' and 'The Laird's Jock', which were excellent. Given an anecdote as a nucleus or germ, and he produced a long romance Mr. KIPLING could have made an excellent conte of six pages out of the dark tradition of the STAIR family. SCOTT preferred to expand it into the 'Bride of Lammermoor', and the world has not regretted his choice. Out of the material of 'The Stolen Letter', Mr. WILKIE COLLINS would easily have spun 2 novel; out of 'The Gold Beetle', another author could have made 2 volume. The more lengthened narrative might have excelled the briefer in contemporary vogue: as to duration the shorter shape seems to have merits. It is, probably, much 2 matter of chance whether a given nucleus is cut down too conte, or expanded into a volume by M. GUY DE MAUPASSANT. In turning over HAWTHORNE'S Note-books we perceive that he could use his notions in either way, exactly as he happened to prefer. Round the essential persons, the essential idea, other ideas and persons rapidly group themselves. The central ides of Mr LEFANU's 'Uncle Silas' was originally an anecdote, and appeared in a brief tale. Afterwards a long romance crystallised around this centre. The question is whether more is lost or gained practically, and for the author's art, by letting the idea expand itself. Authors can decide this for themselves, in accordance with their genius and intellectual habits. In England and America they are likely to obey the law of gravitation, and move in the direction of the greater mass. It is plain, indeed, that they ere even too well disposed to do this, and to expand, or rather to dilute, a notion into three volumes; to offer a huge canvas, where a sketch would suffice. Young authors, beginners, would save themselves much disappointment by trying their skill in half a dozen pages, before trying to become voluminous. But they always ambitious of bigness, to their own sorrow, and in face of frequent rejections. There is always a mart for a feasible short story in the Magazines; there is not always a mart for a long novel of equal merit.

A rumour was spread abroad the other day that the great Oscar had cut his hair and donned the frock coat of respectability. This dainty little volume proves that with shearing of his locks his great strength---his wit and his humour---has not gone out of him. The stories are gems, but the dazzling facets are not too many; in short (as Mr Micawber used to say), the style is not, as of yore, overloaded with epigram. There are some pretty inventions scattered through the volume too. 'The inordinate passion for pleasure, which is the secret of remaining young', is not so good as 'women over lifesize', but it will pass; so will 'The proper basis for marriage is mutual misunderstanding', and 'The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast'. The title-tale, 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime', is saved by its humour from being a 'horrible'. The young man, who is about to be married, is told by a cheiromantiat that his hand indicates that he must murder a relative, and after a night of agony he 'sets about the jab, The details are a little gruesome, but there is unmistakable humour in the relation of his Lordship's failures, each of which necessitates a further postponement of his wedding; and the dénouement would be clever were if not that the victim who dress the murderers weird, unfortunately does net satisfy the conditions---he is not a relative; but the greatest novelists make slips like that. The tone of another of the stories is rollicking fun, with an undertone of somewhat cheap pathos. It relates the efforts of an American diplomatist and his family to lay a real ancestral, aristocratic, English ghost, and is most amusing. The Yankees take the phantom seriously but calmly, rub out his pet bloodstains with Pinkerton's Paragon Detergent, and offer him an equally efficacious lubricant for his chains. But the book is worth buying for the working out of the plot. One morsel demands quotation. Having expressed a dislike to America, the ghost is asked satirically if the reason is because America has no ruins and no 'curiosities. 'No ruins! No curiosities!' answered the spirit, 'you have your navy and your manners'.

Mr. Oscar Wilde is about to follow the example of all who make a hit the field of fiction. He is going to republish some short stories contributed to the magazines in the days when he was a more notorious but less famous man than he now is. The temptation profitably to get rid of one's early work is, of course, very great, and it is seldom resisted, In the present case the author has done his best to Improve his youthful efforts by rewriting, recasting and revising where necessary. Four stories have been deemed worthy of republication: 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime', 'The Canterville Ghost', 'The Sphinx Without a Secret' and 'A Model Millionaire'. The first-named story will give the volume its title. It will be published simultaneously in England and America.

Oscar Wilde, in 'The Happy Prince, and Other Tales', has quite a different character from the one that it is popular to give him. He appears as an idealist of tender and sympathetic feeling for whatever is good and elevating, a purist in the expression of censors and in style and with the taste and skill! to sustain him and an earnest worker, who is able to do much that is helpful in art, literature and life.

The tales included in the above title are excellent examples of strong and pure imagination and finished expression, and come nearly to the highest standard. They are addressed to children, but they are very interesting to all good readers on account of these qualities. In matter and illustration it is one of the best of holiday volumes. Waiter Crane and Jacomb Hood furnish beautiful drawings, which appear as full pages, headings and tail pieces. Boston, Roberts Brothers.

‘The Happy Prince, and other Tales’, a book of refinement without and within, will do something toward taking the taste out of the mouths of Americans who found Oscar Wilde with his mellifiluous gabble of esthetics a hard pill to swallow. These five short parables tell of things either good or true, and so, despite the fact that Mr. Wilde's tenderness and fervor are not always unaffected, and his humor not always easy and kind, the little book makes good reading for children in their thirties and will make an acceptable gift to those who do not know too much of Hans Andersen and Charles Kingsley. (Roberts Bros., Boston.)

The humour of Oscar Wilde's jeu d'esprit thus entitled (I vol.: J.R. Osgood) is of a very different order. As pure farce---and what can be better than farce at its best?---it deserves to live; for it is independent of passing circumstances, and is written with all the grave, simple, matter of fact seriousness which is more essential to farce than to tragedy. Nobody with the slightest sense of humour, or, for that matter, nobody with the strongest, can fail to enjoy the story of a man to whom murder presented itself in the light of a simple duty. It is worth all Mr. Wilde's serious work put together. The stories which follow are also excellent, and their author is to be congratulated on having introduced an entirely new and original ghost to the world---no slight feat in these days. But for its degeneration into sentiment, the story in which it appears would be almost as good in its way as that of 'Lord Arthur's Crime'.

It would seem to be a very difficult task to be original in fairy tales---harder, even, than in most 'walks of literature', where, as Emerson reminded us, 'everything has been said before'. To write an original story for children---which shall at the same time be readable and amusing---the author of ' Alice in Wonderland ' has, perhaps, attained nearest, ir this generation, to that ideal of perfection. But Mr. Oscar Wilde, if he echoes Hans Andersen, echoes him very pleasantly. 'These five tales are all cleverly told, and contain some pretty flights of imagination, many quaint conceits, and plenty of smart sayings. If it was Andersen's one fault that he soared occasionally above the children's heads, no one will be inclined to blame Mr. Oscar Wilde for that---for is it not the fashion of the present day to write neither exclusively for children nor for 'grownups', but for both (or neither)? The stories have 'a moral', not & la Mrs. Sherwood, but daintily hidden, for, as Mr. Wilde makes a duck say to a linnet (in a tale called 'The Devoted Friend'), 'to tell a story with a moral is always a very dangerous thing to do'. 'Every good story-teller', a waterrat goes on to inform us, 'now-a-days starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle, That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pond with a young man, He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, and whenever the young man made any remark he always answered, 'Pooh!' A recipe is given for friendship in the same story, 'A true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good'. Mr, Oscar Wilde is rather severe on young ladies of the present day. Here is an extract from the first story, 'The Happy Prince': ' A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. 'How wonderful the stars are;' he said to her, 'and how wonderfal is the power of love!' 'I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State ball', she answered; 'I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy. ' A student listening to a nightingale, pulls a note-book and a lead pencil out of his pocket. 'She has form', be said to himself; 'has she got feeling? Tam afraid not; in fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity... , Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice, What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good!' It would be a shame to extract any more of the plums with which this little volume is filled, The book is very prettily got up, and the illustrations are by Mr. Walter Crane and Mr. Jacomb Hood. The author of the 'Baby's Opera' is, we need not say, an ideal illustrator of fairy tales; and some of the children in Mr. Jacomb Hood's vignettes seem to have stepped out of his pretty picture in this year's Grosvenor, Indeed, if we are not mistaken, one of the vignettes is a sketch of the leading group in that composition.

By Oscar WILDE. With three Full-Page Plates and 11 Vignettes by WALTER CRANE and Jacomb Hood, 116 pp., small 4to, old-faced type, on cream-laid paper with wide margins, Japanese vellum covers, printed in red and black, 5s.

There is a glut of description and epithet in Mr. Oscar Wilde's book of fairy tales which leaves the reader with a strong sense of having fed on lucent syrup tinct with cinnamon, and baring bad too much of it. No language can compare with it except Ouida's when she is giving an inventory of the properties environing one of her heroines. Few basal ideas in fairy stories can bear this treatment; certainly not Mr. Wilde's. To make matters worse, he has chosen to relate them in a style paraphrasing Scripture, which gives to the whole the air of complexity aping simplicity without success. The weird decorations sown with studied carelessness among the margins heighten this effect, as do also the medieval illustrations and the Grosvenor-Gallery covers Mr. Wilde seems, on the whole, to have taken his stories something over-solemnly. In a less ostentatious se ting [sic], certain really poetic ideas found floating about in the volume would have gone further towards redeeming the inconsequent and spasmodic construction. The descriptions, in the opening story, of the weaving of the King's robe 'on the loom of Sorrow and by the white hands of Pain', 'the blood in the heart of the Raby, and Death in the heart of be Pearl', have shuddering force, and are among the few things in the book that leave an afterglow in the mind.

Four tales in antique and with curious embellishments. Indeed, everything is pleasing about the volume except the plates, which are dim and unfinished-looking.