Of the few letters Wilde wrote to the press, those addressed to Whistler I have included with greater misgiving than anything else in this volume.  They do not seem to me more amusing than those to which they were the intended rejoinders.  But the dates are significant.  Wilde was at one time always accused of plagiarising his ideas and his epigrams from Whistler, especially those with which he decorated his lectures, the accusation being brought by Whistler himself and his various disciples.  It should be noted that all the works by which Wilde is known throughout Europe were written after the two friends quarrelled.  That Wilde derived a great deal from the older man goes without saying, just as he derived much in a greater degree from Pater, Ruskin, Arnold and Burne-Jones.  Yet the tedious attempt to recognise in every jest of his some original by Whistler induces the criticism that it seems a pity the great painter did not get them off on the public before he was forestalled.  Reluctance from an appeal to publicity was never a weakness in either of the men.  Some of Wilde’s more frequently quoted sayings were made at the Old Bailey (though their provenance is often forgotten) or on his death-bed.

As a matter of fact, the genius of the two men was entirely different.  Wilde was a humourist and a humanist before everything; and his wittiest jests have neither the relentlessness nor the keenness characterising those of the clever American artist.  Again, Whistler could no more have obtained the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek, nor have written The Importance of Being Earnest, nor The Soul of Man, than Wilde, even if equipped as a painter, could ever have evinced that superb restraint distinguishing the portraits of ‘Miss Alexander,’ ‘Carlyle,’ and other masterpieces.  Wilde, though it is not generally known, was something of a draughtsman in his youth.  I possess several of his drawings.

A complete bibliography including all the foreign translations and American piracies would make a book of itself much larger than the present one.  In order that Wilde collectors (and there are many, I believe) may know the authorised editions and authentic writings from the spurious, Mr. Stuart Mason, whose work on this edition I have already acknowledged, has supplied a list which contains every genuine and authorised English edition.  This of course does not preclude the chance that some of the American editions are authorised, and that some of Wilde’s genuine works even are included in the pirated editions.

I am indebted to the Editors and Proprietors of the Queen for leave to reproduce the article on ‘English Poetesses’; to the Editor and Proprietors of the Sunday Times for the article entitled ’Art at Willis’s Rooms’; and to Mr. William Waldorf Astor for those from the Pall Mall Gazette.

ROBERT ROSS

THE TOMB OF KEATS