Oscar Wilde Part 25

FICTION

That the gift of composing beautiful verse and the ability to write gracefully and wittily in prose does not of necessity enable an author to produce good fiction, is a truism that requires no elaboration. That the novelist should possess style is a _sine qua non_--that is, if his novels are to take their place as works of art and not merely achieve an ephemeral success amongst the patrons of circulating libraries--but to achieve distinction in the field of romance many other qualities are requisite. To begin with, the story must be of sufficient interest to hold the attention of the reader, the dialogue must be brisk and to the point, and the delineation of character--a gift in itself--lifelike and convincing.

Whether Oscar Wilde would, had his life been prolonged, have ever achieved success in this branch of literature is one of those vexed questions which may well be left to those speculative persons who love to discuss "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and other unfinished works of fiction. That he was endowed with an extraordinarily vivid imagination and that his versatility was marvellous are factors that no one should neglect to take into account when considering the matter. His own contributions to fiction are so few that they afford very little data to go upon. They consist of "The Picture of Dorian Gray," published in 1890; "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime"; "The Incomparable and Ingenious History of Mr W. H., being the true secret of Shakespeare's Sonnets, now for the first time here fully set forth," the ma.n.u.script of which, after pa.s.sing through the hands of Messrs Elkin Mathews and John Lane, publishers, who had announced the work as being in preparation, has been unaccountably lost, although it is known that it was returned to the author's house on the very day of his arrest. An article in _Blackwood's Magazine_ alone enables us to gather some idea of the last work. Then we have three short stories--"The Sphinx without a Secret," "The Canterville Ghost," "The Model Millionaire," which complete the list of Wilde's fiction in the limited sense of the word.

A careful study of these remains must lead to the inevitable conclusion that, so far as we can judge by these more or less fragmentary specimens, Wilde's _forte_ was not fiction. He can in no sense be regarded as a novelist, certainly not as an exponent of modern fiction.

The pieces are brilliantly clever, gemmed with paradoxes and quaint turns of thought, but they are not fiction in the accepted sense of the word. Works of imagination, yes, but "fiction," no. That he was a graceful allegorist n.o.body can deny, but that his work in this other field of letters was great is never for a moment to be even suggested.

He used fiction as a means of introducing his curiously topsy-turvy views of life, but his characters are mere puppets, strange creatures with unreal names, without any particular personality or especially characteristic features, who enunciate the author's views and opinions.

In a preface to "Dorian Gray," when it was published in book form, Oscar Wilde himself confirms this view--"The highest and the lowest form of criticism," he tells us, "is a mode of autobiography." That he himself believed in the artistic value of his story is evident from the series of brilliant aphorisms which const.i.tute the preface.

When in July, 1890, there appeared in an American magazine the fantastic story of "Dorian Gray" an astonished public rubbed its eyes and wondered whether all its previous theories as to this cla.s.s of work had been absolutely false and should henceforth be discarded like a garment that has gone out of fas.h.i.+on.

The story provoked a storm of criticism which, for the most part, only served to increase the sale of the magazine in which it appeared. In answer to his critics the author contented himself with the dictum that "Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital." Whether "The Picture of Dorian Gray" possessed these three essential qualities is a question which may best be answered by giving a short _resume_ of the story itself. Basil Hallward, a young artist who, some years previously, had caused a great sensation by his disappearance, has painted a full-length portrait of a young man of "extraordinary personal beauty." In conversation with Lord Henry Wotton, who is visiting the studio, he inadvertently reveals that it is the portrait of Dorian Gray, and alleges as his reason for not exhibiting the picture that he has put too much of himself into it; and, pressed for an explanation, he tells the story of his meeting the original of the painting at a Society function, and how deeply he had been impressed by his extraordinary personality. He experiences a "curious artistic idolatry" for the young man, and as they are discussing him the servant announces "Mr Dorian Gray." We then get a word-picture of this interesting young man, we are told that there was something in his face which made you trust him, that it was full of the candour of youth and pa.s.sionate purity. During the sitting that follows, Lord Henry enunciates his views of life, and his words leave a deep impression on his youthful auditor. Dorian's acquaintance with Lord Henry soon ripens into friends.h.i.+p, and he confides to his friend that he has fallen deeply in love with Sybil Vane, a young actress he has accidentally discovered in an East End playhouse.

Late upon the same night on which the confidence was made Lord Henry finds, on his return home, a telegram from Dorian Gray announcing his engagement to the object of his affections. We are next introduced to Sybil's shabby home in the Euston Road; to her mother, a faded, tired-looking woman with bis.m.u.th-whitened hands, and to her brother, a young lad with a thick-set figure, rough brown hair and large hands and feet "somewhat clumsy in movement." The faded beauty of the elder woman and her theatrical gestures and manners are deftly touched upon. The son, whom we learn is about to seek his fortune in Australia, goes with his sister for a walk in the park, and their talk is all of her love for Dorian, of which he does not approve. Sybil catches sight of her lover, but before she can point him out to her brother he is lost to sight.

They return home; the lad's heart is filled with jealousy, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed to him, had come between him and his sister. Downstairs he startles his mother with a sudden question--"Were you married to my father?" The woman had been dreading the question for years, but she answers it in the negative, and tells him that his parent was a gentleman and highly connected, but not free to marry her. In the meanwhile, Lord Henry and Basil are discussing the proposed marriage in the private room of a fas.h.i.+onable restaurant, and presently they are joined by Dorian himself, who takes part in the discussion, till it is time for them to go to the theatre.

His two friends are delighted with the beauty of his _fiancee_, but her acting is below mediocrity, and the boy, who has seen her act really well on previous occasions, is terrible disconcerted.

Later, in the green-room, Sybil explains the reason of this falling off.

She is quite candid about it: she tells him she will never act well again, because he has transfigured her life, and that acting, which had before been a matter of reality to her, had become a hollow sham, and that she can no longer mimic a pa.s.sion that burns her like fire.

Flinging himself down on a seat, Dorian exclaims, "You have killed my love," and after an impa.s.sioned tirade answers his own question of "What are you now?" with "A third-rate actress with a pretty face." In vain she pleads for his love; he leaves her telling her that he can never see her again, for she has disappointed him. When, after wandering aimlessly about all night, he returns home, he is suddenly conscious of a change in the portrait Basil had painted of him. The expression is different, and there are lines of cruelty round the mouth, though he can trace no such lines in his own face.

"Suddenly, there flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the day the picture had been finished.... He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young and the portrait grow old, that his own beauty might be untarnished and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his pa.s.sions and his sins." He is struck with remorse for his cruelty to Sybil, and by the time Lord Henry comes to see him has determined to atone for it by marrying her, but it is too late. He learns from his friend's lips that Sybil has committed suicide in the theatre shortly after he had left her.

He spends the evening at the opera with Lord Henry Wotton, and his sister, Lady Gwendolen. When, next day, he mentions this to Basil the latter is horrified, but Dorian is perfectly callous and is inclined to be flattered by the fact that the girl should have committed suicide for love of him.

Basil wishes to look at the picture, which he intends to exhibit in Paris, and before which Dorian has placed a screen, but the latter will not let him see it, and the former presently goes away greatly puzzled by the refusal. When he is gone Dorian sends for a framemaker, and gets him and his a.s.sistant to remove the draped picture to a disused room in his house, having previously sent his man out with a note to Lord Henry in order to get him out of the way. Having dismissed the framemaker and his a.s.sistant, he carefully locks the door of the room and retains the key. When he comes down, he finds that Lord Henry has sent him a paper containing an account of the inquest on Sybil, and an unhealthy French book which fascinates whilst it repels him, and the influence of which he cannot shake off for years after.

Time pa.s.ses, but the hero of the story shows no signs of growing older, nor does he lose his good looks. Meanwhile, the most evil rumours as to his mode of life are in circulation. We learn that he is in the habit of frequenting, disguised and under an a.s.sumed name, a little ill-famed tavern near the docks, and we are given a long a.n.a.lysis of his mental and spiritual condition, whilst his various idiosyncrasies are carefully recorded, and we are insensibly reminded of the surroundings invented for himself by the hero of Huysman's "A Rebours."

All the while, the picture remains hidden away, a very skeleton in the cupboard. Dorian Gray is nearly blackballed for a West End Club, Society looks askance at him, and there are all sorts of ugly rumours current as to his doings and movements.

One night he meets Hallward, who wants to talk to him about his mode of life. The painter enumerates all the scandalous stories he has heard about him; he ends up by expressing a doubt whether he really knows his friend. To do so, he says, he should have to see his soul. "You shall see it yourself to-night," Dorian exclaims, "it is your handiwork," and, holding a lamp, he takes him up to the locked room, and removes the drapery from the picture. An exclamation of horror breaks from the painter as he perceives the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him.

It fills him with loathing and disgust, and he has difficulty in believing it to be his own work. Dorian is seized with an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for his friend, and, seizing a knife lying on a chest, stabs him in the neck and kills him. After the murder he locks the door, and goes quietly downstairs. He slips out into the street closing the front door very gently, and rings the bell. When his valet opens it he explains that he had left his latchkey indoors, and casually inquires the time, which the man informs him is ten minutes past two.

The next day Dorian sends for a former friend of his, Alan Campbell, whose hobby is chemistry, and after telling him of the murder, begs him by some chemical process to destroy the body. Alan refuses to help him.

Dorian then writes something upon a piece of paper and gives it to the other to read. Alan is terror-struck and consents to do what is required of him, though reluctantly. When later, provided with the necessary chemicals, they enter the locked room, Dorian perceives that the hands of the picture are stained with blood.

He dines out that night, and when he returns home he provides himself with some opium paste he keeps locked up in a secret drawer, and having dressed himself in rough garments makes his way to the docks. He enters an opium den, but the presence of a man who owes his downfall to him irritates him, and he decides to go to another. A woman greets him with the t.i.tle "Prince Charming" (the name Sybil had given him), and on hearing it a sailor gets up from his seat and follows him. In a dim archway he feels himself seized by the throat and sees a revolver pointed at his head. Briefly, his a.s.sailant tells him that he is Sybil's brother, and that he means to avenge his sister's death. A sudden inspiration comes to Dorian and he inquires of the man how long it is since his sister died. "Eighteen years," is the answer, and Gray triumphantly exclaims "Look at my face." He is dragged under a lamp, and at sight of the youthful face Sybil's brother is convinced that he has made a mistake. Hardly has Dorian gone, when the woman who had called him Prince Charming comes up, and from her the sailor learns that in eighteen years Dorian has not altered.

Dorian goes down to his country house, where he entertains a large party of guests, though all the while he lives in deadly terror lest Sybil's brother should trace him. During a _battue_ a man is accidentally shot by one of Dorian's guests. It is at first thought that the victim of the accident is one of the beaters but it turns out to be a stranger, a seafaring man presumably. Dorian goes to look at the body, and to his intense relief finds that the dead man is his a.s.sailant of some nights back.

Back in London one night Dorian Gray determines that he will reform, and, curious to see whether his good resolutions have had any effect on the portrait, he goes up to look at it. No, it still bears the same repulsive look, and in a rage he stabs at it with the knife with which he had murdered Basil. A loud agonised cry rings through the house, and when the servants at last make their way into the room they find hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, while lying on the floor with a knife through his heart was a dead man "withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage," whom they could only identify by the rings on his fingers.

Such, shorn of all its brilliant dialogue and exquisite descriptive pa.s.sages, is the story of "The Portrait of Dorian Gray," in its bald outlines. As an imaginative work it must rank high, and in spite of the fantastic character of the plot and its inherent improbability, it exercises a weird fascination over us as we read. That its author (more even in the treatment than in the plot) was inspired by Balzac's incomparable "Peau de Chagrin" is beyond question. In the one story we have a man purchasing a piece of s.h.a.green skin inscribed with Sanskrit characters which, as each of its possessor's desires are gratified, by its shrinkage marks a diminution in the span of his life. In the other, whilst the original man remains outwardly unchanged, his portrait ages with the years and reveals in its features all the pa.s.sions and sins that gradually transform his nature. In both cases the story ends in tragedy.

The colouring of the tale is one of its most remarkable features. In pa.s.sages of rare beauty Oscar Wilde gives us descriptions of jewels and perfumes, rare tapestries and quaint musical instruments. The catalogue of the jewels as set out by him deserves to be quoted for the marvellous knowledge of precious stones it reveals as well as for the exquisite description of them.

"He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in the cases the various stones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver, the pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous four-rayed stars, flame-red cinnamon stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with the alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red-gold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise _de la vicille roche_ that was the envy of all connoisseurs."

It may here be pointed out, though the fact is not generally known, that Wilde's knowledge of tapestry which, at first sight, seems so profound, was obtained from Lefebure's "History of Embroidery and Lace," a book which he had reviewed in an article having for t.i.tle "A Fascinating Book." It is interesting to compare an extract from that article with a pa.s.sage from the review under discussion:

"Where was the great crocus-coloured robe, on which the G.o.ds fought against the giants, that had been worked for Athena? Where the huge velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, on which were represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by white gilt-reined steeds? He longed to see the curious table-napkins wrought for Elagabalus, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast; the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden bees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus, and were figured with 'lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters,--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature'; and the coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song beginning '_Madame je suis tout joyeux_,' the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four pearls. He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy, and was decorated with 'thirteen hundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the king's arms and five hundred and sixty-one b.u.t.terflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked in gold.' Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of black velvet powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it stood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black velvet upon cloth of silver. Louis XIV. had gold-embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with verses from the Koran. Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully chased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. It had been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of Mohammed had stood under it."

"Where is the great crocus-coloured robe that was wrought for Athena, and on which the G.o.ds fought against the giants? Where is the huge velarium that Nero stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by steeds? How one would like to see the curious table-napkins wrought for Heliogabalus, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast; or the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden bees; or the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus, and were embroidered with 'lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters--all, in fact, that painters can copy from nature.' Charles of Orleans had a coat, on the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song, beginning 'Madame, je suis tout joyeux,' the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, and each note (of square shape in those days) formed with four pearls. The room prepared in the palace at Rheims for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy was decorated with 'thirteen hundred and twenty-one _papegauts_ (parrots) made in broidery and blazoned with the King's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one b.u.t.terflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with the Queen's arms--the whole worked in fine gold.'

Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her 'of black velvet embroidered with pearls and powdered with crescents and suns.' Its curtains were of damask, 'with leafy wreaths and garlands figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls,' and it stood in a room hung with rows of the Queen's devices in cut black velvet on cloth of silver. Louis XIV. had gold-embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high in his apartments. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises and pearls, with verses from the Koran; its supports were of silver-gilt, beautifully chased and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. He had taken it from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of Mahomet had stood under it."

Wilde, who at times was extremely indolent, had an amiable weakness for using the material at hand, and throughout his writings we find whole lines of verse and prose sentences reappearing in work produced at another period. It is the same with the epigrams in "Dorian Gray," most of which were subsequently transferred, bodily, to his plays. During his travels in Italy, as I have already pointed out, he had been enormously impressed by the stately ceremonials of the Catholic Church, and in this book he uses his opportunity of introducing the ornate and sumptuous vestments worn at her services. Dorian Gray, he tells us, "had a special pa.s.sion also for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed he had for everything connected with the service of the Church. In the long cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house he had stored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purples and jewels and fine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by the suffering that she seeks for, and wounded by self-inflicted pain. He had a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask, figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the pineapple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided into panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the coronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood. This was Italian work of the fifteenth century.

Another cope was of green velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves, from which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which were picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals. The morse bore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work. The orphreys were woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with medallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St Sebastian.

He had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold brocades, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with representation of the Pa.s.sion and Crucifixion of Christ, and embroidered with lions and peac.o.c.ks and other emblems; dalmatics of white satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins and _fleurs de lys_; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and many corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria."

It may also be noted here that a couple of chapters, those dealing with Sybil's home and the death of her brother, were not written till the story appeared in book form, and a certain extra number of words were required to make the volume of the requisite bulk; so must writers submit to the inexorable demands of publishers who measure work not by its merit but by a footrule.

The dialogue throughout the tale sparkles with brilliant epigrams, and this is all the more notable when we remember that the story was written in a hurry, when the author was hard pressed for money, is more or less a piece of hack work, and that whole pages were written in at the behest of the publisher, who, like a customer at the baker's demanding the make-weight which the law allows him, was clamouring for more "copy."

Nothing could be more felicitous than "young people imagine that money is everything ... and when they grow older they know it"; and, "to be good is to be in harmony with oneself." And characteristic of that Epicurean pose that the author delighted in is the paradoxical dictum that "a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied." Likewise essentially characteristic of the man and his extraordinary, topsy-turvy views of life is, "There is a fatality about good resolutions--that they are always made too late," or "Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

Some of the epigrams are as biting as a _Sat.u.r.day Review_ article, in the old days, as for instance, this description of a certain frail dame--"She is still _decolletee_, and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an _edition de luxe_ of a bad French novel." Could anything be more pithy or more brilliantly sarcastic? It is of this same lady that the remark is made, "When her third husband died, her hair turned quite golden from grief."

But one could go on for ever, and I have quoted enough to ill.u.s.trate the wittiness of the dialogue, and, as the author himself lays down, "Enough is as good as a meal." And there, by the way, we have an ill.u.s.tration of how cleverly Wilde could transform the commonest saws by the alteration or the transposition of a word, even sometimes by the inversion of a sentence into what, at the first flush, appeared to be highly original and brilliant sayings. By the subst.i.tution of the word "meal" for "feast" we fail to recognise the old homely saying, and are ready, until we consider it more closely, to receive it as a new and witty idea neatly embodied. It is a _truc de metier_, but one that requires a clever workman to use properly, as anyone can make sure of by glancing through the bungling work of the majority of his imitators.

In "Dorian Gray," Wilde gives free play to his ever-present longing to utter the _dernier cri_, to avoid all that was _vieux jeu_, and to fill with horror and amazement the souls of the stodgy _bourgeoisie_. That he succeeded in doing so merely proves that the _bourgeoisie_ are stodgy, not that the author has erred from the canons of art and good taste.

His short stories are all written in a lighter vein--we peruse them as we eat a plover's egg, and with the same relish and appreciation. They are things of gossamer, but gossamer will oft survive more solid material, and has the supreme quality of delicacy.

"Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" deals with that n.o.bleman's anxiety to commit the murder a cheiromantist has predicted he will perpetrate, and to get the matter over before he marries the girl to whom he is engaged.

His two successive failures and his final drowning of the hand-reading fortune-teller is conceived in the best spirit of comedy, and provokes a gentle continuous ripple of amus.e.m.e.nt as we read it. The same may be said of "The Sphinx without a Secret," and "The Canterville Ghost,"

whereas the "Model Millionaire" is simply a pretty story wittily told.

The whole plot is summed up in its concluding lines "Millionaire models are rare enough ... but model millionaires are rarer still."

But, incomparably, Wilde's best work in fiction is the "Portrait of Mr W. H." as the _Blackwood_ article is headed. After reading it our regret becomes all the more poignant that the complete MS. of the book should have so unaccountably disappeared. Correctly speaking, the story is hardly a work of fiction, or, at anyrate, the fiction is so slight as to be hardly deserving of criticism, and is a mere medium for the exposition of a theory. The teller of the story is in a friend's rooms, and the talk drifts on to literary forgeries. The friend (Erskine) shows him a portrait-panel of a young man in late sixteenth-century costume, and proceeds to tell him his story. A young friend of his had discovered what he considered a clue to the ident.i.ty of the Mr W. H. of Shakespeare's Sonnets, the only hitch being the difficulty of proving that the young actor to whom he a.s.serted his poems were written, ever existed. He shortly afterwards produced a panel-portrait of the young man which he had, as he alleged, discovered clamped to the inside of an old chest picked up by him at a Warwicks.h.i.+re farmhouse. This final proof quite convinced Erskine of the genuineness of the discovery, and it was not till an accidental visit to a friend's studio that the fact of the panel being a forgery was revealed to him. He taxes the discoverer of the clue with it and the latter commits suicide. The writer of the story is so impressed with the various proofs that Erskine has laid before him that, in spite of that latter's utter scepticism as to the existence of any such person as the dead man evolved from the Sonnets themselves, he completes the researches on his own account. But the moment he has sent off a detailed account of the result of his investigations to Erskine, he himself is filled with an utter disbelief in the accuracy of the conclusions derived from them. Erskine, on the other hand, is once more converted by his letter to his dead friend's theory.

Two years later the writer receives a letter from Erskine written from Cannes stating that, like the discoverer of the clue, he has committed suicide for the sake of a theory which he leaves to his friend as a sacred legacy stained with the blood of two lives. The writer rushes off to the Riviera only to find his friend dead, and to receive from his mother the ill-starred panel.

The story ends with a true Wilde touch, for in a conversation with the doctor who had attended him, he learns that Erskine had died of consumption and had never committed suicide at all.

So much for the setting, which is quite unimportant. The real matter of moment is, that the _Blackwood_ article is a really very valuable contribution to the controversy as to the ident.i.ty of the mysterious Mr W. H.

It will be remembered that the Sonnets were first issued in book form in 1609, by a sort of piratical bookseller of those days, called Thames Thorpe who, on his own responsibility, prefixed the edition with a dedication--"To the only-begotten of these insuing sonnets, Mr W. H., all happinesse and that eternite promised by our ever living poet wisheth the well wis.h.i.+ng adventurer in setting forth. T. T." Round the ident.i.ty of this W. H. there has long raged an ardent controversy. Most of the commentators have rushed to the conclusion that he must be the person to whom the Sonnets are addressed. Some have attempted to identify him as Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton (the initials being reversed), who is known to have been an early patron of the poet, others without much apparent reason have a.s.sumed that the W. H. in question was none other than William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. The most probable theory is undoubtedly that of Mr Henry Lee, that the dedication is entirely Thorpe's own, that it has nothing whatever to do with Shakespeare or the inspirer of the poet, and that it was meant for William Hall, a sort of literary intermediary. In confirmation of this he adduces the undoubted fact that Thorpe had, at anyrate, once previously dedicated a work to its "begotten."

One point is established almost beyond dispute--viz. that the first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man and the remainder refer to a "dark woman" who, after having bewitched the author, casts her spell over his young friend and estranges the two.

A counter-theory is that Shakespeare's selection of the sonnet, "that puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic composition," as Byron calls it, as a medium for his muse, is that he was experimenting in the style of writing which had become the fas.h.i.+on in England between the years 1591 and 1597.

Wilde's history is a totally new one, and deserves close examination.

Given that it could be proved that the young actor to whom he maintains the Sonnets were addressed ever had a real existence, and the matter would be as good as proved, but that is the weak point in his armour.