A Critic in Pall Mall Being Extracts from Reviews and Miscellanies   By: Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

BEING EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS AND MISCELLANIES

BY OSCAR WILDE

METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON

First Published in 1919

This selection has been made by Mr. E. V. LUCAS

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE TOMB OF KEATS 1 KEATS’S SONNET ON BLUE 4 DINNERS AND DISHES 8 SHAKESPEARE ON SCENERY 10 ‘HENRY THE FOURTH’ AT OXFORD 15 A HANDBOOK TO MARRIAGE 18 TO READ OR NOT TO READ 21 THE LETTERS OF A GREAT WOMAN 22 BÉRANGER IN ENGLAND 27 THE POETRY OF THE PEOPLE 29 ‘THE CENCI’ 32 BALZAC IN ENGLISH 34 BEN JONSON 37 MR. SYMONDS’ HISTORY OF THE RENAISSANCE 39 MR. MORRIS’S ‘ODYSSEY’ 44 RUSSIAN NOVELISTS 48 MR. PATER’S ‘IMAGINARY PORTRAITS’ 51 A GERMAN PRINCESS 55 ‘A VILLAGE TRAGEDY’ 63 MR. MORRIS’S COMPLETION OF THE ‘ODYSSEY’ 65 MRS. SOMERVILLE 70 ARISTOTLE AT AFTERNOON TEA 76 EARLY CHRISTIAN ART IN IRELAND 81 MADAME RISTORI 85 ENGLISH POETESSES 91 VENUS OR VICTORY 101 M. CARO ON GEORGE SAND 105 A FASCINATING BOOK 108 HENLEY’S POEMS 123 SOME LITERARY LADIES 129 POETRY AND PRISON 143 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO WALT WHITMAN 146 IRISH FAIRY TALES 152 MR. W. B. YEATS 158 MR. YEATS’S ‘WANDERINGS OF OISIN’ 160 MR. WILLIAM MORRIS’S LAST BOOK 162 SOME LITERARY NOTES 167 MR. SWINBURNE’S ‘POEMS AND BALLADS’ (Third Series) 173 A CHINESE SAGE 177 MR. PATER’S ‘APPRECIATIONS’ 187 SENTENTIAE 194

THE TOMB OF KEATS ( Irish Monthly , July 1877.)

As one enters Rome from the Via Ostiensis by the Porta San Paolo, the first object that meets the eye is a marble pyramid which stands close at hand on the left.