After early dinner, the time is passed pleasantly in reading Ruskin to his two youngsters; after that more literary work, a light supper, a glass of grog and bed-time. But not always rest! Often, his good lady tells me, has she woken at three or four in the morning to find her husband still sitting up in bed or pacing up and down the bedroom in parturition of that same joke of which he sketched for her the outline as they were retiring to rest. Yes, and it is in this indomitable perseverance, this infinite capacity for taking pains, this “grit,” as they call it in the North, that lies Mr. Wilde’s secret. True that the whole body of his signed works is very small――a book of parodies upon Rossetti, a few fairy-tales in the manner of Hans Anderson, an experimental novel in the style of Poe, a volume of essays, which Mr. Pater is often obliged blushingly to repudiate, a French play written in collaboration with Mr. Louÿs and one or two English ones in collaboration with Mr. G. R. Sims. But surely we must judge an artist, not so much by his achievement as by his methods of procedure and though such a story as the The Theory of Mr. W. S. (I came across a copy of it lately at an old book-stall in Vigo Street) occupied only the extreme middle of no more than forty pages, the author has given me his word that it took him six months hard unremitting labour to complete. After all, it is not so much as a literary man that Posterity will forget Mr. Wilde, as in his old capacity of journalist. The visit to America, that is still so fresh in the old gentleman’s memory, doubtless influenced his style in no small degree and many an old pressman can testify to the great vivacity and humour of their colleague, though they may envy the indomitable vitality which enables one so far past his meridian to continue “producing.” Perhaps the most startling feature of his career was the manner in which, putting his broad shoulder to the wheel, he was able so late in life to strike out into dramatic writing――a branch that he had never till then attempted. When Mr. Sydney Cooper contributed to the last Academy but one a picture of a hunt scene, everyone was surprised, but that Oscar Wilde should have written a four act play and got it produced by a London manager, fairly beat all records of senile enterprises. We critics were really touched and――who will blame us for it?――agreed to withhold those criticisms which we should otherwise have been forced to make upon the production. It was a pretty occasion and anyone who was present, as I was at the first night, will look back with affection at its memory. The play itself a chapter of reminiscences――the audience good natured and respectful――the hearty calls of “Author”――and finally his appearance before the curtain, bowing with old fashioned grace to the Public, whom he has served so faithfully. Those of us who had known him in the old days, observed that he seemed for the moment dazed and noted