Before we leave the _Morte d’Arthur_, and the difficulties with Beardsley in which it ended, let us remember that artists and authors are often prone to ingratitude towards those who have led their steps to the ladder of Fame--and Beardsley was no exception. It was J. M. Dent who opened the gates for Beardsley to that realm which was to bring him the bays. Had it not been for Dent he would have died with his song wholly unsung--there would have been for him no _Studio_ “réclame,” no _Yellow Book_, no _Salome_, no _Savoy_. Dent, employing with rare vision the budding genius of the youth, brought forth an edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s immortal _Morte d’Arthur_ which is a triumph for English bookmaking--he gave us the supreme edition that can never be surpassed by mortal hands--he did so in a form within the reach of the ordinary man--and in the doing he made the much vaunted work of William Morris and his fellow-craftsmen appear second-rate, mechanical, and over-ornate toys for millionaires. [Illustration: HEADPIECE FROM “LE MORTE D’ARTHUR”] [Illustration: THE PEACOCK SKIRT _from “Salome”_] VI THE JAPANESQUES Mid-1893 to the New Year of 1894--Twenty-One “SALOME” Entered into the garden of his desire, by mid-1893 Beardsley was on the edge of manhood. We have seen that a year or two gone by, Beardsley is said to have paid a visit to Whistler’s notorious Peacock Room at Prince’s Gate. He really knew Japanese art in but its cheapest forms and in superficial fashion, and the bastard Japanesque designs for the decoration of this mock-Japanesque room greatly influenced Beardsley without much critical challenge from him, especially the tedious attenuated furniture and the thin square bars of the wooden fitments. They appear in his designs of interiors for some time after this. His Japanesque _Caricature of Whistler_ on a seat, catching butterflies, is of this time. Now, the Letter to his musical friend Scotson Clark, describing his visit to Whistler’s Peacock Room, is evidently undated, but it is put down to the year of 1891. It may be so. But I suspect that it was of the early part of 1893--at any rate, if earlier, it is curious that its effect on Beardsley’s art lay in abeyance for a couple of years, and then suddenly, in the Spring and Summer of 1893, his art and craftsmanship burst forth in designs of the _Salome_ founded frankly upon the convention of the superb peacocks on the shutters painted by Whistler for the Peacock Room. Why should this undisguised mimicry of Whistler have been delayed for two years?