Unfortunately, in the radiance of his after-rise to fame, these “puerilia” have been eagerly acclaimed by writers on his art as revelations of his budding genius; but as a painful matter of plain unvarnished truth, they were wretched trashy efforts that ought to have been allowed to be blotted from his record and his reputation. Probably his performances as an actor were as nerve-racking a business as the grown-ups are compelled to suffer at school speech-days. Beardsley himself showed truer judgment than his fond admirers in that, on reaching to years of discretion, he ever desired, and sought every means in his power, to obliterate his immature efforts by exchanging good work for them and then destroying them. Indeed, the altogether incredible fact about all of Beardsley’s early work is that it was such unutterable trash. Of the influences that were going to the making of Aubrey’s mind at school, it is well to note that the youngster bought each volume of the “Mermaid” issue of the Elizabethan dramatists as it came out, giving amateur performances of the plays with his sister in his holidays. By the time he was to leave Brighton Grammar School at sixteen, he had a very thorough grip on Elizabethan literature. It is, some of it, very strong meat even for sixteen; but Aubrey had been fed on strong meat almost from infancy. Early mastering the French tongue, the lad was soon steeped in the French novel and classics. From the French he worked back to Latin, of which he is said to have been a facile reader--but such Latin as he had was probably much of a piece with the dog-Latin of a public school classical education. Now we know from his school-friend, Mr. Charles Cochran, that Aubrey Beardsley drew the designs for the “Pied Piper” before he left the school in mid-1888--though the play was not performed until Christmastide at the Dome in Brighton on Wednesday December the 19th 1888. Cochran also bears witness to the fact that the pen and wash drawing of _Holywell Street_ was made in mid-1888 before he left the school. He describes his friend Beardsley with “his red hair--worn _á la Bretonne_,” which I take it means “bobbed,” as the modern girl now calls it. Beardsley is “indifferent” in school-work, but writes verse and is very musical. His “stage-struck mood” we have seen encouraged by his house-master, Mr. King. C. B. Cochran and Beardsley went much to “matinees” at Brighton; and at one of these is played “_L’Enfant Prodigue_” without words--it was to make an ineffaceable impression on young Beardsley. There is no question that _L’Enfant Prodigue_ and the rococo of Bright Pavilion coloured the vision and shaped the genius of Beardsley; and he never let them go. He was to flirt with faked mediævalism; he was to flirt awhile with Japan; but he ever came back to Pierrot and the bastard rococo of Brighton Pavilion.