When Mr George Alexander produced "Lady Windermere's Fan" at the St James's Theatre, in the spring of 1892, it created an unprecedented furore among all ranks of the playgoing public, and placed the author at once upon a pedestal in the Valhalla of the Drama; not on account of the plot, which was frankly somewhat _vieux jeu_, nor yet upon any striking originality in the types of the personages who were to unravel it, but upon the sparkle of the dialogue, the brilliancy of the epigrams, a condition of things to which the English stage had hitherto been entirely unaccustomed. The author was acclaimed as a playwright who had at last succeeded in clothing stagecraft with the vesture of literature, and with happy phrase and nimble paradox delighted the minds of his audience. What promise of a long succession of social comedies, illuminated by the intimate knowledge of his subject that he so entirely possessed, was held out to us! Here was a man who treated society as it really exists; who was himself living in it; portraying its folk as he knew them, with their virtues and vices coming to them as naturally as the facile flow of their conversation; conversation interlarded with no stilted sentences, no well- (or ill-) rounded periods, but such as that which falls without conscious effort from the lips of people who, in whatever surroundings they may be placed, are, before all things, and at all times, thoroughly at their ease. It may be objected that people in real life, even in the higher life of the Upper Ten, do not habitually scatter sprightly pleasantries abroad as they sit around the five-o'clock tea-table. That Oscar Wilde made every personage he depicted talk as he himself was wont to talk. _Passe encore._ The real fact remains that he _knew_ the social atmosphere he represented, had breathed it, and was familiar with all its traditions and mannerisms. He gave us the _tone_ of Society as it had never before been given. He was at home in it. He could exhibit a ball upon the stage where real ladies and gentlemen assembled together, quite distinct from the ancient "Adelphi guests" who had hitherto done yeoman's service in every form of entertainment imagined by the dramatist. The company who came to his great parties were at least _vraisemblables_, beings who conducted themselves as if they really might have been there. And so it was in every scene, in every situation. His types are drawn with the pen of knowledge, dipped in the ink of experience. That was his secret, the keynote of his success. And with what power he used it the world is now fully aware. It is not too much to say that Oscar Wilde revolutionised dramatic art. Henceforth it began to be understood that the playwright who would obtain the merit of a certain plausibility must endeavour to infuse something of the breath of life into his creations, and make them act and talk in a manner that was at least possible.