It is well-nigh impossible, under the existing conditions of the theatre in England, to form any just appreciation of the dramatist's work at all. A novel may be read at any time, but a play depends on the caprice of a manager to "present" it or not, as suits his commercial convenience. Happily for us the comedies of Oscar Wilde are printed and published, and can be enjoyed equally in the study as in the stalls. We must go back to Congreve and Sheridan to find a parallel. It is the triumph of the _littérateur_ over the histrionic hack, the man whose volumes are taken down from the shelves where they repose, again and again, and require no adventitious aid of scenery and costume to enhance the pleasure they afford. Albeit that the habit of reading plays is not particularly an English one. The old Puritan feeling that all things theatrical were tainted with more or less immorality still clings to many a mind. Emotion is yet looked upon with suspicion, and as the theatre is the hotbed of emotion it is even now regarded in some quarters as a dangerous, if exciting, pleasure-ground. Sober-minded folk prefer rather to take their doses of love tales in the form of the novel, however inexpert, than in that of the play, however masterly it may be. Let an author put to the vote his appeal to his public through their eyes or their ears, it will be found that the eyes have it. They prefer to stop at home and read, as they consider, seriously, than to go abroad and listen to what they hold to be, trivialities. Oscar Wilde has, in great measure, been instrumental in putting these illiberal views to flight. Men and women are now to be found in the theatre when his pieces are represented who not so long ago pooh-poohed the drama from an intelligent standpoint. He has turned attention to the fact that the dramatic method of telling a story may be made as intellectually interesting as in the best-written romances of the novelist. He brought to bear upon his work a singular power of observation, a fine imagination, a unique wit, and above all, and beneath all, an extensive knowledge of human life, and human character. Plays imbued with all these qualities were bound to make their mark. He knocked away the absurd conventions, the stereotyped phrases of the stage as he knew it. He placed on it living people in the place of mechanical puppets, and by his happy inspiration created a new order in the profession of dramaturgy.