about everybody and everything and gets mixed up in all her statements, as for instance, when referring to somebody as a clergyman who wanted to be a lunatic, she is uncertain if it was not a lunatic who wanted to be a clergyman, but who at anyrate wore straws in his hair or something equally odd, is drawn with a fidelity to nature that shows what a really great student of character Oscar Wilde was. No less admirable a portrayal is that of the worldly archdeacon whose wife is almost blind, quite deaf and a confirmed invalid, yet, nevertheless, is quite happy, for though she can no longer hear his sermons she reads them at home. He it is whom Lord Illingworth shocks so profoundly, first by his assertion that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future, and finally by the flippant remark that the secret of life is to be always on the lookout for temptations, which are becoming so exceedingly scarce that he sometimes passes a whole day without coming across one. As literature alone, the play deserves to live, and will live, as a _piece de théâtre_. It has met with more success than any play of the first class within the last twenty years. The reason for that is not far to seek--it is essentially human, and the woman's interest--the keynote of the story--appeals to man and woman equally. I have seen rough Lancashire audiences, bucolic boors in small country towns, and dour hard-headed Scotsmen, sit spellbound as the story of the woman's sin and her repentance was unfolded before them. A play that can do that is imperishable, and it is no disparagement to the other brilliant dramatic works of the author that, as a popular play which will ever find favour with audiences of every class and kind, on account of its human interest and its pathos, "A Woman Of No Importance" is certain of immortality. "THE IDEAL HUSBAND" (_First produced at the Haymarket Theatre, under the management of Mr Lewis Waller and Mr H. H. Morell on 3rd January 1895_) This, the third of Oscar Wilde's plays in their order of production, is undoubtedly the most dramatic. The action is rapid, the interest of the story sustained to the very end, and the dialogue always to the point. Each of the principal characters concerned in the carrying out of the plot is a distinct individualised type. What each one says or does is entirely in keeping with his, or her, personality. And that personality is in each case a well-marked and skilfully drawn one. The four _personæ_ who are engaged in conducting the intrigue of this comedy are Sir Robert Chiltern, Lady Chiltern (his wife), Lord Goring, and Mrs Cheveley. A charming _ingénue_ in the person of Miss Mabel Chiltern (Sir Robert's sister) is also instrumental in bringing the love-interest to a happy hymeneal issue. The author of their being has handed down to us, in his own inimitable way, his conception of them. Here it is: