was played at Brighton, where it received serious
attention from the dramatic critics of the town. He would purchase
each volume of the Mermaid series of Elizabethan dramatists then being
issued, and with his sister gave performances during the holidays. From
the record of the "Brighton College Magazine," Beardsley appears to have
taken a leading role in all histrionic fetes, and to "The Pied Piper of
Hamelin" he contributed some delightful and racy little sketches, the
first of his drawings, I believe, that were ever reproduced.

[Illustration: SIEGFRIED
_Reproduced from the original in the possession of Mrs. Bealby Wright_]

In July 1888 he left school, and almost immediately entered an
architect's office in London. In 1889 he obtained a post in the Guardian
Life and Fire Insurance. During the autumn of that year the fatal
haemorrhages commenced; for two years he gave up his amateur theatricals
and did little in the way of drawing. In 1891, however, he recuperated;
a belief in his own powers revived. He now commenced a whole series
of illustrations to various plays, such as Marlowe's "Tamerlane,"
Congreve's "Way of the World," and various French works which he was
able to enjoy in the original. He would often speak of the encouragement
and kindness he received at this period from the Rev. Alfred Gurney, who
had known his family at Brighton, and who was perhaps the earliest of
his friends to realize that Beardsley possessed something more than mere
cleverness or precocity.

Several people have claimed to discover Aubrey Beardsley, but I think it
truer to say that he revealed himself, when proper acknowledgment has
been made to Mr Aymer Vallance, Mr Joseph Pennell, Mr Frederick Evans,
Mr J. M. Dent, and Mr John Lane, with whom Beardsley's art will always be
associated in connection with the Yellow Book, that too early daffodil
that came before the swallow dared and could not take the winds of March
for beauty. To Mr Pennell belongs the credit of introducing Beardsley's
art to the public; and to Mr Dent is due the rare distinction of giving
him practical encouragement, by commissioning the illustrations to the
"Morte d'Arthur," long before critics had written anything about him,
or any but a few friends knew of his great powers. Beardsley was too
remarkable a personality to remain in obscurity. Though I remember
with some amusement how the editor of a well-known weekly mocked at a
prophecy that the artist was a comin