d in "De Profundis" that he stood in symbolic
relation to the art and life of his time is justified.

The English drove Byron and Shelley and Keats into exile and allowed
Chatterton, Davidson and Middleton to die of misery and destitution; but
they treated none of their artists and seers with the malevolent cruelty
they showed to Oscar Wilde. His fate in England is symbolic of the fate
of all artists; in some degree they will all be punished as he was
punished by a grossly materialised people who prefer to go in blinkers
and accept idiotic conventions because they distrust the intellect and
have no taste for mental virtues.

All English artists will be judged by their inferiors and condemned, as
Dante's master was condemned, for their good deeds (_per tuo ben far_):
for it must not be thought that Oscar Wilde was punished solely or even
chiefly for the evil he wrought: he was punished for his popularity and
his preeminence, for the superiority of his mind and wit; he was
punished by the envy of journalists, and by the malignant pedantry of
half-civilised judges. Envy in his case overleaped itself: the hate of
his justicers was so diabolic that they have given him to the pity of
mankind forever; they it is who have made him eternally interesting to
humanity, a tragic figure of imperishable renown.

THE END.

APPENDIX

Here are the two poems of Lord Alfred Douglas which were read out in
Court, on account of which the prosecution sought to incriminate Oscar
Wilde. My readers can judge for themselves the value of any inference to
be drawn from such work by another hand. To me, I must confess, the
poems themselves seem harmless and pretty--I had almost said, academic
and unimportant.

TWO LOVES

TO "THE SPHINX"

Two loves I have of comfort and despair
That like two spirits do suggest me still,
My better angel is a man right fair,
My worse a woman tempting me to ill.--_Shakespeare_.

I dreamed I stood upon a little hill,
And at my feet there lay a ground, that seemed
Like a waste garden, flowering at its will
With flowers and blossoms. There were pools that dreamed
Black and unruffled; there were white lilies
A few, and crocuses, and violets
Purple or pale, snake-like fritillaries
Scarce seen for the rank grass, and through green nets
Blue eyes of shy pervenche winked in the sun.
And there were curious flowers, before unknown,