upon him made an over-statement, but finally and definitely what Wilde was as seen through the temperament of the writer, corrected by the statements of other writers both for and against him.

I am convinced that this is the only scientific method of arriving at a just estimation of the character of this brilliant and extraordinary man. No summing up of the æsthetic period could be complete without copious references to the great chronicler of our modern life—the pages of Mr Punch.

Punch has never been bitter. It has often been severe, but Mr Punch has always, from the very first moment of his arrival among us, successfully held the balance between this or that faction, and, moreover, has faithfully reflected the consensus of public opinion upon any given matter.

The extraordinary skill with which some of the brightest and merriest wits have made our national comic paper the true diary of events cannot be controverted or disputed. Follies and fashions have been criticised with satire, but never with spleen. Addison said that the "appearance of a man of genius in the world may always be known by the virulence of dunces." Punch has proved for generations that its kindly appreciation or depreciation has never been virulent, but nearly always an accurate statement of the opinion and point of view of the ordinary more or less cultured and well-bred person.

It has always been a sign of eminence in this or that department of life to be mentioned in Punch at all. The conductors of that journal during its whole career have always exercised the wisest discrimination, and have always kept shrewd fingers upon the pulses of English thought. When a politician, for example, is caricatured in Punch that politician knows that he has arrived at a certain place and point in public estimation. When a writer is caricatured, either in line or words, he also knows that he has, at anyrate, obtained a hold of this or that sort upon the country.

Now those who would try to minimise the place of Oscar Wilde in the public eye during the æsthetic period have only to look at the pages of Punch to realise how greatly that movement influenced English life during its continuance.

Let it be thoroughly understood—and very few people will attempt to deny it—that Punch has always been a perfectly adjusted barometer of celebrity.

It is, therefore, not out of place, herein, to publish a bibliography of the references to Oscar Wilde which, from first to last of that cometlike career, appeared in the pages of Mr Punch. Such a list proves immediately the one-sidedness of Dr Max Nordau's and Mr Labouchere's views. From extracts I have given from the remarks of these two eminent people the ordinary man might well be inclined to think that the æsthetic movement and the doings of Oscar Wilde in his first period were small and local things. This is not so, and the following carefully compiled list will show that it is not so.

The list has been properly indexed and is now given below. Afterwards I shall give a small selection from the witticisms of the famous journal to support the bibliography.

Those students of the work of Oscar Wilde and his position in modern life will find the references below of great interest. They date from 1881 to 1906, and those collectors of "Oscariana" and students of Wilde's work will doubtless be able to obtain the numbers in which the following articles, poems, and paragraphs have appeared.

1881