of its popularity on the Continent have been imported here oddly
enough through the agency of the Palace Theatre, where Salome was
originally to have been performed. Of a young lady's dancing, or of
that of her rivals, I am not qualified to speak. I note merely that
the critics who objected to the horror of one incident in the drama
lost all self-control on seeing that incident repeated in dumb show
and accompanied by fescennine corybantics. Except in 'name and
borrowed notoriety' the music-hall sensation has no relation
whatever to the drama which so profoundly moved the whole of Europe
and the greatest living musician. The adjectives of contumely are
easily transmuted into epithets of adulation, when a prominent
ecclesiastic succumbs, like King Herod, to the fascination of a
dancer.

It is not usually known in England that a young French naval
officer, unaware that Dr. Strauss was composing an opera on the
theme of Salome, wrote another music drama to accompany Wilde's
text. The exclusive musical rights having been already secured by
Dr. Strauss, Lieutenant Marriotte's work cannot be performed
regularly. One presentation, however, was permitted at Lyons, the
composer's native town, where I am told it made an extraordinary
impression. In order to give English readers some faint idea of the
world-wide effect of Wilde's drama, my friend Mr. Walter Ledger has
prepared a short bibliography of certain English and Continental
translations.


At the time of Wilde's trial the nearly completed MS. of La Sainte
Courtisane was entrusted to Mrs. Leverson, the well-known novelist,
who in 1897 went to Paris on purpose to restore it to the author.