he artist, and the artist alone, who never takes account of ethics,
but uses right and wrong indifferently as colours of his palette.
"The Decay of Lying" seemed to the ordinary, matter-of-fact Englishman
a cynical plea in defence of mendacity. To the majority of readers,
"Pen, Pencil and Poison" was hardly more than a shameful attempt to
condone cold-blooded murder. The very articles which grounded his fame
as a writer, helped to injure his standing and repute.

In 1889 he published a paper which did him even more damage by
appearing to justify the peculiar rumours about his private life. He
held the opinion, which was universal at that time, that Shakespeare
had been abnormally vicious. He believed with the majority of critics
that Lord William Herbert was addressed in the first series of
Sonnets; but his fine sensibility or, if you will, his peculiar
temperament, led him to question whether Thorpe's dedication to "Mr.
W.H." could have been addressed to Lord William Herbert. He preferred
the old hypothesis that the dedication was addressed to a young actor
named Mr. William Hughes, a supposition which is supported by a
well-known sonnet. He set forth this idea with much circumstance and
considerable ingenuity in an article which he sent to me for
publication in _The Fortnightly Review_. The theme was scabrous; but
his treatment of it was scrupulously reserved and adroit and I saw no
offence in the paper, and to tell the truth, no great ability in his
handling of the subject.[9]

He had talked over the article with me while he was writing it, and I
told him that I thought the whole theory completely mistaken.
Shakespeare was as sensual as one could well be; but there was no
evidence of abnormal vice; indeed, all the evidence seemed to me to be
against this universal belief. The assumption that the dedication was
addressed to Lord William Herbert I had found it difficult to accept,
at first; the wording of it is not only ambiguous but familiar. If I
assumed that "Mr. W.H." was meant for Lord William Herbert, it was
only because that seemed the easiest way out of the maze. In fine, I
pointed out to Oscar that his theory had very little that was new in
it, and more that was untrue, and advised him not to publish the
paper. My conviction that Shakespeare was not abnormally vicious, and
that the first series of Sonnets proved snobbishness and toadying and
not corrupt passion, seemed to Oscar the very madness of partisanshi