Lord Salisbury probably neither knew nor cared that Alfred Austin had never written a line that could live.

One thing Mr.Brookfield's witnesses established: every offence alleged against Oscar Wilde dated from 1892 or later--after his first meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas.
But at the time all such matters were lost for me in the questions: would the authorities arrest Oscar?
or would they allow him to escape?
Had the police asked for a warrant?
Knowing English custom and the desire of Englishmen to pass in silence over all unpleasant sexual matters, I thought he would be given the hint to go abroad and allowed to escape.

That is the ordinary, the usual English procedure.

Everyone knows the case of a certain lord, notorious for similar practices, who was warned by the police that a warrant had been issued against him: taking the hint he has lived for many years past in leisured ease as an honoured guest in Florence.

Nor is it only aristocrats who are so favoured by English justice: everyone can remember the case of a Canon of Westminster who was similarly warned and also escaped.