The review was severe; but not unjust.

"Mr.Wilde's volume of poems," it says, "may be regarded as the evangel of a new creed.

From other gospels it differs in coming after, instead of before, the cult it seeks to establish....

We fail to see, however, that the apostle of the new worship has any distinct message." The critic then took pains to prove that "nearly all the book is imitative" ...

and concluded: "Work of this nature has no element of endurance." _The Saturday Review_ dismissed the book at the end of an article on "Recent Poetry" as "neither good nor bad." The reviewer objected in the English fashion to the sensual tone of the poems; but summed up fairly enough: "This book is not without traces of cleverness, but it is marred everywhere by imitation, insincerity, and bad taste." At the same time the notices in _Punch_ were extravagantly bitter, while of course the notices in _The World_, mainly written by Oscar's brother, were extravagantly eulogistic.