_Punch_ declared that "Mr.
Wilde may be aesthetic, but he is not original ...

a volume of echoes ...

Swinburne and water." Now what did _The Athenaeum_ mean by taking a new book of imitative verse so seriously and talking of it as the "evangel of a new creed," besides suggesting that "it comes after the cult," and so forth?
It seems probable that _The Athenaeum_ mistook Oscar Wilde for a continuator of the Pre-Raphaelite movement with the sub-conscious and peculiarly English suggestion that whatever is "aesthetic" or "artistic" is necessarily weak and worthless, if not worse.
Soon after Oscar left Oxford _Punch_ began to caricature him and ridicule the cult of what it christened "The Too Utterly Utter." Nine Englishmen out of ten took delight in the savage contempt poured upon what was known euphemistically as "the aesthetic craze" by the pet organ of the English middle class.
This was the sort of thing _Punch_ published under the title of "A Poet's Day": "Oscar at Breakfast! Oscar at Luncheon!! Oscar at Dinner!!! Oscar at Supper!!!!" "'You see I am, after all, mortal,' remarked the poet, with an ineffable affable smile, as he looked up from an elegant but substantial dish of ham and eggs.

Passing a long willowy hand through his waving hair, he swept away a stray curl-paper, with the nonchalance of a D'Orsay.
"After this effort Mr.Wilde expressed himself as feeling somewhat faint; and with a half apologetic smile ordered another portion of Ham and Eggs." _Punch's_ verses on the subject were of the same sort, showing spite rather than humour.

Under the heading of "Sage Green" (by a fading-out AEsthete) it published such stuff as this: My love is as fair as a lily flower.
(_The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!_) Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower.
(_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_) * * * * * And woe is me that I never may win; (_The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!_) For the Bard's hard up, and she's got no tin.
(_Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!_) Taking the criticism as a whole it would be useless to deny that there is an underlying assumption of vicious sensuality in the poet which is believed to be reflected in the poetry.