I write simply to ask you to allow me to correct a misstatement that appears in the review in question. The opinions of English critics on a French work of mine have, of course, little, if any, interest for me. SIR, My attention has been drawn to a review of Salomé which was published in your columns last week. The Times, while depreciating the drama, gave its author credit for a tour de force, in being capable of writing a French play for Madame Bernhardt, and this drew from him the following letter : : The correctness of the French was, of course, impugned, although the scrip had been passed by a distinguished French writer, to whom I have heard the whole work attributed. On its publication in book form Salomé was greeted by a chorus of ridicule, and it may be noted in passing that at least two of the more violent reviews were from the pens of unsuccessful dramatists, while all those whose French never went beyond 011endorff were glad to find in that venerable school classic an unsuspected asset in their education - a handy missile with which to pelt Salomé and its author. The interference of the Censor has seldom been more popular or more heartily endorsed by English critics. Oscar Wilde immediately announced his intention of changing his nationality, a characteristic jest, which was only taken seriously, oddly enough, in Ireland. Written in French in 1892 it was in full rehearsal by Madame Bernhardt at the Palace Theatre when it was prohibited by the Censor. Few English plays have such a peculiar history. Salomé has made the author's name a household word wherever the English language is not spoken.
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