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The trial of Oscar Wilde and Alfred Taylor was resumed to-day at the Old Bailey—before Mr. Justice Charles and a jury—the Crown case having closed at the hour of adjournment yesterday. There was again a large attendance of the general public, but the court was scarcely so crowded as heretofore. Pending the arrival of the judge, Taylor was brought into the dock for a consultation with his counsel, Mr. Grain. When Mr. Justice Charles took his seat Mr. Gill, on behalf of the Crown, withdrew the counts for conspiracy.

Sir Edward Clarke said that had he known these counts would be withdrawn he should have asked that the prisoners be tried separately, and he now asked for a verdict of not guilty, so far as the allegations related to conspiracy.

Mr. Gill observed that he had adopted this course to avoid any difficulty in the way of the prisoners giving evidence.

His Lordship, in acceding to Mr. Gill's application, said he could not consent to the adoption of the course suggested by the learned counsel for the defence.

Sir Edward Clarke replied that he did not wish to appear tenacious, and he would at a later stage of the case ask for a verdict of not guilty upon those particular counts.

Sir Edward at once began his address for the defence of Wilde. Having at the outset given, on his client's behalf, an absolute denial to the charges brought against him, the learned counsel animadverted on the conduct of a large section of the press, which, he alleged, was such as to prejudice his client and imperil the interests of justice. He accused the Crown counsel of having yesterday read the cross-examination of Wilde in the action brought against Lord Queensberry for the sole purpose of inducing the jury to believe that the man who wrote "Dorian Grey" was likely to commit indecency, but, as Coleridge said, a man should be regarded as superior to his books. There was no single page in "Dorian Grey" where the statement was made of any person being guilty of abominable sin. From "Dorian Grey" Sir Edward passed on to comment on the Chameleon, many of the passages in which, from Wilde's pen, he described as merely smart phrases. In that magazine his client saw the story of "The Priest and the Acolyte," a production which was a disgrace to the man who wrote it, to the editor who accepted it, and to everybody concerned with it, and Mr. Wilde became so indignant that he wrote to the conductor of the magazine declining to be longer associated with it. The literary controversy had nothing whatever to do with the questions before the jury. The controversy as to the morality of Shakespeare's sonnets was likely to last as long as the question of who wrote the letters of Junius, or as to the character of certain sonnets of Michael Angelo to one of his friends. He therefore asked the jury altogether to discard what had been urged against the prisoner in relation to "Dorian Grey" and the Chameleon. Coming to Wilde's association with the Queensberry family, he observed that prisoner was still a friend of Lady Queensberry, who divorced her husband.

Mr. Gill: I protest against any attack upon Lord Queensberry, who is not now represented. It is altogether irrelevant to say here that Lord Queensberry was divorced.

Sir Edward Clarke said that to hear his learned friend rebuking irrelevance was rather amusing. (Laughter.) In the case of Wilde v. Queensberry he (Sir Edward) and the learned counsel acting with him for Wilde took the responsibility of accepting a verdict of not guilty. It was perfectly clear that the jury then sitting would not have found Lord Queensberry guilty of a criminal offence For the course then adopted he (Sir Edward) was responsible, and he was here again to meet on his client's behalf a case which could not be properly tried at the former trial, but which could now be determined upon a proper issue. If Mr. Oscar Wilde had been guilty of the charges against him, would he have provoked investigation as he did, bringing an action for libel? It was said there was a species of insanity which caused men to commit unnatural crime, but what would they think of a man who, if he had been guilty of such offences, insisted upon bringing them before the world? He was confident that the evidence of his client would be a complete answer to the allegations against him.

Oscar Wilde was then called from the dock and sworn. He answered the questions of Sir E. Clarke in subdued tones.

The learned counsel first took him through his academical career at Dubin and Oxford, and passed from this to his career as a dramatist and playwright.

Sir Edward: In cross-examination in the Wilde v. Queensberry case you denied all the charges against you. Was the evidence then given by you absolutely and entirely true evidence?—Witness: Entirely true evidence.

Sir Edward: Is there any truth in any one of the allegations of indecency which have been brought against you in this case?—Witness: There is no truth whatever in any one of the allegations.

Mr. Gill began his cross-examination much on the lines adopted by Mr. Carson in the former trial. The learned counsel quoted from a sonnet of Lord Alfred Douglas, in which occurred the line, "I am that love, that dare not speak its name." What was the nature of the love represented in that poem?

Wilde now gave with marked deliberation and emphasis the following answer: It is a love which is not understood in this century. It is the love of David for Jonathan—such love as Plato described in his philosophy—the beginning of wisdom. It is a deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect, and has dictated the greatest works of art. It is in this century much misunderstood. It is an intellectual affection between an older and a younger man. The elder man has had knowledge of the world, the younger has the joy, the hope, the glamour of life. It is something which this age does not understand. It mocks at it, and it sometimes puts one in the pillory for it. (Cheers in the gallery.)

His Lordship: I shall have the court cleared if there is again the slightest manifestation of feeling.

Mr. Gill took the witness through the evidence of the staff from the Savoy Hotel and the masseur, Mr. Bigge. He denied there was a word of truth in it.

Wilde also gave the same general denials to the evidence of Charles Parker and Shelley. The latter, he said, used to write him morbid, religious letters. The witness Atkins had also given a wrong account of the circumstances under which they met. It was true Atkins and Schwabe went with him to Paris, but the account given of what took place there was untrue. It was grotesque and monstrous. Taylor's rooms in Little College Street, near the Houses of Parliament, were Bohemian. Taylor burnt pastilles there. He (Wilde) went there to smoke, chat, and amuse himself. Actors came there. Taylor was an accomplished pianist. Mayor was a pleasant, agreeable young man, and was his guest at the Albemarle Hotel in an ordinary way. Taylor was a young man of private means. He took the boy Alphonso Conway, whom he met at Worthing, a trip to Brighton. Conway slept in a room off his, divided by baize doors.

Did you feel the affection you have described for these youths?—Oh, certainly not.

Further cross-examined: He knew that men dressed in women's clothes went to certain rooms in Fitzroy Street, and that Taylor was once arrested there. He (Wilde) knowing the men sometimes dressed as women on the stage, could not imagine what the police were at Fitzroy Street for.

Mr. Gill: And you saw no reason why the police should keep observations on Taylor's rooms in Little College Street?—Witness: I saw none.

Sir Edward Clarke elicited in cross-examination that Atkins desired to go on the music-hall stage. He communicated that wish to Wilde, and obtained an engagement, the defendant purchasing for him his first song. The Allen letters he did not regard as of any importance.

Sir Edward: They were not prose poems?—Witness (smiling): Oh, no. They contained some slighting allusions to other people which I should have been sorry to see published. I know nothing of the Chameleon except that I was told it was to be a literary and artistic magazine.

Wilde returned to the dock. The prisoner Alfred Taylor was then called and examined by Mr. Grain. He said his age was 33, and his father formerly conducted a wholesale business which had now been turned into a limited liability company. He was educated at Marlborough, and was for some time in the militia, intending to pass on to the army, but after one training he resigned his commission. In 1883 he came into possession of £45,000, and had since lived a life of pleasure about town. The statements of Charles Parker alleged against witness were absolutely untrue.

Cross-examined by Mr. Gill: He never went through a sham form of marriage with a man named Charles Mason. He had never accosted men at the Empire and at the Alhambra. He denied the statements of the brothers Parker as to what took place at his rooms.

Mr. Gill next questioned Taylor as to the incidents of the police raid in Fitzroy Street.

You were one of the men arrested?—I was.

And you had with you Charles Parker?—Yes.

How was Parker getting his living?—I understood he was receiving money from his father.

You and Parker were discharged. Some were fined and some were bound over?—Yes.

Questioned as to the appointments of his apartments at Little College Street, Taylor said he had a censer there in which he burnt pastilles.

Re-examined: The garment taken from the rooms by the police was an Oriental costume which had come from Constantinople, and had been obtained by him for a fancy dress ball at Covent Garden.

On the conclusion of Taylor's examination, the Court adjourned for luncheon.

LONDON, April 30.

As usual, there was again a big crowd at the Old Bailey this morning to witness the closing scenes in the terrible drama known as the Wilde trial.

Before the arrival of the Judge, Taylor was brought into the dock, and, hanging in an uncomfortable attitude over the ledge, conferred earnestly with Mr. J. P. Grain, his leading counsel, while Mr. Charles Mathews, as usual, passed down into the cells to see Wilde. A most serious conference with Sir Edward Clarke followed, and the counsel for the prosecution were equally closely engaged at their side of the court. As soon as his lordship had taken his seat Mr. Gill sprang upon the court the first surprise of what was to be a day of surprises. Having considered the indictment, he said, he had come to the determination not to ask for a verdict on the two counts of the indictment charging the defendants with conspiracy.

Sir Edward Clarke instantly and with emphasis exclaimed: "If that had been done in the first instance I should have applied that the defendants should be tried separately. Of course, I know my learned friend has the legal right to withdraw the counts at any stage of the case."

His lordship said the evidence had suggested to his mind that the counts of conspiracy were really unnecessary, and

Sir Edward Clarke said he must ask that a verdict of not guilty on the conspiracy counts might at once be taken of the jury.

His Lordship: I cannot say that. All I can say at the present stage of the trial is that I feel it my duty to accede to Mr. Gill's application.

Sir Edward Clarke: At some part of the case I shall claim that a verdict of not guilty be entered on these counts.

Before the sensation of this first surprise had died away Sir Edward Clarke was on his feet again. "Have you something more to say?" asked his lordship; and the sensation was redoubled when Sir Edward Clarke replied: "No, my lord, I was about to address the jury." After the announcement that had just been made, he said, an announcement of the importance and significance of which he would have much to say later in the day, he was going to call Mr. Oscar Wilde before the jury as a witness! This decision had not been arrived at in consequence of the decision of Mr. Gill in regard to charges which, if they were not to be proceeded with, should never have been put into the indictment. And Sir Edward was fully alive to all the consequences of the course he had elected to take. To put Mr. Wilde in the witness-box would entitle Mr. Gill to the right of reply in the case, and expose him (Sir Edward) to the consequence of having that evidence and his own observations commented on and replied to. But he had never attached as much importance to "the last word" as the great advocates who taught him his profession used to do.

The court was very hushed and still when the full significance of Sir Edward Clarke's decision was realised. Sir Edward first protested against the action of Mr. Gill yesterday in insisting on reading, for the purpose of prejudicing Wilde, the cross-examination in the Queensberry case. It was a cross-examination upon his books and writings, and Coleridge had long ago said: "Judge no man by his books. The man is more and greater than his books." But Mr. Wilde had been judged, not by his own books alone, but by articles written by other people which he had repudiated as horrible and disgusting. Sir Edward would not himself have the smallest hesitation about defending "Dorian Grey," a very simple story which appeared first in Lippincott's, a publication in the highest class of American periodical literature, and which, in book form, had since been in constant circulation and on sale in every English bookshop. As to Mr. Carson's cross-examination of Wilde on the French work, "Á Rebours," Sir Edward described it as grossly unfair, and a violation of every cannon of justice. He denied Wilde's responsibility for any of the views expressed in that book or in the story of "The Priest and the Acolyte," about which Wilde was one of the first to protest. Then, passing from the literary part of the case, Sir Edward pointed out that the latest date at which misconduct was charged against Wilde was September, 1893, 18 months ago, and that it was his own act in prosecuting Lord Queensberry which had brought this matter before the public and placed him at his present peril. Wilde had long been, and was now, a friend of Lady Queensberry and her son. Lord Queensberry had been divorced from his wife.

Mr. C. F. Gill interrupted that this was irrelevant, and in no way material to the present case, and he should protest against any attack on Lord Queensberry, who was not represented here.

There was a laugh when Sir Edward replied that Mr. Gill rebuking irrelevance was rather amusing. He did not further describe Lord Queensberry's position, but proceeded that he, Sir Edward, was responsible for the advice given to Mr. Wilde in the Queensberry case, and it was partly because of that fact that he was here again on Wilde's behalf to meet an accusation which could not be properly tried. Men charged with offences like those alleged against Mr. Wilde, he said, when they know themselves to be guilty, shrink from investigation. Men guilty of such offences suffer from a species of insanity. What then would they think of the mental condition of a man who, knowing himself to be guilty, and that evidence of his guilt would be forthcoming from half-a-dozen different places, insisted on bringing his case before the world? On March 30, before the previous trial, Mr. Wilde knew this catalogue of accusations against him. He nevertheless went into the witness-box again, to deny absolutely that there was the least truth in any of them.

Mr. Grain said he would also call Taylor to give evidence on his own behalf.

Wilde was then called and sworn, He stepped alertly from the dock to the witness-box, and then, standing erect, or leaning in an easy attitude on the front of the box, he quietly answered Sir Edward Clarke's questions. He repeated once more the story of his classical distinctions at Dublin and Oxford, where he took his degree in 1878. Since that year, he said, he had devoted himself to literary work. Recently he had devoted himself specially to dramatic literature, and his first play, "Lady Windermere's Fan," was produced in the early part of 1892. He had since produced "A Woman of No Importance," "An Ideal Husband," and "The Importance of Being Earnest," and had also written "Salomé," a tragedy in French, and contributions for various magazines. In 1884 he married miss Lloyd, and has two sons. His wife and sons have always lived with him at 16, Tite-street. He also had between October, 1893, and April, 1894, rooms at 10, St. James's-place. They were taken for literary work, and he very rarely slept there. His house at Tite-street was very small, and he always found it most convenient to work elsewhere, that he might not be disturbed. It was entirely and solely for that purpose he took the rooms at St. James's-place. At his previous examination in the Queensberry case he denied every one of the charges made against him.

Was the evidence you gave on that occasion absolutely and in all respects true? Entirely true evidence. Is there any truth in any of the allegations made against you in the evidence in this case? There is no truth whatsoever.

With this emphatic declaration the examination in chief was concluded.

Cross-examined by Mr. Gill, first with regard to Lord Alfred Douglas's poems in the Chameleon, he said that the one "In Praise of Shame'' had reference to modesty; the word shame was to be taken in that sense. As to the words in the sonnet "Two Loves," they referred to a deeply spiritual affection that was as pure as it was perfect. There were those who would not understand it and mocked at it, and sometimes put one in peril.

At the conclusion of this explanation there was handclapping in the public gallery.

The judge: I shall have this court cleared if there is the slightest manifestation of feeling.

Witness went on to say that there was nothing in the letter written to Lord A. Douglas of the Savoy Hotel of which the was ashamed. It was one full of deep affection, but the other letter was more of a literary answer to one addressed to him. The Savoy letter was direct and simple, and was not literature, he repudiated the evidence of the chambermaid at the Savoy as entirely untrue, the same remark applying to the evidence of the "masseur." He heard that the jury found the libel justified in the last case, but he was not in court nor did he read any account of it. The evidence of Edward Shelley was untrue in respect to the allegations.

Mr. Gill: With regard to the evidence of Charles Parker, what part is untrue? I say he never came to the Savoy Hotel at all, but it is quite true he came to lunch once or twice at St. James's-place. The allegations were untrue. Witness also denied the allegations of Atkins and of Alfred Wood.

Re-examined: Taylor was an accomplished pianist, and there used to be music at his rooms. Atkins wanted to go on the music-hall stage, and witness brought him his first song.

Sir E. Clarke: You produced the letter known as the "prose poem" in your examination in chief during the trial of the Marquis of Queensberry? Yes.

Alfred Taylor was next placed in the box, and examined by Mr. Grain. He said he was 33 years of age. His father was in a large way of business up to the time of his death, and that business was now carried on as a company. He was educated at Marlborough up to the age of 17, and then went to a private tutor, and afterwards entered the militia, with the idea of getting through to the army. In 1883 witness came into a sum of £45, 000, and lived a life of pleasure in town, having no occupation. Witness denied the accusations of Charles Parker. Witness in cross-examination said he had no knowledge that the Parkers were servants our of a place. He discovered a good deal afterwards.

After lunch Sir Edward Clarke began in measure terms a careful analysis of the case for the prosecution. Appealing to the jury to set aside prejudice, and regard only the evidence which had been laid before them, he asked if they could possibly find Wilde guilty of the terrible offences with which he was charged. He complained of the embarrassment caused by the action of the Crown in allowing the conspiracy counts of the indictments to stand till late in the case, and pointed our what he said was the cruel hardship of trying the prisoners conjointly on charges, many of which affected them individually only. Taylor, for example, could not possibly be concerned in the charges made by Edward Shelley against Wilde, nor Wilde in the misconduct alleged to have taken place in Taylor's rooms. Dealing then with the evidence, Sir Edward pointed out that in cross-examining Mr. Gill had dealt, not with Wilde's own writing, but with two poems written by Lord Alfred Douglas, with which Wilde had no more to do than Sir Edward--or the jury. As to the affection which Mr. Oscar Wilde had expressed in the letters which had been put in, he had himself described it as a pure and true affection, absolutely unconnected with, alien to, irreconciliable with, the filthy practices which this band of "blackmailers" had been narrating. He had gone into the witness-box fearless of what might be produced against him. He himself produced the first of the two letters which had been used against him, with regard to which Sir Edward said, "Mr. Wilde is not an ordinary man. He is a man who has written poetry, brilliant dramas, charming essays; a man who from his youth has been trained in the study of the literatures of the world--not of this England of ours alone, but of those empires whose glories are to us now only a name. He writes letters in a tone which to others may seem high-flown, exaggerated--absurd, if you like, but, said Sir Edward, he was not afraid or ashamed to produce those letters. I spoke to you before of the cowardice of guilt. I reminded you that these men--the Woods, the Parkers, the Atkinses, the whole tribe of them--flourished in so frightful a trade because a man who has been tempted into any sort of guilt would rather give his whole fortune, rather exile himself from his country, than allow the thing to be suggested against him. Contrast this instinctive shrinkage of the guilty man with the courage that brought Mr. Wilde into the witness-box in this court to face, once and for all, and as he hoped, and I hope, to dispose of the accusations which were being made against him. Dealing with detail with the evidence, Sir Edward insisted strongly on the facts that Wilde's movements had always been open, and the hotels at which he stayed were not small houses of ill-repute in back streets, but important and well-known hotels.

Under the strain of these last hours of his trial, Wilde's remarkable phlegm is rapidly breaking down. During the afternoon he restlessly changed his position, scribbled repeatedly with a quill pen on a piece of blotting-paper, but always haggardly regarding the counsel who was so brilliantly pleading his cause, or the jury who were absorbed in Sir Edward Clarke's advocacy. "Fix your minds," Sir Edward Clarke concluded, "firmly on the tests which ought to be applied to evidence before you can condemn a fellow-man on a charge like this. Then I trust the result of your deliberations will be to gratify those thousand hopes which are waiting upon your verdict; I trust that that verdict will clear from this fearful imputation one of our most renowned and accomplished men of letters."

The conclusion of a remarkably earnest and effective address was followed by irrepressible applause.

Wilde was visibly affected by the peroration of Sir E. Clarke, and on becoming more composed wrote a note which was passed to the learned counsel.

Mr. Grain followed on behalf of Taylor. In regard to the charge of procuring, Mr. Grain showed that the two lads named Parker were the only witnesses who claimed to have been introduced by Taylor to Wilde, and that all the resources of the Crown and of the eminent solicitors employed by Lord Queensberry had been unable to produce any corroboration of their story of misconduct. He explained that Taylor, having got through his own large fortune, was living at Little College-street on an allowance from his father's firm.

Mr. C. F. Gill replied on behalf of the Crown, going laboriously through every point at some length, and at the conclusion of his speech the court adjourned until to-morrow.