Oscar Wilde renewal. He immediately wrote to the Society of Jesus requesting a six-month Catholic retreat; when the request was denied, Wilde wept. "I intend to be received into the Catholic Church before long", Wilde told a journalist who asked about his religious intentions. He spent his last three years impoverished and in exile. He took the name "Sebastian Melmoth", after Saint Sebastian and the titular character of "Melmoth the Wanderer" (a Gothic novel by Charles Maturin, Wilde's great-uncle). Wilde wrote two long letters to the editor of the "Daily Chronicle", describing the brutal conditions of English prisons and advocating penal reform.
William Melmoth William Melmoth William Melmoth (sometimes "William Melmoth the Elder") (1665/66–1743) was an English devotional writer and lawyer, whose major work, "The Great Importance of a Religious Life Consider'd" (1711), proved to be one of the most popular pieces of religious writing of the 18th century. He was the father of William Melmoth (1710–1799) a Commissioner of Bankrupts. Melmoth was admitted to the Inns of Court to begin his training as a barrister at Clifford's Inn on 15 April 1686, and then transferred to Inner Temple on 30 May 1689 and from there he was called to the Bar on 29