"Bene! Ego sum benedicta!"
Becket has beaten the record. By the way, how the real original Thomas à Becket would have beaten The Record, if the latter ecclesiastical journal had existed in his time, and had given his Grace of Canterbury some nasty ones in a leading article! But "that is another story." It is some time since Henry Irving,—than whom no actor takes more thought, whether as to his author's lines, or to his own lines when "making up,"—has achieved so great and so genuine a success, and a success that will last in the memory of playgoers for many years to come, as he has in placing Tennyson's Becket on the stage, and himself playing the part of the great Archbishop. By the side of this ecclesiastic, his Wolsley is, so to speak, nowhere.
In Shakspeare's time Becket would have been a difficult subject to tackle; as indeed did King Henry find him,—an uncommonly difficult subject to tackle. But fortunately for English history in dramatic form, it was left for Tennyson to treat the incidents of the story with a free hand, poetic touch, and a liberal mind. Once, towards the close of the tragedy, Henry Irving, austere, yet pitiful, going "to meet his King," brought to my thoughts Savonarola. Grander far than Savonarola was Thomas Becket, soldier, priest, and martyr.
Then his tender compassion for the unfortunate Rosamond, a most difficult character—nay, a characterless character—for any actress to play! Becket as archbishop and actor, seems to pity her for being so colourless. Tennyson couldn't do without her, yet he could do very little with her.
Our Ellen Terry is a sweet loving gentle figure, clinging to her royal lover with a sort of fond hope that one of these days things in general would turn out all right; but in the meantime she is living always "in a maze." The love-scene (taking place in a marvellously effective stage set) between her and Henry is charming. Poor Henry! With Eleanor the Dark and Rosamond the Fair,—whom he was obliged to keep dark,—the life of the monarch, like that of the policeman, was "not a happy one." Eleanor the Queen, as a divorcée, was not Henry's wife; but Rosamond, if, as is supposed, the King had married her, was his wife and not his mistress. It is just this point that ought to be emphasised, in order to give the right clue to Eleanor's character and conduct in regard to her treatment of Rosamond. Rosamond must be right and virtuous; Eleanor wrong and vicious; the King fond, weak, and capricious. To regard the whole story as one of a mere amour is to entirely miss the beauty of the gentle Rosamond's nature. She is at once "gentle and simple."
And herein seems to me to have been the puzzlement in the poet's mind; he was in doubt whether to regard Henry's attachment to Rosamond as only a liaison—to represent Becket as so treating it, or to place Eleanor manifestly in the wrong, as being herself not the wife she pretends to be. "Go to a nunnery, go!" is the end of it all. But at that nunnery, it seems, Fair Rosamond remained for some time permissu superiorum as, I suppose, a lady-boarder, not assuming the habit of even a postulant, much less compelled, as a novice, to be shorn of her hair, and so to appear in the final Transformation Scene as "The Fair One without the golden locks." This freedom of action on the part of Rosamond shows what it is to be a postulant in a convent of a Poetically Licensed Order.
The Scene of the Martyrdom, "Becket's crown," is thrillingly impressive. The faithful Monks are well played by Messrs. Haviland and Bishop—a real Bishop on the Stage, among all these representatives of various sees—while Mr. Frank Cooper is a rough-and-ready Fitzurse leader of the four "King's-men," who, of course, are all Fellows of King's, Cambridge, and probably, therefore, under the ancient statutes, Old Etonians. Master Leo Byrne, aged eleven or thereabouts, makes quite a big part of little Geoffrey, whose affections are divided between Ma, Pa, and his nurse Margery ("with a song"), the latter capitally played and sung by Miss Kate Phillips.
Where all the scenery is good, it is difficult, perhaps to single out one set for especial praise; but my advice is, on no account miss the Second Scene of the Prologue, "on the Battlements of a Castle in Normandy," painted by W. Telbin. "Rosamond's Bower," by Hawes Craven, is equally perfect in another and of course totally distinct line. To pronounce upon Professor Stanford's music when "the play's the thing" is impossible. The entr'actes deserve such special attention as they are not likely to command when the audience is relaxing and refreshing itself.
On the whole, I should be inclined to say that the Lyceum has not had so big a success since Faust: a success due to the popularity of the subject represented, and the perfection of its representation. At least so thinks.
The Busy B. in a Box.
Philosophic Sages have generally been careless of their personal appearance. Soap and water has not been their strong point. The exception is Diogenes, who was seldom out of his tub.
Appropriate Day for a Musical Service in Church.—"Sunday within the Octave."
