AND I SHAN'T GET HOME (-RULE) TO-NIGHT."
THE BECKET, NOT A BECKET.
"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.