is interrupted, in a startlingly unexpected manner, by the Archbishop
himself. The opportunities for scenic effects are magnificent
throughout, and must have contributed greatly to the success on the
stage. Still one cannot but regard the published Becket as rather
the marble from which the statue may be hewn than as the statue
itself. There are fine scenes, powerful and masterly drawing of
character in Henry, Eleanor, and Becket, but there is a want of
concentration, due, perhaps, to the long period of time covered by
the action. So, at least, it seems to a reader who has admitted his
sense of incompetency in the dramatic region. The acuteness of the
poet's power of historical intuition was attested by Mr J. R. Green
and Mr Bryce. "One cannot imagine," said Mr Bryce, "a more vivid, a
more perfectly faithful picture than it gives both of Henry and
Thomas." Tennyson's portraits of these two "go beyond and perfect
history." The poet's sympathy ought, perhaps, to have been, if not
with the false and ruffianly Henry, at least with Henry's side of the
question. For Tennyson had made Harold leave


"To England
My legacy of war against the Pope
From child to child, from Pope to Pope, from age to age,
Till the sea wash her level with her shores,
Or till the Pope be Christ's."



CHAPTER IX.--LAST YEARS.