* * * *

[Illustration: THE OLD WOMAN AND HER PIG.

"DOG, DOG, BITE PIG,
PIG WON'T GET OVER STILE,
AND I SHAN'T GET HOME (-RULE) TO-NIGHT."]

* * * * *

_THE_ BECKET, NOT _A_ BECKET.

_BECKET_ has beaten the record. By the way, how the real original THOMAS A
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.

[Illustration: "Bene! Ego sum benedicta!"]

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 _divorcee_, was not _Henry's_ wife; but _Rosamond_, if