But the part of Rosamund, her innocent ignorance especially, is not very readily intelligible, not quite persuasive, and there is almost a touch of the burlesque in her unexpected appearance as a monk. To weave that old and famous story of love into the terribly complex political intrigue was a task almost too great. The character of Eleanor is perhaps more successfully drawn in the Prologue than in the scene where she offers the choice of the dagger or the bowl, and 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.” IX. LAST YEARS. THE end of 1884 saw the publication of _Tiresias and other Poems_, dedicated to “My good friend, Robert Browning,” and opening with the beautiful verses to one who never was Mr Browning’s friend, Edward FitzGerald. The volume is rich in the best examples of Tennyson’s later work. _Tiresias_, the monologue of the aged seer, blinded by excess of light when he beheld Athene unveiled, and under the curse of Cassandra, is worthy of the author who, in youth, wrote _Œnone_ and _Ulysses_. Possibly the verses reflect Tennyson’s own sense of public indifference to the voice of the poet and the seer. But they are of much earlier date than the year of publication:—