It was at the Christmas season of 1891 that the manager was enabled to carry out a plan that had for years been before him—a revival of ‘Henry VIII.’ We can quite conceive how, as the fashion always was with him, the play ripened as it were with meditation; how, as he walked or followed the consoling fumes of his cigar in his chamber at Grafton Street, each scene fell into shape or suggested some new and effective arrangement, which again might be discarded as difficulties arose, or as something happier occurred to him. The result of these meditations was unquestionably a “large” and splendid setting of the play, which, to my mind, whatever be the value of the opinion, is certainly one of the finest, most finished, most poetical, and sufficient of the many works that he has set before us.[52] There was a greater Shakespearian propriety, and the adornments, however lavish, might all be fairly justified. Most to be admired was the supreme elegance of touch found in every direction—acting, scenery, dresses, music, all reflected the one cultivated mind. The truth is, long practice and the due measuring of his own exertion have now supplied an ease and boldness in his effects. To appreciate this excellence we have only to turn to similar attempts made by others, whether managers, or manager-actors, or manager-authors—and we find only the conventional exertion of the scene-painter and stage-manager. They have not the same inspiration. This play, produced on January 5, 1892, was received with great enthusiasm. It became “a common form” of criticism to repeat that it was of doubtful authorship; that it was nothing but a number of scenes strung together; that there was no story; that Buckingham vanished almost at the beginning of the play; and that towards the end, Wolsey vanished also. These, as I venture to say, are but ignorant objections; characters will always supply a dramatic story, or a dramatic interest that amounts to a story, and in the fate of Wolsey and of Katherine, gradually developed and worked out, we had surely a story sufficiently interesting. I have little doubt that Irving kept steadily in view the object the great author had before him, viz., to present a page of history enriched by all the suitable accompaniments of dress and manners and customs. In this he was perfectly and triumphantly successful. We were taken into the great chambers, and tribunals; shown the ecclesiastical pomp and state, so difficult to conceive now; the processions passing through the streets, and presented in an exceedingly natural and unconventional fashion.[53] The drama was set forth fully, with every adjunct of dress, furniture, scenes, and numbers of auxiliaries.