The scenery, offering wonderful perspectives of Tudor halls and interiors, the arrangements of the courts and various meetings, were original and very striking. Yet here I should be inclined to suggest anew the objections often made to the modern system of large groupings compressed into the small area of a stage, which, as it seems, is opposed to the canons of scenic art.[54] These, too, seemed to acquire new force from the arrangement of the “Trial scene,” as it was called, which displayed a great hall with the daïs, seats for the Cardinal, the King, etc. The result of thus supplying a great area by the system of compression (I am speaking merely of the principle), is that the leading figures become dwindled in scale and overpowered by the surrounding crowd. The contrast with the older system is brought out by Harlow’s well-known picture, where only the leading figures are grouped, and where by consequence they stand out in greater relief. The spectator stands, as it were, close beside them; but by the modern arrangement he appears to be afar off, at the bottom of the hall, obtaining but a distant view of them.[55] When we consider what are the traditions of the two great characters, how vivid they are, from the deep impressions left by the great brother and sister on their contemporaries—an impression which has really extended to our time—too much praise could hardly be given to the performance of Irving and his gifted companion. Irving’s Wolsey was exactly what those familiar with his other impersonations could anticipate—poetical, elegant, and in many portions powerful. He was the churchman to perfection, carrying his robes admirably; in the face there was a suggestion of the late departed Cardinal Manning. All through the piece there was that picturesque acting which fills the eye, not the ear, at the moment when speech is at rest. It is thus that are confuted those theorists, including Elia, who hold that Shakespeare is to be read, not acted. It is perhaps the power of suggestion and of stirring our imagination that brings about this air of fulness and richness. Irving, when he was not speaking, _acted_ the pomp and state and consummately depicted the smoothness of the Cardinal. When he was lost to view you felt the application of the oft-quoted line touching the absence of “the well-grac’d” actor from the scene, and it was wonderful to think, as we glanced round the brilliant _salle_—glittering with its vast crowd of well-dressed, even jewelled, women (“Quite an opera pit!” as Ellison would say)—to the fine stage before us, with its showy figures, pictures, and pageants, that all this was _his_ work and of his creation!