nt of the whole
structure. It may seem fantastic to conceive that any dramatist could
blunder so grossly; but there are not a few plays in which we observe a
scarcely less glaring hiatus.

A case in point may be found in Lord Tennyson's _Becket_. I am not one
of those who hold Tennyson merely contemptible as a dramatist. I believe
that, had he taken to playwriting nearly half-a-century earlier, and
studied the root principles of craftsmanship, instead of blindly
accepting the Elizabethan conventions, he might have done work as fine
in the mass as are the best moments of _Queen Mary_ and _Harold_. As a
whole, _Becket_ is one of his weakest productions; but the Prologue and
the first act would have formed an excellent first and third act for a
play of wholly different sequel, had he interposed, in a second act, the
obligatory scene required to elucidate Becket's character. The historic
and psychological problem of Thomas Becket is his startling
transformation from an easy-going, luxurious, worldly statesman into a
gaunt ecclesiastic, fanatically fighting for the rights of his see, of
his order, and of Rome. In any drama which professes to deal (as this
does) with his whole career, the intellectual interest cannot but centre
in an analysis of the forces that brought about this seeming new-birth
of his soul. It would have been open to the poet, no doubt, to take up
his history at a later point, when he was already the full-fledged
clerical and ultramontane. But this Tennyson does not do. He is at pains
to present to us the magnificent Chancellor, the bosom friend of the
King, and mild reprover of his vices; and then, without the smallest
transition, hey presto! he is the intransigent priest, bitterly
combating the Constitutions of Clarendon. It is true that in the
Prologue the poet places one or two finger-posts--small, conventional
foreshadowings of coming trouble. For instance, the game of chess
between King and Chancellor ends with a victory for Becket, who says--

"You see my bishop
Hath brought your king to a standstill. You are beaten."

The symbolical game of chess is a well-worn dramatic device. Becket,
moreover, seems to feel some vague disquietude as to what may happen if
he accepts the archbishopric; but there is nothing to show that he is
conscious of any bias towards the intransigent clericalism of the later
act. The character-problem, in fact, is not only not solved, but is
ignored. The obligatory scene