Spain in another play by Lord Tennyson, "Queen Mary." Here, as in "Becket," the play was nothing; Mr. Irving was everything. In the lapse of years since then Mr. Irving has done nothing very much better than his Philip of Spain, with the exception of his latest performance, with the exception of Becket. If "Becket" be, like "Queen Mary," a failure as a work of art, like "Queen Mary" it has given Mr. Irving a great chance which he has used greatly. Out of its very nothingness he has contrived to create something. He has seen at once that the part is a melodramatic part; he has brought to bear upon it the full force of his abilities as a melodramatic actor, and he has turned what might have been a disaster into a triumph.

The only reputation that has gained by "Becket" is the reputation of Mr. Henry Irving. For some time back he had been drifting farther and farther away from the service of his art he had been attempting the unsuitable; he had been failing again and again. His Becket has redeemed a wilderness of failures. In its simplicity, its directness, its absence of all straining after effect, of dependence upon regrettable mannerisms, it contrasts luminously with so many impersonations which, unfortunately for the actor, won a kind of honour from most uncritical audiences. Mr. Irving's Becket makes it hard to understand how the same man could have played so many of the parts that preceded Becket after the fashion in which he chose to play them. When the mind turns to "Lear," converted to "a driveller and a show," or to the regrettable Mephistopheles of a travesty of one of the world's great tragic poems, or to the tawdry hero of a pitiful piece of sham revolutionary clap-trap, one is only the more spurred to express enthusiasm for the man who, after so many blunders, should have at last purged himself of his faults, and presented the lovers of acting with so beautiful a creation. as Thomas Becket. For the word "beautiful," immeasurably too strong for the character itself, is not at all too strong for Mr. Irving's rendering of the character. Mr. Irving, by a skill which for the first time it is almost impossible to differentiate from genius, deserved the applause which was too lavishly offered where it was undeserved by the uncritical, an applause which the judicious withheld, but which they are now able to accord in full measure, without stint, with delight. It is the highest proof of Mr. Irving's ability that he has been able to learn a lesson. It is his duty now to hold the ground he has conquered. The old faults have disappeared in Becket,

never, it is to be hoped, to reappear.

I wish it were possible to find solace for disappointment at recent

dramatic work in delight at the latest work of the master who has been the central figure of the last two years. But I cannot rejoice over "Bygmester Solness." Since I wrote last month, after reading the play, I have seen turn by turn the German version, the French version, and now the English version, the joint work of Messrs. W. Archer and E. W. Gosse. I have no space left me here to say more about "The Master-Builder." It is a cryptic work; it is an allegory; it is like the writings of those Eastern poets which to the uninitiated seem to be plain tales, but which to the illuminated are saturated with mysticism, pregnant with the Higher Law. It has been interpreted without artistic success in a series of matinées given by Miss Elizabeth Robins and Mr. Herbert Waring at the Trafalgar Square Theatre. The interpretation cannot be praised; it can only be regretted. "Bygmester Solness" is not a convincing play, however refreshing and inspiring it may be as an allegory.

JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY.

TABLE TALK.

"SECRET SERVICE UNDER PITT."

GNORANT as is the average Englishman of the history of Ire

at the revelations contained in Mr. Fitzpatrick's "Secret Service under Pitt," of which a second edition has just been published.1 Nor do I know whether England or Ireland has more cause to blush over the revelations Mr. Fitzpatrick supplies. If England sought to control by the agency of spies the indignation she had stirred by her system of government of Ireland, she only acted conformably with the system propounded by Machiavelli and practised by all irresponsible, and some supposedly responsible, Governments. That all Irish schemes miscarried was proof of the soundness of the policy. The betrayers of the Irish leaders were not, meanwhile, drawn from the dregs of the people, but were men of culture, position, and refinement. These things are well enough known to the student of Irish history, and, indeed, of all history springing from or connected with the French Revolution. What Mr. Fitzpatrick has done is, however, with unerring skill to trace out the spies. The chapters in which he hunts down the famous chief agent, known as Lord Downshire's friend, is a model of ability and skill. Thanks to his labours the gloomy "romance of rebellion," already shown with dramatic force and intensity by Mr. Froude, becomes even more picturesque and stirring. A work more romantic, more saddening, more picturesque, has rarely seen the light. It is fair to Mr. Fitzpatrick to say that the State papers bearing upon the subject have been placed at his disposal. The use he has made of them has been exemplary.

OF

HOLBEIN'S "DANCE OF DEATH."

F all countries, England is that in which moralisings upon death and kindred subjects are heid in highest favour. In the last century, Young's "Night Thoughts," Dodd on "Death," Gray's

1 Longmans & Co.

"Elegy in a Country Churchyard," and Blair's "Grave," came to be regarded as classics; and if we add prose composition, such as Hervey's "Meditations among the Tombs," an extensive list of works dealing with

Sculls and coffins, epitaphs and bones,

might be compiled. The one great masterpiece in that line, however, we cannot claim as ours. This is the series of pictures known as the "Dance of Death," the authorship of which is attributed to Hans Holbein, a native of Augsburg. It says something, however, for our recognition of this work, that the painter established himself in London, where he obtained the friendship of Sir Thomas More and the patronage of Henry VIII., and where, after many years of prosperity, and, as is said, of debauch, he died of the plague. Of all the illustrations of the omnipresence and omnipotence of death, these designs are the most popular. A long and, as I think, somewhat foolish series of inquiries into what were the best books, and what the most popular, was made a year or two ago in newspapers and reviews. If a similar thing could be undertaken with regard to illustrations, these designs would be among the foremost. Innumerable editions have seen the light in different countries, the latest being issued within the present year, with a preface by Mr. Austin Dobson.'

IT

ORIGIN OF "THE DANCE OF DEATH."

T is curious how little exact information concerning the “ Dance of Death" is possessed. The origin of the mural paintings in Basle commonly known as La Danse Macabre is traced back, in the "Recherches historiques et littéraires sur les Danses des Morts" of Gabriel Peignot, to the practice in Egypt of presenting a skeleton at a banquet, a practice which passed to Greece and Rome. A wellknown passage in the "Banquet of Trimalchion" of Petronius tells how, towards the close of the orgie, a slave appeared, and placed on the table a silver skeleton, with practicable joints and articulations. These he worked in lifelike fashion, while Trimalchion declaimed verses on the insignificance and nothingness of man. For a long time the authorship of the figures was in doubt, and it is only in recent days that they have been shown on authoritative evidence to be by Hans Holbein the Younger. Hitherto the first edition has been held to be that published in 1538 under the title, "Les Simulachres & Historiées Faces de la Mort avtant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées. A Lyon, soubz l'escu de Coloigne"-a work G. Bell & Sons.

executed by Trecksel Brothers, German printers settled in Lyons. M. Ambrose Firmin-Didot, however, has described three editions which he holds to be anterior to 1538. In these conclusions, however, he is not generally followed.

THE

EDITIONS OF "THE DANCE OF DEATH."

HE reputed first edition has, in France, brought as much as one thousand six hundred francs, or between sixty and seventy pounds. Other early French editions have brought considerable sums. A reproduction was given in Venice in 1545, and one, enlarged, in Augsburg in 1554. In England, an edition etched by Hollar seems to have appeared in 1647. It passed into Holland, where Diepenbecke added allegorical borders, which are found in subsequent editions, etched by Deuchar, so late as 1803. According to Mr. Dobson, they were reproduced upon stone by Joseph Schlotthauer, professor in Munich, and were re-issued in this country by John Russell Smith in 1849. Under the title, "Emblems of Mortality," a free copy by John Bewick, which attained much popularity, was issued by Hodgson, of Newcastle, in 1789. Dr. Lippmann edited for Mr. Quaritch, in 1886, a set of reproductions of the engraver's proofs in the Berlin Museum. A facsimile of the editio princeps was executed in 1884 for Hirth, of Munich. The designs were issued in photo-lithography by H. Noel Humphery in 1868, and for the Holbein Society in 1879. The designs in the latest edition of Messrs. Bell & Sons are reproductions of those engraved in 1833 for Douce's Holbein's "Dance of Death." Since "Esop's Fables," no plates can surely have been so often reproduced. They appeal, however, directly to wise, serious, and reflective tastes. I have not attempted to deal with the subjects of the plates, judging that there is no one to whom they are not familiar.

NEW LETTERS OF HEINE.

FOL

OLLOWING closely upon the appearance of my observations upon Heine under the head of "Jewish Wit and Humour" comes the publication in the New Review of some letters of Heine which had not previously seen the light. To the estimate generally formed of Heine as a wit these add little. Addressed, as they are, to his mother and sister, they convey a good idea of his domestic relations, while they are very confidential, both as regards his personal sufferings and his nuptial experiences. If ever letters were not intended for publication these are they, and it needs the