THE LATE SIR W. S. GILBERT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 88, 2 June 1911, Page 4

THE LATE SIR W. S. GILBERT.

AN APPRECIATION. Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was born m London in 183 G, and educated at Ealing and London University. i 0I ?> bo was a clerk in tbc Invy Council Office, and in 1861 was admitted a barrister of the Inner lemple. The whole career of Mr Gilbert (lie was knighted in 1903)—in which, of course, Savoy opera was only one episode resolve itself, to those who have followed it (stated an’ English journal some time ago) into a struggle between an impish spirit and a temperament essentially shrewd, critical, and unexuberant. His early story is finmliar enough.—how he crammed for tie Army, and was a Government clerk, was called to the Bar, and would quite naturally have adorned a staid professional life, had not this elf of whimsicality inspired him with those truly immortal “Bab Ballads,” which Punch refused, and the seed was sown that ultimately found fruit in the Savoy operas. In the meanwhile, however j it is quite interesting to watch with what splendidly industrious endeavours Mr Gilbert strove to become, not himself, but a dramatist. Over seventy plays, out of which thd Savoy operas aro but a paltry eleven, testify to the labour that Mr Gilbert expended in that self-instituted task. No sooner had his first trifle, “Dulcamara. or”—in the punning fashion of the time—“ The Little Duck and the Groat Quack,” brought him. to the stage, than lie began conscientiously to evolve those semi-satiric, semi-serious, blank-verso “fairy” plays of which—alas!—not all are in request. The classical “Pygmalion and Galatea” still holds the stage ,of course, but as for “Gretchcn,” “The-iVicked World,” “Broken Hearts,” “The Palace of Truth,” and so on, they were clever and pretty ,and commended, but not immortal. Some were popular at the time, thanks largely to Mrs Kendal’s early charm at the Haymarket, but somehow even they have quite fallen out of the running. • 'TOPS Y-TUR VEYDOM. ’ ’ About these and many other productions Mr Gilbert appears to have cared so little that he even forgot what they were about. Thus, when the Criterion was opened in 1874 the concluding piece, which was by him, should have been by right eminently “Gilbertian,” for it was called “Topsyturveydoin.” People walked on tiio ceiling, and applauded one another’s ill-deeds, and welcomed misfortune, and all the rest of it. But recently, when a theatrical historian applied to Mr Gilbert for some record of this evidently cheerful work—which was thought good enough for the opening of a new theatre—Mr Gilbert had to reply that Ins “mind was a complete blank on the .matter.” He had kept no play-bill, forgotten plot, songs, lines, everything. . . Then—when Mr Gilbert was already well over forty —canto “Thespis” at the Gaiety, “The Corcorer” at the Opera Comique, and the beginning of Savoy opera. What was the magic? Was it Sullivan’s music? Was it the much-talked-of “new artform”? Frankly, one cannot but think that it was very largely the mere fact that Mr Gilbert, after everything else had been tried, began at last to take his humour seriously, to call back to his aid that irrepressible imp the “Bab” of the Ballads, and to dramatise him, carefully and judiciously. GILBERT AND_ SULLIVAN. ivTio has not heard and enjoyed the M.S. Pinafore,” “Patience,” “Pirates of Penzance,” “lolantbo,” “The Mikado,” “The Yeoman of the Guard,” “The Gondoliers,” etc. Sir Arthur Sullivan died on 22nd November, 1900. Beneath the hospitable gables of Grimsdyke, his fair and famous estate on Harrow Dcakl, magistrate country gentleman, and “retired humorist,” W. S. Gilbert lias spent the evening of Ids life. “After all, the form and features of Savoy opera may bo—nay, have been —repeated by others. But Gilbertian humour and Gilbertian fancy arc a combination like nothing that over has occurred, or is likely ever to occur again.” ft is not mere topsy-tur-voydom, which is easily said, and easily done, but a kind of knavish sprightliuess afflicting a strong, keen, formal mind in a way that our whole literary history cannot, parallel—unless, indeed. Bacon really did write “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”