MEN WHO HAVE EARNED SUCCESS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XI, 14 March 1896, Page 285

MEN WHO HAVE EARNED SUCCESS.

MR WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT —THE MAN WHO PUT ‘THE MIKADO’ TOGETHER. Mr Gilbert is about as easy to interview as the Mikado of Japan. There was a young man on this paper once who spent almost a week hanging about the stage-door of the Lyric when ‘ His Excellency ’ was being produced. No good. Mr Gilbert used to go to lunch through an ‘ extra exit,’ and return by a skylight. There was a middle-aged American lady interviewing, who went and camped outside his place at Harrow for a week, and determined to catch him. At the end of the week she was

informed that Mr Gilbert had gone around the world. There was an aged, carked individual from a Uruguayan periodical—but why continue these reminiscences ? The night winds were howling in a tempestuous chorus, and the elements in general were combining in making sounds far more weird than those emitted by the Savoy orchestra when it tunes up, as a cloaked, chuckling stranger, splashed through the mire on his way to Grime's Dyke, Harrow Weald, Mr Gilbert’s estate of no acres. Arrived at the lodge, he asked for the lord of the manor. • ’E’s gorn to Mister John ’Are’s bangkwitt,’ explaiped the keeper of the lodge, ‘at the ’Otel Metropoly. But as I take yer (judgin’ by yer clothes, that is) for one o’ them newspaper coves, I shall be ready to give you any information you may be in purticler need of.’ ‘ Thank you.’ ‘ Come in, and I’ll start my yarn.’ Explaining, as he tottered back to the fireside, that Mr Gilbert had laid out two miles of paths on his estate, that Gramme’s Dyke was famous for its thoroughbred Jerseys, that the house was originally Mr Goodall, R.A.’s, and that the master of Graeme's Dyke is quite an astronomer in his way, the old man proceeded to give me all the information I happened to be * in purticler need of.’ I gathered from his chat that Mr Gilbert celebrated his fiftv-ninth birthday just twelve days ago. He was born in a street off the Strand in the house of his grandfather, who hobnobbed with Johnson and called Sir Joshua Reynolds ’ Friend.’ He was one of the last men in London to wear a pigtail. The author of ‘ Pinafore ’ received his first schooling at Ealing, his master being a gentleman whom Thackeraysatirised in one of his works. Mr Gilbert, as a boy, wrote endless little plays and back drawing-room melodramas, and when he was quite a youth indited a burlesque which a shocking ignorance of stagecraft caused him to set forth in no less than eighteen scenes. He offered this tax on any stage carpenter’s ingenuity to every theatrical manager in London, and could not for his life understand why the asses rejected it. Since that time he has been informed that an eighteen-scene burlesque written by a boy of eighteen is neither a desirable nor a wise thing for the stage. It was during the Crimean War that Mr Gilbert began to read for the Army, and was much disappointed that that sanguinary piece of warfare could not be extended in order to give him a chance of dipping his virgin sword in Russian gore. It came to an end just as he was prepared to go up for examination. Then he refused a line commission, but eventually, in 1868, was appointed captain in a corps of Scottish militia, whose martial kilt he allowed the breezes to fan for sixteen years. For what he describes as • five miserable years ’ he was a clerk in the privy council, as, of course. Militia duties (as Mr Owen Hall explainsin his musical comedy at Daly’s) ’only occupy one month of a fellah’s year.’ Mr Gilbert must have been good at his books, for he took his B.A. degree at the London University before he was called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in 1863. He was at the Bar four years, but was not fortunate in his clients. In connection with one of these he was once the victim of a very enthusiastic salute. His client was a Frenchman, who was short, and built like a football. Owing to Mr Gilbert’s knowledge of French the man of Gaul won his case, and was so grateful to ‘ W.S.’ that meeting him in the Hall he rushed up to him, threw his arms round his neck, and kissed him on both cheeks. But save for this kiss Mr Gilbert received no payment whatever for his trouble. On another occasion, after making an impassioned speech in defence of an old lady who was accused of picking pockets, the ungrateful old hag took off her heavy boot and flung it at his head. That was his second fee. Mr Gilbert’s first literary effort appeared in Fun, which was at that time edited Dy Henry J. Byron. Byron asked him to send him a column of stuff with a half page block every week, and for six years the author of the ‘Bab Ballads’ faithfully executed that commission. Just about this time he wrote his first play, ‘ Dulcamara,’ which was produced at St. James’ Theatre by Miss Herbert. He got Z“3o for it. He never took /'3O for another. After turning off half a dozen comedies of moderate calibre he got a great idea. He spent six months over that idea, and produced his celebrated ‘ Pygmalion and Galatea.’ The piece that he took most pains over —‘ Gretchen ’ —only ran a fortnight. That was because he wrote it to please himself. Mr Gilbert is an exceedingly strict stage-manager. Not even his old enemy gout keeps him away from rehearsals, for he sits in a bath-chair and issues directions between the twinges. He is not at all nervous on a first night. Instead of pacing wildly up and down and across the Strand, locks bared to the breeze, and cloak dragging artistically in the mud, he goes to his club, FILLS UP HIS FAVOURITE BRIAR, and calmly smokes until he thinks the piece is nearing its end, when he knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts his tie straight, assumes a look which plainly says, ‘ Bless you, it isn’t my work—it’s Sullivan’s !’ and betakes himself to the Savoy stage to acknowledge his ‘ call.’ It is very interesting to learn that nearly all the subjects which Mr Gilbert has dealt with so successfully in his comic operas have been mainly due to accident. A leader in the Times on the subject of the late Mr W. H. Smith’s appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty suggested the idea of * Pinafore.’ ' The Mikado ’ was suggested by a huge Japanese executioner’s sword which hung in Mr Gilbert’s library—the identical sword, by the way, which Mr Walter Passmore carries on the stage as Koko. * The Yeoman of the Guard ’ was SUGGESTED BY THE ' BEEFEATER ’ POSTER which at one time met the eye on every hoarding as an advertisement of a big furnishing company. As a judge of form Mr Gilbert is unequalled. He has a quick eye for detecting talent, and having detected it

he doesn’t fail to encourage the possessor. Among those who have made their first appearance under his auspices and acting on his advice may be mentioned the late Corney Grain, George Grossmith, Miss-Nancy Macintosh, Miss Jessie Bond, and Mrs Bernard-Beere. Mr Gilbert has many interesting, quaint, and funny

possessions. He has a parrot which can talk one better than any other bird in England. Among many other achievements it can whistle a hornpipe, and when last heard of was making great headway with one of its master's patter songs. It takes young parrots as pupils, and gives lessons in dancing and whistling hornpipes. As Mr Gilbert puts it, 1 They read with his bird.’ There is a possession recalling the shedding of blood—a possession suggestive of * Ruddigore. ’ This is a sideboard put together early in 1600 for a certain Sir Thomas Holt, * described (as the police court reports of the day put it) as a cavalier.’ This gentleman one day fell in a great rage with his man cook, and hit him on the head with a cleaver to such purpose that one side of the head fell upon one of the unlucky wight’s shoulders, whilst the other half fell in the contrary direction. Sir Thomas (doubtless after much expostulation on his part, for surely a gentleman and a cavalier could hit his cook on the head if he liked !) was brought to trial, and got off because the warrant for his arrest did not mention anything about killing, but simply said that the head fell in half in the manner

indicated. The law of England in those days did not make any provision for the punishment of cavaliers who made their cooks' heads fall in twain, and so Sir Thomas got off and went home like Umslopogas to talk to and purr over his cleaver. Therefore it will be seen the sideboard has a certain gory interest attaching to it which fascinates Mr Gilbert in a manner that is perfectly irresistible.

Another very curious relic is an ancient timepiece which executes a dozen melodies at the shortest notice. It is more than a century and a half since this triumph of horological skill was constructed. When the hands are set going a march begins to play, horse soldiers passover the bridge, skiffs glide along the water, and ducks gambol among the eddies of this timeless and tideless stream. Another curio is a two-centuries-old Japanese cabinet about which its present possessor tells a strange story. In the days when this cabinet was cunningly fashioned, whenever a child was ‘ born into this world alive ’ (or rather into the realms of the Mikado) its father, if he could afford it, gave the nearest Blundell Maple a blank cheque, and told him • go make one nicee cabinetee.’ Makings ‘ nicee ’ cabinet at that period,

OCCUPIED A SKILLED WORKMAN FIFTEEN YEARS —a fact which proves that in the time they take over a job workmen have ever been the same the wide world over. The strange part of the proceeding was that the cabinet was always finished on the young Jap’s fifteenth birthday. It will be seen therefore that this cabinet of Mr Gilbert’s is a very extraordinary cabinet. Mr Gilbert, as is well known, has frequently dipped his pen in satirical ink at the expense of gentlemen who are apt to forget the laws of meum and tuu»» and we have no doubt that the final fate of Jabez will give him inspiration for an ode, which, in his melodious turn. Sir Arthur will set to a tuneful measure, with a clinking of handcuffs obligato.

Tantalus