W. S. GILBERT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 225, 22 September 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

W. S. GILBERT.

WHIMSICAL HUMOUR.

HATER OF SHAMS.

ARISTOPHANES WITH A DIFFERENCE.

Born in 1836, and the son of a naval surgeon, he was one of a family which claimed descent from Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the Elizabethan navigator. William Schwenk Gilbert had the sea passion, both Lord Charles Beresford and Lord Jellicoe assuring him there was not a rope wrong aboard His Majesty's ship Pinafore. A singular resemblance appears between him and his famous ancestor. It will be remembered that Sir Humphrey Gilbert was drowned off the Azores. "The general, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the Hind, 'We as near tor heaven by sea as by land.'" The humorist and poet of the nineteenth century who gave the English language a new adjective was drowned when gallantly trying to save friends in distress. Schooled at Boulogne and Great Ealing, he entered King's College, took his B.A. degree, and became a barrister at law. In his first two years he earned only £75, and for four yeans averaged five clients a year. Having failed on one occasion to secure an acquittal for a woman, she took off one of her heavy boots and flung it at his head. It missed him, of course, but hit a reporter. At a later stage he became a member of the staff of "Fun," and wrote amazingly clever sketches as "The Comic Physiognomist." His first play was "Dulcamara"; or "Thel Little Duck and the Great Quack." Written in ten days and rehearsed in a week,, it met with considerable success, and brought him what he asked for it— £30. He never asked such a modest price again. So confident was he of its success that he invited a number of friends to supper after the performance. A Great Partnership.

He first met Sullivan in 1870. Both were well-known men. Such productions as "Pinafore," * The Pirates of Penzance" and "Patience" secured unprecedented success, and the Gilbert and Sullivan operas necessitated the building of a larger theatre, the first to be lit by electricity. Not one of the operas was a failure. The full house at the Savoy represented £270, and the- current expenses ran to half that amount. Gilbert was a masterly and masterful stage manager. Sir Arthur Sullivan was a composer with a sharp wit. One of the leading performers was singing an air at rehearsal when Sullivan cud, "Bravo, that is really a very good air of yours. Now, if you have no objection, I will ask you to sing mine !" •Gilbert rebelled against the fate of the humorist who, having been gloriously and successfully funny, is expected to go on being funny till the end of his days— >

Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day, And took with her your trifle of money; Bless your Jieart. they don't mind—they're exceedingly kind, They don't blame you—as long as you're funny.

The partnership between Gilbert and Sullivan lasted for fourteen years, and had produced ten operas, when it came to a temporary end over .. difference of opinion between Gilbert and d'Oyly Carte about an item of expenditure. The two came together again in 1893 vith Utopia Limited. In- his sixty-eighth year Gilbert was very successful with "The Fairy's Dilemma," but would not "bow on" because it was the custom of roughs in the -gallery to insult the author when he appeared. He described these butchers and bakers and candlestick makers as the curse of the theatre and utterly ignorant brutes. If he had his way he would close the gallery on the first nights. On the question of censorship of plays he held that there should be an appeal from the decision of the Lord Chamberlain when it was adverse to th© interests of the author While still a struggling dramatist, says his biographer, he . stood firmly against,the players' invasion of what he regarded as the dramatist's domain, and the numerous theatrical quarrels in which he waa involved were due to his resentment of the idea that the actor was at liberty to amend the author. Even Mrs. Kendal -me to differ fror* him, and he had to give Way. One night Gilbert came to fisticuffs with abactor, had the best of it, took the part, came up through the trap door, and the public never knew tie right actor was not appearing. His quarrels naturally extended to dramatic critics, and especially to Mr. Clement boptt, whose influence with the public was very great. On the other hand, like the majority of hot-tempered men, he readily forgave and forgot. His friends were many, and he was a constant letter writer. To Mrs. Talbot m Scotland he wrote: "Why does the Almighty make delightful people, and then make them go and live at Dunbar?" He suffered much from gout, and at Cairo had to be wheeled to "rotten-essy" sulphur baths. He wrote to a friend that bis ambition was to be able to wash the back of his neck. About 1902 he took to motoring in what he called a locomobile, a steam one He made his debut in it by spoiling a parson who came round from under a dead wall on a bicycle,, and was badly 5"x r L' «£ he car was turned over at a ditch, Gilbert was pitched over the dashboard,, saw many stars of -beautiful colours, and was quite sorry when they vanished. His wife was pitched very comfortably into a hedge, where she looked like a large and quite unaccountable bird's nest. His letters show him as a witty, sympathetic and affectionate friend, who had a horror of gush but a heart-of gold. '. Never an Angry Word. In 1906 Gilbert was given a congratulatory dinner at the Hotel Cecil, and as he said, had plenty of melted butter poured figuratively down his back. On replying to the toast of his health he said that, during the twenty years of his management of the Savoy operas he never had a seriously angry word with any member of the company, principal or chorus. Sullivan and he set out with the determination that the dialogues should bevoid of offence, and that on artistic principles no man should play a woman's part and no woman a man's, and further, that no lady of the company should be required to wear a dress that she could not wear with absolute propriety at a private fancy balks Gilbert was knighted in 1907. As a piece of information little known or suspected, he says that when "The Gondoliers'? was commanded at Windsor his name was not mentioned as librettist, and he had/ to pay £87 10/ as his share of sending the piece to Windsor, besides forfeiting his share of the night's proffts at the Savoy. In a speech on a public occasion he said he had been rewarded for having brought up a family, of 63 plays "without ever having to ask for parochial assistance. Hi9_ last years were spent at his beautiful home at Grim's Dyke, Harrow Weald, where he interested himself in public affairs and practised constant and

unobtrusive kindness. When the South African war broke out he volunteered I and waa quite indignant when he was rejected on account of being 63. However, he financed a young man who could not otherwise have gone. On May 29,1911, two young ladies went to the bathing pool at Grim's Dyke. Thev were both unaware that the lake was deep further out. One of them presently found herself out of her (depth. The other called to Gilbert, who swam out to her quickly and said, "Put your hands on my shoulders and don't struggle." She did so, but he sank and did not come up. His death was not due to drowning, but to heart failure. So died a very gallant gentleman. No one has bathed there since.

He showed the world that the richest humour has no connection with folly and wickedness. The subtle and whimsical and sparkling scenes he created were always innocent. He did not feel the fierce indignation of Aristophanes, but, like him, hated shams and impostures! and killed them vtfth ridicule. He gave' a new adjective to the English language, but his work won a still better memorial in the hearts of honest men.