1922] on Gilbert and Sullivan 603 



In the great j flood of latter-day verse the School of Bunthorne 

 still exists : — 



" Oh to be wafted away 



From this black Aceldama of sorrow, 

 Where the dust of an earthy to-day 

 Is the earth of a dusty to-morrow." 



~ That is Bunthome's " little thing of his own," called " Heart 

 Foam." 



I will not quote from a modern Bunthorne— that would be far 

 too dangerous — but this is how the brilliant parodist of Punch who 

 signs himself " Evoe " travesties the modern Bunthorne : — 



" Now while the sharp falsetto of the rain 

 Shampoos the bleak and bistre square, 

 And all seems lone and bare 

 A crimson motive floats upon the breeze." 



I think Bunthorne would have been proud to sign these lines. 

 Grosvenor's poem began : — 



" Gentle Jane was as good as gold, 

 She always did what she was told." 



And this school of elaborate simplicity still has disciples. The 

 twenty lovesick maidens are with us still. They read Freud and 

 they paint cubes, and listen with rapture to the music of Skriabin, 

 and the more unintelligible they find it the better they like it. This 

 doesn't at all mean that the art they admire is really sham, any more 

 than the art of AVhistler and Rossetti was sham in the 'eighties ; but 

 it means that every school of art has always had, and always will have, 

 foolish disciples who imitate and exaggerate the faults of the master 

 without being able to emulate his excellences. 



But there always comes a moment in the world of make-believe, 

 whether it is the world of the Precieuses-Ridicides or the world of 

 Dadists, when the voice of commonsense will come breaking in, like 

 the chorus of Gilbert's heavy dragoons. The entry of these dragoons 

 in Patience is one of those effects which show Gilbert's sure instinct 

 for stage effect, his consummate stage-craft, his profound knowledge 

 of the theatre. The sudden crash of the brisk music of commonsense 

 and its clash with the Della-Cruscan world of vaporous nonsense is 

 not only comic but dramatic and scenic. It appeals to the eye as 

 well as to ear and the mind. It is comic and dramatic by the 

 contrast it -makes, by the shock of surprise it gives, and the incon- 

 gruous situation it creates ; and it is scenic by the picture it presents. 

 The very uniforms conspire with their brilliance and unabashed 

 primary colours to, as Henry James would say, " beautifully swear " 

 with the Whistlerian and pre-Raphaelite colours and arrangements in 

 pink and mauve and sage-green of the rapturous maidens. 



To some people the chorus of those heavy dragoons will recall a 



