14 SEPTEMBER 1944, Page 4

Some one (I disclaim both the credit and the cavil

the quotation may deserve) calls attention to the remarkable prescience of W. S. Gilbert, who, with 1944 obviously in view, included in his Pirates of Penzance a song beginning-

" I am the Patton of a modern major-general," and ending " I am the Model of a modern major-general."

A case for the difficult feat of sticking to the pattern and eschewing the model.

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