SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."
Sic..—In the interest of every man of letters in England, will you allow me to say a few words about your article on Sir Arthur Sullivan, by "C. L. G."? None of us, I hope, wishes to decry Sir Arthur's music, or Sir Arthur's name. That would seem to have been left for his friends. If I knew Sir Arthur at all—and I did know him a little—he would
have been the last on earth, or possibly now in heaven, to wish to see himself extolled at the despised expense of Gilbert. To every lover of English in the world, Gilbert's is a great and original figure as a bumourist, to the which none but itself can be its parallel. His command in the realms of fancy is his own. Even his friends (" C. L. G." apart)
will, I presume, agree that Sullivan's greatest fame, like Gilberts, is based upon the inimitable Gilbert-and-Sullivan operas. About his serious music I have no desire to speak, simply on the grounds of ignorance. My example should be more followed, it strikes me. But I know that after Pinafore had been welcomed in Germany—the land of music nowadays—The Golden Legend was declined. Of the Gilbert-and-Sullivan ope'ras, Gilbert devised the story, wrote the play (amazingly described by musicians as the "words"—quite unimportant, as we know, to them), and stage- managed the entire production. Yet " C. L. G." allows himself, in what we thought was a literary and not a " musical " journal, to say that " Sullivan's " genius and gifts to the public for mirth and comedy were like those of Dickens, and that he succeeded, for the public's sake, in " avoiding " the tragic themes, the sardonic flavour, and the underlying asperity of " Mr. Gilbert's" lines ! Thus and thus only, and once, is " Mr. Gilbert's " miserable name alluded to in a literary journal, in this lofty musical parade ! In the whole course of a fairly long literary existence I doubt if I have ever beard of quite such an assumption as • this. Did " C. L. G." ever hear of the story of the swell who, on being told in Westminster Abbey that the anthem was by Sullivan, said that of course the " words" were Gilbert's P The Spectator has been wont to be literary, my dear Sir. Gilbert's is one of the most unique writing-figures of the time, or any time. And all be did was to be "avoided" by Sullivan ! !! It did not look like it, for practical results.—I am, Sir, &o., [We publish Mr. Merivale's letter, but we cannot admit that he or any other friend of Mr. Gilbert has the slightest ground of complaint about a criticism which was, we hold, just and sound and temperately expressed, and for which we take the fullest responsibility. Besides, nothing was, in fact, further from the author of the article than to depreciate the literary merit of Mr. Gilbert's librettos, or to underestimate the debt which Sir Arthur Sullivan owed to his collaborator. He merely wished to convey the opinion that while there was an element of acidity in Mr. Gilbert's verse, there was none in Sullivan's music.—En. Spectator.]
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