Dr. Frederic Cowen is another of our English musicians who, in more favourable circumstances, would doubtless have proved himself an operatic composer of distinction.  ‘Pauline,’ a work founded upon ’The Lady of Lyons,’ which was played by the Carl Rosa company in 1876, seems to have won little success.  ‘Thorgrim,’ produced by the same company in 1889, was more fortunate.  The plot is founded upon an Icelandic saga, and has but little dramatic interest.  There is much charm in Dr. Cowen’s music, and some of the lighter scenes in the opera are gracefully treated, but his talent is essentially delicate rather than powerful, and the fierce passions of the Vikings scarcely come within its scope.

‘Signa’ (1893), an opera founded upon Ouida’s novel of that name, showed traces of Italian influence.  It was produced at Milan with considerable success, and was afterwards given in London.  In ‘Harold’ (1895), Dr. Cowen attempted too ambitious a task.  The tale of the conquest of England was ill suited to his delicate muse, and the opera achieved little more than a succes d’estime.

Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) was the most successful English composer of opera during the later years of the nineteenth century.  His name is of course principally associated with the long series of light operas written in conjunction with Mr. W.S.  Gilbert; but it must not be forgotten that he also essayed grand opera with no little success.

The experiment made by the Carl Rosa company in 1899 of playing his early oratorio, ‘The Martyr of Antioch,’ as an opera had, not unnaturally, very little success, but ‘Ivanhoe’ (1891) showed that Sullivan could adapt his style to the exigencies of grand opera with singular versatility.  ‘Ivanhoe’ was handicapped by a patchy and unequal libretto, but it contained a great deal of good music, and we have probably not heard the last of it yet.  For the present generation, however, Sullivan’s fame rests almost entirely upon his comic operas, which indeed have already attained something like the position of classics and may prove, it is sincerely to be hoped, the foundation of that national school of opera which has been so often debated and so ardently desired, but is still, alas! so far from practical realisation.

Sullivan’s first essay in comic opera dates from the year 1867, which saw the production of his ‘Contrabandista’ and ‘Cox and Box,’ both written to libretti by Sir Frank Burnand, and both showing not merely admirable musicianship and an original vein of melody, but an irresistible sense of humour and a rare faculty for expressing it in music.  ‘Thespis’ (1871) first brought him into partnership with Mr. Gilbert, a partnership which was further cemented by ‘Trial by Jury’ (1875).  It was ‘Trial by Jury’ that opened the eyes of connoisseurs to the possibilities lying within the grasp of these two young men, whose combined talents had produced a work so entirely without precedent in the history of English or indeed of any