I am the wheeling king,
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be the wheeling king.
A. Gibbons.
Wheeling Annual. 1885.
PATIENCE;
or, Bunthorne’s Bride!
This delightful opera was produced on Saturday, 23rd April, 1881, at a time when the Æsthetic movement was the talk of London, and Mr. Burnand’s vamped-up old play, with the new and meaningless title, The Colonel, was drawing crowded houses. The plot of The Colonel was taken from Mr. Morris Barnett’s The Serious Family, produced in 1849, whereas Mr. Gilbert’s plot was entirely original, and although it was not performed until April, 1881, the libretto of Patience was completed in November, 1880.
In both pieces the main idea was to ridicule Æstheticism and the Æsthetes; in The Colonel this was effected by representing the movement as a sham, and its votaries as humbugs and swindlers; in Patience the style, manners, and conversation of the extreme Æsthetes were so gently and gracefully exaggerated, that even the most Utter and Intense amongst them could scarcely take offence at its lively sarcasms.