It’s true I cough and cough again;

It’s true I gasp and puff and blow;

It’s true my trip may lay me low—

But that’s not your affair, you know.

Never you mind!

Roll on!

Funny Folks Annual. 1885.

——:o:——

A small volume has recently been published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus (London), entitled Mr. Gilbert’s Original Comic Operas, it contains The Sorcerer, H. M. S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe, Patience, Princess Ida, The Mikado, and Trial by Jury. It gives the dates when these pieces were first produced, but unfortunately omits the names of the performers, which all playgoers and collectors of theatrical curiosities will regret.

Numerous imitations and parodies exist of Mr. Gilbert’s writings, other than those connected with Sir Arthur Sullivan’s music, thus his mythological play Pygmalion and Galatea was burlesqued by Miss Alice Maud Meadows in “Chiselling Pygmalion,” which was performed in London in December, 1883, by the members of the Grantham Lawn Tennis Club.