When we turn from grand to comic opera, the names of Gilbert and Sullivan confront us throughout the entire period under review in a light that sheds a still undiminished lustre on native art. Of each of the two partners in this long and fruitful collaboration it may be said, in the often quoted phrase, that if not absolutely great he was great in his _genre_. Between them they created an entirely new type of light opera. Moreover, it was an entirely English or British product in its spirit and structure, and relied entirely on British performers. _Punch_ welcomed the venture from the outset, and in 1880, in some verses modelled on the Judge's song in _Trial by Jury_, and anticipating Sullivan's knighthood in 1883, he happily summarizes the career of the composer, with whom, by the way, Burnand had been associated in _Cox and Box_ in 1866:-- As a boy I had such a musical bump, And its size so struck Mr. Helmore, That he said, "Though you sing those songs like a trump, You shall write some yourself that will sell more." So I packed off to Leipsic, without _looking back_,[13] And returned in such classical fury, That I sat down with Handel and Haydn and Bach-- And turned out _Trial by Jury_. But W.S.G. he jumped for joy As he said, "Though the job dismay you, Send Exeter Hall to the deuce, my boy; It's the _haul_ with me that'll pay you." And we hauled so well, mid jeers and taunts That we've settled, spite all temptations, To stick to our Sisters and our Cousins and our Aunts-- And continue our pleasant relations. [Footnote 13: The title of one of Sullivan's most popular songs.] In 1885, on the occasion of the production of the _Mikado_, which _Punch_ bracketed with _Pinafore_ as the best of all the series, there are some excellent observations on the dual autocracy exerted to admiration at the Savoy:-- Rarely, if ever, have Composer and Author produced piece after piece under conditions so favourable to success as have Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy. They are their own Managers, the theatre is practically theirs, the Members of the Company, from the soprano and tenor down to the latest novice in the chorus, or among the "extras," depend mainly, if not entirely, upon the Composer and Author for their engagements. This Beaumont and Fletcher of Eccentric Opera can order rehearsals when they choose, can command the scene-painters and property-men, and, what is much more to the point, be obeyed. They have jointly and separately the authority of the Centurion: the Author is the autocrat of the acting and the Savoy stage generally; the Composer is the autocrat of the music, vocal and instrumental. [Sidenote: _The Savoy Autocrats_]