Mr. Gilbert proudly remarked when he was just sixty-five, that he had cheated the doctors, and signed a new lease of life on the twenty-one-year principle. During those sixty-five years he had turned his hand to many trades. After a career at the London University, where he took his B.A. degree, he read for the Royal Artillery; but on the Crimean War coming to an end and no more officers being wanted, he became a clerk in the Privy Council Office, and was subsequently called to the Bar. He was also a Militiaman, and at one time an occasional contributor to _Punch_, becoming thus an artist as well as a writer. His pictures are well known, for all the two or three hundred illustrations in the _Bab Ballads_ are from his clever pen. I saw him make an excellent sketch in a few minutes at his home on Harrow Weald; but photography cast its web about him and he disappeared into some dark chamber for hours at a time, alone with his thoughts and his photographic pigments. The results were charming. What a lovely home that is, standing in a hundred and ten acres right at the top of Harrow Weald, with a glorious view over London, Middlesex, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. He farmed the land himself, and talked of crops and stock with a glib tongue, although the real enthusiast was his delightful wife, who loves her chickens and her roses. Sullivan always wrote the music after Gilbert had written the words. Gilbert’s ear for time and rhythm was impeccable, but he freely admitted that he had a very imperfect sense of tune. The Gilberts were tremendous travellers; for many years they wintered in Egypt, India, the West Indies, Burma, or some other far-away land, and it was on these wanderings that he conceived ideas for the “Mikado.” When in Egypt for the third time, they nearly lost their lives in the railway accident between Cairo and Halouan. Fortunately they were only bruised from the concussion, but several of the passengers were killed and many wounded. The expert photographer was of course on the spot, and while waiting for a relief train W. S. Gilbert was busy with his camera. Being physically incapacitated by a long illness from being of any service to the sufferers, he contented himself with sitting on a rock in the desert and taking snapshots at the scene of the calamity. Apropos of an interview I was writing on himself for one of a set that appeared in the front page of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, he wrote the following amusing reply to my chaff suggesting all sorts of dreadful things that I would put in if he did not help me. “GRIM’S DYKE, HARROW WEALD, “_3rd December, 1901_. “MY DEAR MRS. ALEC, “I have filled the gap to the best of my ability—but really I have very little to tell, on the subject of _Iolanthe_.