SOURCE: “Swinburne, Robert Buchanan, and W. S. Gilbert: The Pain that Was All but a Pleasure,” in Studies in Philology, Vol. LXIX, No. 3, July, 1972, pp. 369-87.

In the following essay, Jenkins identifies Buchanan as the model for Archibald Grosvenor in Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience.

The middle-aged spinster as an object of ridicule in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas has been the subject of much inconclusive controversy. Many commentators have interpreted Gilbert's frequent use of the “old maid” joke as indicating a streak of cruelty in his character; the word “sadism” has been specifically applied.¹ However, at the very worst, Gilbert was only mocking a recognizable type of woman. Apparently no one has charged Gilbert with using a living individual as a model for Ruth, Lady Jane, or Katisha.

On the other hand, some of the male figures of fun bore a remarkably close resemblance to living contemporaries. There was...