throughout his life—that theatrical scores were beneath his ability. In the Standard, A. E. T. Watson wrote: Clement Scott in The Daily Telegraph found the opera "not marred by ambitious music". But he added, "Tuneful throughout, always pretty, frequently suggestive, the songs and dances are quite in character with the author's design.... Some of the numbers will certainly live, and the impression caused by the music as a whole is that it will have far more than a passing interest." Many critics praised the originality of the title character's song in the first act about the head of a railway company, which may have been a joke about the Duke of Sutherland, "who was fond of running railway engines". Scott called the song a "ludicrous ballad", but "quite in the spirit of the well-known compositions of 'Bab,' and, as it has been fitted with a lively tune and a rattling chorus, a hearty encore was inevitable. Though the ditty was long, the audience would have been well content to hear it all over again." The Pall Mall Gazette found the orchestration "very novel, including, as it does, the employment of a railway bell, a railway whistle, and some new instrument of music imitating the agreeable sound of a train in motion." Similarly The Sunday Times noted, "The entire company join in the chorus, the music of which admirably expresses the whirl and thunder of a railway train at express speed." The Era called it "a screaming, whistling and shouting chorus [that] fairly brings down the house". The similarity to French models was much commented upon. Vanity Fair thought that "the music in the piece itself is charming throughout, and promises for the first time a rival to Offenbach.... Thespis is quite as good as Orphée aux Enfers." Another wrote: The Morning Advertiser thought that "There is an evident attempt to copy the creations of a foreign composer who is so popular at the present time, and who has written some charming music for the gods and goddesses en bouffes." Others accused Sullivan of blatant copying. The Athenaeum wrote that the music "was arranged and composed by Mr A. S. Sullivan (the first verb was not in the bills as it ought to have been)". One critic thought that the duet for Sparkeion and Nicemis, "Here far away from all the world", was one of the "single best items of the