Farren and Arthur Williams. The Times complained of the "flatness and insipidity" of Burnand's text and of his vulgarising the original. The Observer was less censorious, finding the piece moderately amusing, and correctly predicting that it would run successfully until it had to make way for the annual Gaiety pantomime at Christmas.<ref>"At the Play", The Observer, 14 October 1883, p. 7; and "Theatres", The Times', 8 December 1883, p. 8</ref> In 1884, Burnand wrote Paw Claudian, a burlesque of the 1883 costume (Byzantine) drama Claudian by Henry Herman and W. G. Wills, presented at Toole's Theatre starring J. L. Toole. The same year, he wrote a burlesque of Black-Eyed Susan, called Black Eyed See-Usan, for the Alhambra Theatre. Burnand wrote several musical works around 1889 and 1890 with the composer Edward Solomon, including Pickwick, which was revived in 1894. Pickwick was recorded by Retrospect Opera in 2016, together with George Grossmith's Cups and Saucers. Other stage pieces included adaptations for Augustin Daly in New York. Later years In 1890, Burnand wrote Captain Therèse, followed later that year by a very successful English version of Audran's operetta, La cigale et la fourmi (the grasshopper and the ant) retitled La Cigale, with additional music by Ivan Caryll. In 1891, he produced an English adaptation of Audran's Miss Helyett, retitled as Miss Decima. Burnand's The Saucy Sally premiered in 1892, and Mrs Ponderbury's Past played in 1895. He was knighted by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace in 1902, for his work on Punch. Burnand's 1897 comic opera, His Majesty, with music by Alexander Mackenzie, failed despite the contributions of the lyricist Adrian Ross and a Savoy Theatre cast including Ilka Pálmay, George Grossmith and Walter Passmore. The blame was generally held to be Burnand's. The Times commented, "Mr Burnand's experience as a librettist of comic opera, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie's inexperience in this class of composition might lead the public to expect a brilliant book weighed down by music of too serious and ambitious a type. The exact opposite is the case." Burnand's libretto was judged dull and confused, but Mackenzie's music was "marked by distinction as well as humour." Stedman comments that Burnand's conviction that he, not Gilbert, should have been Sullivan's main collaborator defied the facts: The Chieftain, his rewrite of The Contrabandista with Sullivan, ran for only 97 performances in 1894, and His Majesty managed only 61 performances. Nevertheless,