A famous peripety of the romantic order occurs in _H.M.S. Pinafore_,
where, on the discovery that Captain Corcoran and Ralph Rackstraw have
been changed at birth, Ralph instantly becomes captain of the ship,
while the captain declines into an able-bodied seaman. This is one of
the instances in which the idealism of art ekes out the imperfections
of reality.
