GilbertAndSullivan

Sir W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan, possibly the best librettist-composer team of AllTime?. Their operettas include:

• HMS Pinafore
• ThePiratesOfPenzance?
• Patience
• Iolanthe
• The Mikado

and many more.

Possibly their most famous song is this, from ThePiratesOfPenzance?:

 I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
 I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
 I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
 from Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
 I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
 I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
 About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news -
 With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

 ALL. With many cheerful facts, etc.

 GEN. I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
 I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
 In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 ALL. In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
 He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

 GEN. I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's,
 I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
 I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
 In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous.
 I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
 I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes,
 Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
 And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

 ALL. And whistle all the airs, etc. 

 GEN. Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
 And tell you every detail of Caractacus's uniform;
 In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 ALL. In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, 
 He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

 GEN. In fact, when I know what is meant by 'mamelon' and 'ravelin,'
 When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,
 When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
 And when I know precisely what is meant by 'commissariat,'
 When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
 When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery;
 In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy,
 You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee - 

 ALL. You'll say a better, etc.

 GEN. For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
 Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
 But still in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 ALL. But still in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
 He is the very model of a modern Major-General.

See also: IamTheVeryModelOfaHarveyMuddProfessional, and the Song of the Llamma Llord in GroupStoryTwo