MR. BROWN.
The late Mr. Brown, leader of his Majesty’s band, used to tell several stories of Handel’s love of good cheer, liquid and solid, as well as of his impatience: of the former he gave an instance, which was accidentally discovered, at his own house, in Brook Street, where Brown, in the Oratorio Season, among other principal performers, was at dinner. During the repast, Handel often cried out——“O, I have de taught, (thought),” when the company, unwilling that, out of civility to them, the public should be robbed of any thing so valuable as his musical ideas, begged he would retire and write them down; with which request, however, he so frequently complied, that, at last, one of the most suspicious had the ill-bred curiosity to peep through the key-hole, into the adjoining room, where he perceived that dese taughts were only bestowed on a fresh hamper of Burgundy, which, as was afterwards discovered, he had received in a present from his friend, the late Earl of Radnor, while his company was regaled with more generous and spirited port.
Burney’s Life of Handel.