“That were, indeed, most prudent, little witch,” said Händel, laughing: “but ’tis ill preaching to lovers; that knows your father by experience, eh! old John?”
“Master Händel,” said the Abbe, taking the word, “do you know I was not able to sleep last night, because your chorus—‘For the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,’—ran continually in my head, and sounded in my ears? I think, good Master Händel, your glory shall be revealed through your Messiah, when you can once get it brought out suitably. But the Lord Archbishop, it seems, is against it.”
Händel reddened violently, as he always did when anger stirred him: “A just Christian is the Lord Archbishop! He asked me if he should compose me a text for the Messiah; and when I asked him quietly if he thought me a heathen who knew nothing of the Bible, or if he thought to make it better than it stood in the Holy Scriptures, he turned his back on me, and represented me to the court as a rude, thankless boor.”
“It is not good to eat cherries with the great,” observed wise John Farren.
“I thought,” muttered Händel, “this proverb was only current on the continent; but I see, alas! that it is equally applicable in the land of freedom!”
“Good and bad are mingled all over the earth,” said Benjamin Hualdy, smiling: “and their proportion is everywhere the same. We must take the world, dear Händel, as it is, if we would not renounce all pleasure. Confess then: never felt you more joy—never were you more conscious of your own merit—never thanked you God more devoutly for his gifts to you, than when at last, after long struggle with ignorance and intrigue, you produced a work before the world, that charmed even enmity and envy to admiration!”
“And what care I for the admiration of fools and knaves?” interrupted Händel. Benjamin continued, in a conciliating tone—“Friend, he who can admire the beautiful and the good, is not so wholly depraved, as oft appears. There lives a something in the breast of every man, which, so long as it is not quite crushed and extinguished, lets not the worst fall utterly. I cannot name, nor describe it; but art, and music before all arts, is the surest test whereby you may know if that something yet exists.”
“Most surely,” cried Master Tyers. “I myself love music from my heart, and think with your great countryman, Doctor Luther, ‘He must be a brute who feels not pleasure in so lovely and wondrous an art.’ But, Master Händel, judge not my dear countrymen too harshly, if they have not accomplished so much as yours in that glorious art. Gifts are diverse; we have many that you have not.”
“You have been long in England,” observed the Abbe, “and have experienced many vexations and difficulties, particularly among those necessary to you in the production of your works. But tell me, Master Händel, supposing it true, that the court and nobles often do you injustice; that our musicians and singers are inferior to those in your own country; that we cannot grasp all the high spirit that dwells in your works; are you not, nevertheless, the darling of the people of Britain? Lives not the name of Händel in the mouth of honest John Bull, honored as the names of his most renowned statesmen? Well, sir, if that is true, give honest John Bull (he means well and truly, at least) a little indulgence. Let us hear your Messiah soon; your honor suffers nought, and you remain, after all, the free German you were before.”
“Aye!” cried Hogarth, “that is just what I have told him.” “And I,”—“And I,” exclaimed Tyers and Hualdy; while John added, coaxingly, “Only think, Master Händel, how often I have to give up to my good wife, without detriment to my authority as master of the house.”