visit Italy. Florence was the first city in which he made any stay. He
was there received in the kindest manner by the Grand Duke Giovanni
Gaston de Medicis, and produced the opera of Rodrigo in 1709, for which
he was presented with a hundred sequins, and a service of plate. Thence
he proceeded to Venice, where he brought out Agrippina, which was
received with acclamation, and performed twenty-seven nights
successively. It seems that horns and other wind-instruments were in
this opera first used in Italy as accompaniments to the voice. Here the
charms of his music made an impression on the famous beauty and singer,
Signora Vittoria, a lady particularly distinguished by the Grand Duke;
but in this, as in every instance of a similar kind, Handel showed no
disposition to avail himself of any partialities exhibited in his
favour. His thoughts were nearly all absorbed by his art, and it is but
just to conclude that he was also influenced by those sentiments of
moral propriety which so distinctly marked his conduct through life. It
is to be admitted, however, that he was too much inclined to indulge in
the pleasures of the table.
On visiting Rome he was hospitably and kindly entertained by the
Cardinal Ottoboni, a person of the most refined taste and princely
magnificence. Besides his splendid collection of pictures and statues,
he possessed a library of music of great extent, and kept in his service
an excellent band of performers, which was under the direction of the
celebrated Corelli. At one of the parties made by the Cardinal, Handel
produced the overture to Il Trionfo del Tempo, which was attempted by
the band so unsuccessfully, that the composer, in his hasty manner,
snatched the violin from Corelli, and played the most difficult passages
with his own hand. The Italian, who was all modesty and meekness,
ingenuously confessed that he did not understand the kind of music; and,
when Handel still appeared impatient, only said, “Ma, caro Sassone,
questa musica è nel stilo Francese, di ch’io non m’intendo”—(“But, my
dear Saxon, this music is in the French style, which I do not
understand”). And so far Corelli was perfectly right; Handel’s overtures
are formed after the model of Lully, though, it is hardly necessary to
add, he improved what he imitated. This anecdote indicates the vast
superiority in point of execution possessed by the moderns. A learner of
two years’ standing would now play the violin part of any of Handel’s
overtures at first sight, without a fault.
At Rome Handel composed his Trionfo del Tempo, the words of which were
written for him by the Cardinal Pamphilii, and a kind of _mystery_, or
oratorio, La Resurrezione. The former he afterwards brought out in
London, with English words by Dr. Morell, under the title of the Triumph
of Time and Truth. From Rome he went to Naples, where he was treated
with every mark of distinction. But he now resolved, notwithstanding the
many attempts made to keep him in Italy, to return to Germany; and in
1710 reached Hanover, where he found a generous patron in the Elector,
who subsequently ascended the English throne as George I. Here he met
the learned composer, Steffani, who, having arrived at a time of life
when retirement becomes desirable, resigned his office of Maestro di
Capella to the Elector, and Handel was appointed his successor, with a
salary of 1500 crowns, upon condition that he would return to the court
of Hanover at the termination of his travels.
Towards the end of 1710 Handel arrived in London. He was soon introduced
at court, and honoured with marks of Queen Anne’s favour. Aaron Hill was
then manager of the Italian opera, and immediately sketched a drama from
Tasso’s Jerusalem, which Rossi worked into an opera under the name of
Rinaldo, and Handel set to music. This was brought out in March, 1711;
and it is stated in the preface that it was composed in a fortnight, a
strong recommendation of a work to those who delight in the wonderful
rather than in the excellent: but in fact there is nothing in this which
could have put the composer to much expense either of time or thought.
Handel undoubtedly wrote better operas than any of his contemporaries or
predecessors; but he was controlled by the habits and taste of the day,
and knew by experience that two or three good pieces were as much as the
fashionable frequenters of the Italian theatre would listen to, in his
time.
At the close of 1711 he returned to Hanover, but revisited London late
in 1712; and shortly after was selected, not without many murmurs from
English musicians, to compose a Te Deum and Jubilate on occasion of the
peace of Utrecht. The Queen settled on him a pension of two hundred
pounds as the reward of his labour,—and as he was solicited to write
again for the Italian stage, he never thought of returning to his
engagement at Hanover, till the accession of the Elector to the British
throne reminded him of his neglect of his royal employer and patron. On
the arrival of George I. in London, Handel wanted the courage to present
himself at court; but his friend, Baron Kilmansegge, had the address to
get him restored to royal favour. The pleasing _Water-Music_, performed
during an excursion made up the river by the King, was the means by
which the German baron brought about the reconciliation; and this was
accompanied by an addition of two hundred pounds to the pension granted
by Queen Anne.
From the year 1715 to 1720, Handel composed only three operas. The three
first years of this period he passed at the Earl of Burlington’s, where
he was constantly in the habit of meeting Pope, who, though devoid of
any taste for music, always spoke and wrote in a flattering manner of
the German composer. The other two years he devoted to the Duke of
Chandos, Pope’s Timon; and at Cannons, the Duke’s seat, he produced many
of his anthems, which must be classed among the finest of his works,
together with the greater number of his hautbois concertos, sonatas,
lessons, and organ fugues.
A project was now formed by several of the English nobility for erecting
the Italian theatre into an Academy of Music, and Handel was chosen as
manager, with a condition that he should supply a certain number of
operas. In pursuance of this, he went to Dresden to engage singers, and
brought back with him several of great celebrity, Senesino among the
number. His first opera under the new system was Radamisto, the success
of which was astonishing. But there were at that time two Italian
composers in London, Bononcini and Attilio, who till then had been
attached to the opera-house, and were not without powerful supporters.
These persons did not passively notice the ascendancy of Handel, and the
insignificance into which they were in danger of falling; they persuaded
several weak and some factious people of noble rank to espouse their
cause, and to oppose the German intruder, as they called the new
manager. Hence arose those feuds to which Swift has given immortality by
his well-known epigram; and hence may be traced Handel’s retirement from
a scene of cabal, persecution, and loss. The final result of this,
however, was fortunate, for it led to the production of his greatest
works, his oratorios, which not only amply compensated him for all the
injury which his fortune sustained in this contest, but raised him to a
height of fame which he could never have gained by his Italian operas.
The two contending parties, wishing to appear reasonable, proposed
something like terms of accommodation: these were, that an opera in
three acts should be composed by the three rivals, one act by each, and
that he who best succeeded should for ever after take the precedence.
The drama chosen was Muzio Scevola, of which Bononcini set the first
act, Handel the second, and Attilio the third. Handel’s “won the cause,”
and Bononcini’s was pronounced the next in merit. But, strange to say,
though each no doubt strained his ability to the utmost in this
struggle, not a single piece in the whole opera is known in the present
day, or is, perhaps, to be found, except in the libraries of curious
collectors.
This victory left Handel master of the field for some years, and the
academy prospered. During this period he brought out about fifteen of
his best operas. But the genius of discord must always have a seat in
the temple of harmony, and a dispute between the German manager and the
Italian soprano, Senesino, renewed former quarrels, broke up the
academy, materially damaged the fortune of the great composer, and was
the cause of infinite vexation to him during much of his future life.
Dr. Arbuthnot, always a staunch friend of Handel, now became his
champion, and his ridicule had more weight with the sensible portion of
the public than the futile arguments, if they deserve the name, advanced
by the noble supporters of Senesino. But fashion and prejudice were, as
usual, too strong for reason: a rival opera-house was opened in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and after having composed several new operas,
comprising some of his best, and having sacrificed nearly the whole of
his property and injured his health, in a spirited attempt to support
the cause of the lyric stage against the presumption of singers, and the
folly of their abettors, Handel was at last compelled to terminate his
ineffectual labours, and stop his ruinous expenses, by abandoning the
contest and the Italian opera together.
The sacred musical drama, or oratorio, was ultimately destined to repair
his all but ruined fortune, and to establish his fame beyond the reach
of cavil, and for ever. Esther, the words of which it is said were the
joint production of Pope and Arbuthnot, was composed for the Duke of
Chandos in 1720. In 1732 it was performed ten nights at the Haymarket,
or King’s Theatre. Deborah was produced in 1733, and in the same year
Athalia was brought out at Oxford. These three oratorios were performed
at Covent Garden, in the Lent of 1734. Acis and Galatea, and Alexander’s
Feast, were brought out in 1735; Israel in Egypt, in 1738; L’Allegro ed
il Penseroso, in 1739. Saul was produced at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields in 1740. But up to this period his oratorios failed to reimburse
him for the expenses incurred; and even the Messiah, that sublime and
matchless work, was, as Dr. Burney, Sir John Hawkins, and Handel’s first
biographer, Mr. Mainwaring, all agree in stating, not only ill attended,
but ill received, when first given to the public, in the capital of the
empire, in 1741.
Such miscarriages, and a severe fit of illness, the supposed consequence
of them, determined him to try his oratorios in the sister kingdom,
where he hoped to be out of the reach of prejudice, envy, and hostility.
Dublin was at that time noted for the gaiety and splendour of its court,
and the opulence and spirit of its principal inhabitants. Handel,
therefore, judged wisely in appealing to such a people. Pope in his
Dunciad alludes to this part of his history, introducing a poor phantom
as representative of the Italian opera, who thus instructs Dullness:—
But soon, ah soon, rebellion will commence,
If Music meanly borrows aid from sense:
Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands:
To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove’s own thunders follow Mars’s drums.
Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more.—
She heard—and drove him to th’ Hibernian shore.
“On his arrival in Dublin,” we are told by Dr. Burney, in his
Commemoration of Handel, “he, with equal judgment and humanity, began by
performing the Messiah for the benefit of the city prison. This act of
generosity and benevolence met with universal approbation, as well as
his music, which was admirably performed.” He remained in Ireland about
nine months, where his finances began to mend, an earnest, as it were,
of the more favourable reception which he experienced on returning to
London in 1742. He then recommenced his oratorios at Covent Garden;
Sampson was the first performed. And now fortune seemed to wait on all
his undertakings; and he took the tide at the flood. His last oratorio
became most popular, and the Messiah was now received with universal
admiration and applause. Dr. Burney remarks, “From that time to the
present, this great work has been heard in all parts of the kingdom with
increasing reverence and delight; it has fed the hungry, clothed the
naked, fostered the orphan,” and, he might have added, healed the sick.
Influenced by the most disinterested motives of humanity, Handel
resolved to perform his Messiah annually for the benefit of the
Foundling Hospital, and, under his own direction and that of his
successors, it added to the funds of that charity alone the sum of
£10,300. How much it has produced to other benevolent institutions, it
is impossible to calculate; the amount must be enormous.
He continued his oratorios till almost the moment of his death, and
derived considerable pecuniary advantage from them, though a
considerable portion of the nobility persevered in their opposition to
him. George II., however, was his steady patron, and constantly attended
his performances, when they were abandoned by most of his court.
In the close of life, Handel had the misfortune to lose his sight, from
an attack of gutta serena, in 1751. This evil for a time plunged him
into deep despondency; but when the event was no longer doubtful, an
earnest and sincere sense of religion enabled him to bear his affliction
with fortitude, and he not only continued to perform, but even to
compose. For this purpose, he employed as his amanuensis Mr. John
Christian Smith, a good musician, who furnished materials for a life of
his employer and friend, and succeeded him in the management of the
oratorios. “To see him, however,” Dr. Burney feelingly observes, “led to
the organ after this calamity, at upwards of seventy years of age, and
then conducted towards the audience to make his accustomed obeisance,
was a sight so truly afflicting to persons of sensibility, as greatly
diminished their pleasure in hearing him perform.”
His last appearance in public was on the 6th of April, 1759. He died
that day week, on Good-Friday, thus realizing a hope which he expressed
a very few days before his decease, when aware that his last hours were
approaching. He was buried in Westminster Abbey; the Dean, Dr. Pearce,
Bishop of Rochester, assisted by all the officers of the choir,
performed the ceremony. A fine monument, executed by Roubiliac, is
placed in Poet’s Corner, above the spot where his mortal remains are
deposited; but a still more honourable tribute to his memory was paid in
the year 1784, by the performances which took place under the roof which
covers his dust. A century having then elapsed from the time of his
birth, it was proposed that a Commemoration of Handel should take place.
The management of it was intrusted to the directors of the ancient
concert, and eight of the most distinguished members of the musical
profession. The King, George III., zealously patronised the undertaking,
and nearly all the upper classes of the kingdom seconded the royal
views. A vocal and instrumental band of 525 persons was collected from
all parts, for the purpose of performing in a manner never before even
imagined, the choicest works of the master. The great aisle in
Westminster Abbey was fitted up for the occasion, with boxes for the
Royal Family, the Directors, the Bench of Bishops, and the Dean and
Prebendaries of the Church; galleries were erected on each side, and a
grand orchestra was built over the great west door, extending from
within a few feet of the ground, to nearly half-way up the great window.
There were four morning performances in the church: the tickets of
admission were one guinea each; and the gross receipts (including an
evening concert at the Pantheon) amounted to £12,736. The disbursements
rather exceeded £6,000, and the profits were given to the Society for
Decayed Musicians and the Westminster Hospital; £6,000 to the former,
and £1,000 to the latter. Such was the success of this great enterprise,
that similar performances, increasing each year in magnitude, took place
annually till the period of the French Revolution, when the state of
public affairs did not encourage their longer continuance.
As a composer, Handel was great in all styles—from the familiar and airy
to the grand and sublime. His instinctive taste for melody, and the high
value he set on it, are obvious in all his works; but he felt no less
strongly the charms of harmony, in fulness and richness of which he far
surpassed even the greatest musicians who preceded him. And had he been
able to employ the variety of instruments now in use, some of which have
been invented since his death, and to command that orchestral talent,
which probably has had some share in stimulating the inventive faculty
of modern composers, it is reasonable to suppose that the field of his
conceptions would have expanded with the means at his command.
Unrivalled in sublimity, he might then have anticipated the variety and
brilliance of later masters.
Generally speaking, Handel set his words with deep feeling and strong
sense. Now and then he certainly betrayed a wish to imitate by sounds
what sounds are incapable of imitating; and occasionally attempted to
express the meaning of an isolated word, without due reference to the
context. And sometimes, though not often, his want of a complete
knowledge of our language led him into errors of accentuation. But these
defects, though great in little men, dwindle almost to nothing in this
“giant of the art:” and every competent judge, who contemplates the
grandeur, beauty, science, variety, and number of Handel’s productions,
will feel for him that admiration which Haydn, and still more Mozart,
was proud to avow, and be ready to exclaim in the words of Beethoven,
“Handel is the unequalled master of all masters! Go, turn to him, and
learn, with such scanty means, how to produce such effects!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by H. Meyer._
PASCAL.
_From the original Picture by Philippe de Champagne,
in the possession of M. Lenoir at Paris._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._
]
[Illustration]
PASCAL.
Blaise Pascal was born June 19, 1623, at Clermont, the capital of
Auvergne, where his father, Stephen Pascal, held a high legal office. On
the death of his wife in 1626, Stephen resigned his professional
engagements, that he might devote himself entirely to the education of
his family, which consisted only of Blaise, and of two daughters. With
this view he removed to Paris.
The elder Pascal was a man of great moral worth, and of a highly
cultivated mind. He was known as an active member of a small society of
philosophers, to which the Academie Royale des Sciences, established in
1666, owed its origin. Though himself an ardent mathematician, he was in
no haste to initiate his son in his own favourite pursuits; but having a
notion, not very uncommon, that the cultivation of the exact sciences is
unfriendly to a taste for general literature, he began with the study of
languages; and notwithstanding many plain indications of the natural
bent of his son’s genius, he forbad him to meddle, even in thought, with
the mathematics. Nature was too strong for parental authority. The boy
having extracted from his father some hints as to the subject matter of
geometry, went to work by himself, drawing circles and lines, or, as he
called them in his ignorance of the received nomenclature, rounds and
bars, and investigating and proving the properties of his various
figures, till, without help of a book or oral instruction of any kind,
he had advanced as far as the thirty-second proposition of the first
book of Euclid. He had perceived that the three angles of a triangle are
together equal to two right ones, and was searching for a satisfactory
proof, when his father surprised him in his forbidden speculations. The
figures drawn on the walls of his bed-chamber told the tale, and a few
questions proved that his head had been employed as well as his fingers.
He was at this time twelve years old. All attempts at restriction were
now abandoned. A copy of Euclid’s Elements was put into his hands by his
father himself, and Blaise became a confirmed geometrician. At sixteen
he composed a treatise on the Conic Sections, which had sufficient merit
to induce Descartes obstinately to attribute the authorship to the elder
Pascal or Desargues.
Such was his progress in a study which was admitted only as the
amusement of his idle hours. His labours under his father’s direction
were given to the ancient classics.
Some years after this, the elder Pascal had occasion to employ his son
in making calculations for him. To facilitate his labour, Blaise Pascal,
then in his nineteenth year, invented his famous arithmetical machine,
which is said to have fully answered its purpose. He sent this machine
with a letter to Christina, the celebrated Queen of Sweden. The
possibility of rendering such inventions generally useful has been
stoutly disputed since the days of Pascal. This question will soon
perhaps be set at rest, if it may not be considered as already answered,
by the scientific labours of an accomplished mathematician of our own
time and country.
It should be remarked that Pascal, whilst he regarded geometry as
affording the highest exercise of the powers of the human mind, held in
very low estimation the importance of its practical results. Hence his
speculations were irregularly turned to various unconnected subjects, as
his curiosity might happen to be excited by them. The late creation of a
sound system of experimental philosophy by Galileo had roused an
irresistible spirit of inquiry, which was every day exhibiting new
marvels; but time was wanted to develope the valuable fruits of its
discoveries, which have since connected the most abstruse speculations
of the philosopher with the affairs of common life.
There is no doubt that his studious hours produced much that has been
lost to the world; but many proofs remain of his persevering activity in
the course which he had chosen. Amongst them may be mentioned his
Arithmetical Triangle, with the treatises arising out of it, and his
investigations of certain problems relating to the curve called by
mathematicians the Cycloid, to which he turned his mind, towards the
close of his life, to divert his thoughts in a season of severe
suffering. For the solution of these problems, according to the fashion
of the times, he publicly offered a prize, for which La Loubère and our
own countryman Wallis contended. It was adjudged that neither had
fulfilled the proposed conditions; and Pascal published his own
solutions, which raised the admiration of the scientific world. The
Arithmetical Triangle owed its existence to questions proposed to him by
a friend respecting the calculation of probabilities in games of chance.
Under this name is denoted a peculiar arrangement of numbers in certain
proportions, from which the answers to various questions of chances, the
involution of binomials, and other algebraical problems, may be readily
obtained. This invention led him to inquire further into the theory of
chances; and he may be considered as one of the founders of that branch
of analysis, which has grown into such importance in the hands of La
Place.