fels. When there, the
chapel, with the beautiful organ, was the great attraction, and George
Frederick, as indomitable then as he was in after-life, found his way
into the organ loft, and when the regular service was over, contrived
to take the organist's place, and began a performance of his own; and
strange to say, though he had not had the slightest training, a melody
with chords and the correct harmonies was heard. The duke had not left
the chapel, and noticing the difference in style from that of the
ordinary organist, inquired as to the player, and when the little boy
was brought to him he soon discovered, by the questions he put, the
great passion for music which possessed the child. The duke, a
sensible man, told the father it would be wrong to oppose the
inclination of a boy who already displayed such extraordinary genius;
and old Handel, either convinced, or at any rate submitting to the
duke's advice, promised to procure for his son regular musical
instruments. Handel never afterward forgot the debt of gratitude he
owed to the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels for this intercession.

On his return to Halle he became the pupil of Zachau, the organist of
the cathedral there. This man was an excellent teacher and a sound
musician. Before the pupil was nine years old his instructor used to
set him to write fugues and motets as exercises, and before long the
boy was allowed to play the organ at the cathedral services on Sunday,
whenever the elder musician was inclined to linger over his breakfast
or to take a holiday. At last, when young Handel was nine years old,
the master honestly confessed that his pupil knew more music than he
himself did, and advised that he should be sent to Berlin for a course
of further study there. Thither he accordingly went in the year 1696.

In Berlin the boy of eleven years was soon recognized as a prodigy.
There he met two Italian composers of established reputation,
Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti, both of whom he was to encounter in
after-life, though under very different circumstances, in London.
Bononcini, who was of a sour and jealous disposition, soon conceived
a dislike for the gifted little fellow, and attempted to injure him by
composing a piece for the harpsichord full of the most extraordinary
difficulties, and then asking him to play it at sight. The boy,
however, at once executed it without a mistake, and thus the malicious
schemer was foiled by his own device. Attilio was of a d