n his sixty-eighth year, and had lived down most of the hostility
which formerly had been so rife against him. Who, indeed, could for
long withstand so imperious a will, backed by such unquenchable
genius? With increased fame, moreover, his fortunes had built
themselves up once more, so that when he died he left L20,000 to be
disposed of by his executors.

The range of Handel's compositions was gigantic; there was no branch
of the art which his genius did not penetrate and adorn, but it is as
a writer of choruses that his power is seen at its best. 'No one,'
writes Mr. Julian Marshall, in his biography of the composer, 'before
or since has so well understood how to extract from a body of voices
such grand results by such artfully simple means as those he used.' No
master, we may add, has given us music which expresses with greater
clearness, beauty, or force the passages of Scripture it is intended
to illumine than that which is to be found in the choral parts of
Handel's oratorios. Handel was the greatest master of counterpoint the
world has ever seen, and this power enabled him to give musical
expression to written words with an ease and fluency which can only be
described as marvellous. Yet it is not its marvellous character which
strikes us when we hear his work for the first time so much as its
oneness with the subject it portrays; we feel that it is like some
grand painting, in which colour and form are so charmingly blended as
to make a perfect and indivisible whole.

It is often alleged that Handel copied from other composers, and that
such was the case there is abundant evidence to show. It must be
remembered, however, that in his day people did not attach to
originality of ideas the value which we allow to them now. Handel,
however, did more than this: he not only borrowed ideas or themes
which--to a great extent, at least--were regarded as common property,
but he actually embodied in some of his works _entire passages_ taken
from the compositions of comparatively unknown composers. For this no
justification is possible; nor, on the other hand, can it be urged
that Handel stole other men's brains because he lacked power to use
his own. The only thing that it seems possible to say by way of
explaining a practice which must be condemned as dishonest is that
Handel in all probability did not realise his offence or view it in
the light in which we view it at the present day. Everything in his
life and character