eat technical
imperfections--his bad drawing, false light and shade, and crude
color--relegate him forever to a rank far below mediocrity. Such
reputation as he has is the result of the admiration of those
altogether ignorant of art, but possessed of enough literary ability
to trumpet abroad their praises of "great conceptions," and will as
surely fade away to nothing as the reputation of such simple painters
as Van Der Meer or Chardin will continue to grow, while painting as an
art is loved and understood.

COMPOSERS

HANDEL

By C. E. BOURNE

(1685-1759)

George Frederick Handel, of whom Haydn once reverently said, "He is
the master of us all," was born at Halle, in Lower Saxony, on February
23, 1685. His father was a surgeon, and sixty-three years of age at
the time of his birth--a terribly severe old man, who, almost before
his son was born, had determined that he should be a lawyer. The
little child knew nothing of the fate before him, he only found that
he was never allowed to go near a musical instrument, much as he
wanted to hear its sweet sounds, and the obstinate father even took
him away from the public day-school for the simple reason that the
musical gamut was taught there in addition to ordinary reading,
writing, and arithmetic.

But love always "finds out the way," and his mother or nurse managed
to procure for him the forbidden delights; a small clavichord, or dumb
spinet, with the strings covered with strips of cloth to deaden the
sound, was found for the child, and this he used to keep hidden in the
garret, creeping away to play it in the night-time, when everyone was
asleep, or whenever his father was away from home doctoring his
patients.

[Illustration: Handel.]

But, at last, when George Frederick was seven years of age, the old
man was compelled to change his views. It happened in this way. He set
out one day on a visit to the court of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels,
where another son by a former marriage was a page. George Frederick
had been teasing his father to let him go with him to see his elder
brother, whom he had not yet met, but this was refused. When old
Handel started by the stagecoach the next morning, the persistent
little fellow was on the watch; he began running after it, and at
length the father was constrained to stop the coach and take the boy
in. So, though at the expense of a severe scolding, the child had his
way and was allowed to go on to Saxe-Weissen