he musicians lived his
life straight through in the grand manner. Spohr had dignity; Gluck
insisted upon respect being shown a man of his talent; Spontini was
sufficiently self-assertive; Beethoven treated his noble patrons as so
many handfuls of dirt. But it is impossible altogether to lose sight
of the peasant in Beethoven and Gluck; Spohr had more than a trace of
the successful shopkeeper; Spontini's assertion often became mere
insufferable bumptiousness. Besides, they all won their positions
through being the best men in the field, and they held them with a
proud consciousness of being the best men. But in Handel we have a
polished gentleman, a lord amongst lords, almost a king amongst kings;
and had his musical powers been much smaller than they were, he might
quite possibly have gained and held his position just the same. He
slighted the Elector of Hanover; and when that noble creature became
George I. of England, Handel had only to do the handsome thing, as a
handsome gentleman should, to be immediately taken back into favour.
He was educated--was, in fact, a university man of the German sort; he
could write and spell, and add up rows of figures, and had many other
accomplishments which gentlemen of the period affected a little to
despise. He had a pungent and a copious wit. He had quite a
commercial genius; he was an impresario, and had engagements to offer
other people instead of having to beg for engagements for himself; and
he was always treated by the British with all the respect they keep
for the man who has made money, or, having lost it, is fast making it
again. He fought for the lordship of opera against nearly the whole
English nobility, and they paid him the compliment of banding together
with as much ado to ruin him as if their purpose had been to drive his
royal master from the throne. He treated all opposition with a
splendid good-humoured disdain. If his theatre was empty, then the
music sounded the better. If a singer threatened to jump on the
harpsichord because Handel's accompaniments attracted more notice than
the singing, Handel asked for the date of the proposed performance
that it might be advertised, for more people would come to see the
singer jump than hear him sing. He was, in short, a most superb
person, quite the grand seigneur. Think of Bach, the little shabby
unimportant cantor, or of Beethoven, important enough but shabby, and
with a great sorrow in his eyes, and an air of weariness,