this was the worst. As astounding as this is the quality of light and
freshness of atmosphere with which Handel imbues such songs as "Clouds
o'ertake the brightest day" and "Crystal streams in murmurs flowing";
and the tenderness of "Would custom bid," with the almost divine
refrain, "I then had called thee mine," might surprise us, coming as
it does from such a giant, did we not know that tenderness is always a
characteristic of the great men, of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner,
and that the pettiness, ill-conditionedness, and lack of generous
feeling observable in (say) our London composers to-day stamp them
more unmistakably than does their music as small composers. If the
poor fellows knew what they were about, they would at least conceal
the littlenesses that show they are destined never to do work of the
first order. The composer of the "Rex tremendæ" (in the Requiem) wrote
"Dove sono," Beethoven wrote both the finale of the Fifth symphony and
the slow movement of the Ninth, Wagner both the Valkyries' Ride and
the motherhood theme in "Siegfried," Handel "Worthy is the Lamb" and
"Waft her, angels"; while your little malicious musical Mimes are
absorbed in self-pity, and can no more write a melody that
irresistibly touches you than they can build a great and impressive
structure. And if Mozart is tenderest of all the musicians, Handel
comes very close to him. The world may, though not probably, tire of
all but his grandest choruses, while his songs will always be sung as
lovely expressions of the finest human feeling.

"Samson" is not his finest oratorio, though it may be his longest. It
contains no "Unto us a Child is born" nor a "Worthy is the Lamb," nor
a "Now love, that everlasting boy"; but in several places the sublime
is reached--in "Then round about the starry throne," the last page of
which is worth all the oratorios written since Handel's time save
Beethoven's "Mount of Olives"; in "Fixed is His everlasting seat,"