your own? Here is mine friendt, Custos Arne, who has made a road for
himself, for to drive along his own genius to the demple of fame.' Then,
turning to our illustrious Arne, he continued, 'Min friendt Custos,
you and I must meed togeder some dimes before it is long, and hold a
_têde-à-têde_ of old days vat is gone; ha, ha! Oh! it is gomigal now dat
id is all gone by. Custos, to nod you remember as it was almost only of
yesterday dat she-devil Guzzoni, andt dat other brecious taugh-ter of
iniquity, Pelzebub's spoiled child, the bretty-f aced Faustina? Oh! the
mad rage vot I have to answer for, vot with one and the oder of these
fine latdies' airs andt graces. Again, to you nod remember dat ubstardt
buppy Senesino, and the goxgomb Farinelli? Next, again, mine some-dimes
nodtable rival Bononcini, and old Borbora? Ha, ha, ha! all at war wid
me, andt all at war wid themselves. Such a gonfusion of rivalshibs, andt
double-facedness, andt hybocrisy, and malice, vot would make a gomigal
subject for a boem in rhymes, or a biece for the stage, as I hopes to be
saved.'"


IX.

We now turn from the man to his music. In his daily life with the world
we get a spectacle of a quick, passionate temper, incased in a
great burly frame, and raging into whirlwinds of excitement at small
provocation; a gourmand devoted to the pleasure of the table, sometimes
indeed gratifying his appetite in no seemly fashion, resembling his
friend Dr. Samuel Johnson in many notable ways. Handel as a man was
of the earth, earthy, in the extreme, and marked by many whimsical and
disagreeable faults. But in his art we recognize a genius so colossal,
massive, and self-poised as to raise admiration to its superlative of
awe. When Handel had disencumbered himself of tradition, convention,