at the Weimar gymnasium, and in 1817 professor of philosophy and Greek literature in the university of Jena, where he remained till his death on the 14th of March 1851. The work by which Hand is chiefly known is his (unfinished) edition of the treatise of Horatius Tursellinus (Orazio Torsellino, 1545–1599) on the Latin particles (Tursellinus, seu de particulis Latinis commentarii, 1829–1845). Like his treatise on Latin style (Lehrbuch des lateinischen Stils, 3rd ed. by H. L. Schmitt, 1880), it is too abstruse and philosophical for the use of the ordinary student. Hand was also an enthusiastic musician, and in his Ästhetik der Tonkunst (1837–1841) he was the first to introduce the subject of musical aesthetics.
The first part of the last-named work has been translated into English by W. E. Lawson (Aesthetics of Musical Art, or The Beautiful in Music, 1880), and B. Sears’s Classical Studies (1849) contains a “History of the Origin and Progress of the Latin Language,” abridged from Hand’s work on the subject. There is a memoir of his life and work by G. Queck (Jena, 1852).
HAND (a word common to Teutonic languages; cf. Ger.
Hand, Goth. handus), the terminal part of the human arm from
below the wrist, and consisting of the fingers and the palm. The
word is also used of the prehensile termination of the limbs in
certain other animals (see Anatomy: Superficial and artistic;
Skeleton: Appendicular, and such articles as Muscular System
and Nervous System). There are many transferred
applications of “hand,” both as a substantive and in various
adverbial phrases. The following may be mentioned: charge
or authority, agency, source, chiefly in such expressions as “in
the hands of,” “by hand,” “at first hand.” From the position
of the hands at the side of the body, the word means “direction,”
e.g., on the right, left hand, cf. “at hand.” The hand as given
in betrothal or marriage has been from early times the symbol
of marriage as it also is of oaths. Other applications are to
labourers engaged in manual occupations, the members of the
crew of a ship, to a person who has some special skill, as in the
phrase, “old parliamentary hand,” and to the pointers of a clock
or watch and to the number of cards dealt to each player in a
card game. As a measure of length the term “hand” is now
only used in the measurement of horses, it is equal to 4 in.
The name “hand of glory,” is given to a hand cut from the
corpse of a hanged criminal, dried in smoke, and used as a
charm or talisman, for the finding of treasures, &c. The expression
is the translation of the Fr. main de gloire, a corruption of
the O. Fr. mandegloire, mandegoire, i.e. mandragore, mandragora,
the mandrake, to the root of which many magical properties are
attributed.
HANDEL, GEORGE FREDERICK (1685–1759), English
musical composer, German by origin, was born at Halle in Lower
Saxony, on the 23rd of February 1685. His name
was Händel, but, like most 18th-century musicians
who travelled, he compromised with its pronunciation by
Life.
foreigners, and when in Italy spelt it Hendel, and in England
(where he became naturalized) accepted the version Handel,
which is therefore correct for English writers, while Händel
remains the correct version in Germany. His father was a
barber-surgeon, who disapproved of music, and wished George
Frederick to become a lawyer. A friend smuggled a clavichord
into the attic, and on this instrument, which is inaudible behind
a closed door, the little boy practised secretly. Before he was
eight his father went to visit a son by a former marriage who
was a valet-de-chambre to the duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. The
little boy begged in vain to go also, and at last ran after the
carriage on foot so far that he had to be taken. He made
acquaintance with the court musicians and contrived to practise
on the organ when he could be overheard by the duke, who,
immediately recognizing his talent, spoke seriously to the father,
who had to yield to his arguments. On returning to Halle
Handel became a pupil of Zachau, the cathedral organist, who
gave him a thorough training as a composer and as a performer
on keyed instruments, the oboe and the violin. Six very good
trios for two oboes and bass, which Handel wrote at the age of
ten, are extant; and when he himself was shown them by an
English admirer who had discovered them, he was much amused
and remarked, “I wrote like the devil in those days, and chiefly
for the oboe, which was my favourite instrument.” His master
also of course made him write an enormous amount of vocal
music, and he had to produce a motet every week. By the time
he was twelve Zachau thought he could teach him no more, and
accordingly the boy was sent to Berlin, where he made a great
impression at the court.
His father, however, thought fit to decline the proposal of the elector of Brandenburg, afterwards King Frederick I. of Prussia, to send the boy to Italy in order afterwards to attach him to the court at Berlin. German court musicians, as late as the time of Mozart, had hardly enough freedom to satisfy a man of independent character, and the elder Händel had not yet given up hope of his son’s becoming a lawyer. Young Handel, therefore, returned to Halle and resumed his work with Zachau. In 1697 his father died, but the boy showed great filial piety in finishing the ordinary course of his education, both general and musical, and even entering the university of Halle in 1702 as a law student. But in that year he succeeded to the post of organist at the cathedral, and after his “probation” year in that capacity he departed to Hamburg, where the only German opera worthy of the name was flourishing under the direction of its founder, Reinhold Keiser. Here he became friends with Matheson, a prolific composer and writer on music. On one occasion they set out together to go to Lübeck, where a successor was to be appointed to the post left vacant by the great organist Buxtehude, who was retiring on account of his extreme age. Handel and Matheson made much music on this occasion, but did not compete, because they found that the successful candidate was required to accept the hand of the elderly daughter of the retiring organist.
Another adventure might have had still more serious consequences. At a performance of Matheson’s opera Cleopatra at Hamburg, Handel refused to give up the conductor’s seat to the composer when the latter returned to his usual post at the harpsichord after singing the part of Antony on the stage. The dispute led to a duel outside the theatre, and, but for a large button on Handel’s coat which intercepted Matheson’s sword, there would have been no Messiah or Israel in Egypt. But the young men remained friends, and Matheson’s writings are full of the most valuable facts for Handel’s biography. He relates in his Ehrenpforte that his friend at that time used to compose “interminable cantatas” of no great merit; but of these no traces now remain, unless we assume that a Passion according to St John, the manuscript of which is in the royal library at Berlin, is among the works alluded to. But its authenticity, while strongly upheld by Chrysander, has recently been as strongly assailed on internal evidence.
On the 8th of January 1705, Handel’s first opera, Almira, was performed at Hamburg with great success, and was followed a few weeks later by another work, entitled Nero. Nero is lost, but Almira, with its mixture of Italian and German language and form, remains as a valuable example of the tendencies of the time and of Handel’s eclectic methods. It contains many themes used by Handel in well-known later works; but the current statement that the famous aria in Rinaldo, “Lascia ch’io pianga,” comes from a saraband in Almira, is based upon nothing more definite than the inevitable resemblance between the simplest possible forms of saraband-rhythm.
In 1706 Handel left Hamburg for Italy, where he remained for three years, rapidly acquiring the smooth Italian vocal style which hereafter always characterized his work. He had before this refused offers from noble patrons to send him there, but had now saved enough money, not only to support his mother at home, but to travel as his own master. He divided his time in Italy between Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice; and many anecdotes are preserved of his meetings with Corelli, Lotti, Alessandro Scarlatti and Domenico Scarlatti, whose wonderful harpsichord technique still has a direct bearing on some of the most modern features of pianoforte style. Handel soon became famous as Il Sassone (“the Saxon”), and it is said that Domenico on first hearing him play incognito exclaimed,
