Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/31

THE ANCESTOR eighteenth century. George Frederick Handel was a constant guest and welcome visitor to the family mansion of the Harrises, and although past the zenith of his great com- posing powers at the time when his name so frequently appears in the Harris letters — as well as burdened with the weight of pecuniary failures and physical infirmities — he still represented in * the afternoon and evening of his life ' a grand and solitary figure, in whom interest is rather increased than lessened, because notwithstanding his almost transcendental genius the full measure of success had always been denied him. Handel's health seems to have been the object of much concern and anxiety to all the members of the Harris family, as also to their relatives, the Shaftesburys ; but still it was the second brother Thomas, the master in Chancery, who more especially enjoyed the confidence and friendship of the great composer. Thomas Harris is not to be compared with his much more gifted elder brother James, who besides being a very learned Greek and Latin scholar was also a passionate lover of music, and wrote a critical treatise on harmony ; yet, as will be seen presently, it was the younger, not the elder, brother who in the end was most closely associated with the blind musician. Handel was wont sometimes to take part in amateur concerts at the house of the elder Harris, and he seems to have regarded it as a place where for a while he could rest his wearied brain and be at peace. After what has been so far written it may not be altogether uninteresting to quote from the family letters a few of the references made in these to him and to the condition of his mind. Lady Shaftesbury, in March, 1745, writing from London to James Harris, tells him that ^ ' repeated colds ' and her ' natural propensity to stay at home ' had kept her much indoors since she came to town ; but then there follows an almost affectionate allusion to Handel : — However [so runs her letter], my constancy to poor Handel got the better of this and my indolence, and 1 went last Friday to * Alexander's Feast ' ; but it was such a melancholy pleasure, as drew tears of sorrow to see the great though unhappy Handel, dejected, wan and dark, sitting by, not playing on the harpsichord, and to think how his life had been spent by being overplied in music's cause. I was sorry to find the audience so insipid and tasteless (I may add unkind) not to give the poor man the comfort of applause ; but aftectation and conceit cannot discern or attend to merit. ^ Letters of the first Earl of Malmesbury (Bentley).