Chrysander tries to prove that this Vittoria was no other than the famous singer, Vittoria Tesi, “a contralto of masculine strength,” as one listener describes her voice.  She was very dramatic, and made her chief success in men’s roles, singing bass songs transposed an octave higher.  She was born at Florence in 1690, and would have been seventeen years old when Haendel’s “Roderigo” was produced there in 1707.  That she should be capable of so ardent a love at that age need hardly be mentioned when we remember that Romeo’s Juliet was only twelve at the time of her immortal amour.  Love a l’Italienne is precocious.

Wild stories are told of the escapades of this brilliant singer, whom Haendel never brought to London among all his importations—­and with good reason, if she had once pursued him as legend tells.  No stranger account is given than that of Doctor Burney, who describes her peculiar method of escaping the proposals of a certain nobleman who implored her to marry him.  She had no prejudices against the nobleman, but strong prejudices against marriage.  Finally, to quiet her lover’s conscientious appeals, she went out into the street and bribed the first labouring man she met with fifty ducats to marry her.  Her new husband sped from dumbfounded delight to amazed regret, for he found that with her money she bought only his name and a marriage document, as a final answer to the count when next he came whimpering of conventional marriage.

In London Haendel reigned as never musician reigned before or since.  He is still reigning to the lasting detriment of English musical independence.

He was a lordly man in his day was Haendel; and dared to cut that terrible Dean Swift, whose love affairs are perhaps the chief riddle of all amorous chronicle.  Dean Swift is said to have said:  “I admire Haendel principally because he conceals his petticoat peccadillos with such perfection.”  This statement may be taken as only a proof either that the dean had so tangled a career of his own that he could not see any other man’s straight; or that Haendel was really more of a flirt than tradition makes him out.

Rockstro said that Haendel was engaged more than once; once to the aforementioned Vittoria Tesi—­this in spite of the tradition that woman proposed and man disposed; and later to two other women.  Rockstro bases this last doubtless on the account given in that strangely named book, “Anecdotes of Haendel and J.C.  Smith, with compositions by J.C.  Smith.”  This was published anonymously in London, in 1799, but it is known to have been written by Dr. William Coxe.  Smith (ne Schmidt) was Haendel’s secretary and assistant.  He was something of a composer himself, and on his death-bed advised his widow to consult Doctor Coxe in every emergency; whereupon, to simplify matters and have the counsellor handy, in due time she married him.