The popular instinct was also true to him.  The aristocratic classes sneered at his oratorios and complained at his innovations.  His music was found to be good bait for the popular gardens and the holiday-makers of the period.  Jonathan Tyers was one of the most liberal managers of this class.  He was proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens, and Handel (incognito) supplied him with nearly all his music.  The composer did much the same sort of thing for Marylebone Gardens, furbishing up old and writing new strains with an ease that well became the urgency of the circumstances.

“My grandfather,” says the Rev. J. Fountagne, “as I have been told, was an enthusiast in music, and cultivated most of all the friendship of musical men, especially of Handel, who visited him often, and had a great predilection for his society.  This leads me to relate an anecdote which I have on the best authority.  While Marylebone Gardens were flourishing, the enchanting music of Handel, and probably of Arne, was often heard from the orchestra there.  One evening, as my grandfather and Handel were walking together and alone, a new piece was struck up by the band.  ‘Come, Mr. Fountagne,’ said Handel, ’let us sit down and listen to this piece; I want to know your opinion about it.’  Down they sat, and after some time the old parson, turning to his companion, said, ’It is not worth listening to; it’s very poor stuff.’  ’You are right, Mr. Fountagne,’ said Handel, ’it is very poor stuff; I thought so myself when I had finished it.’  The old gentleman, being taken by surprise, was beginning to apologize; but Handel assured him there was no necessity, that the music was really bad, having been composed hastily, and his time for the production limited; and that the opinion given was as correct as it was honest.”

VI.

The period of Handel’s highest development had now arrived.  For seven years his genius had been slowly but surely maturing, in obedience to the inner law of his being.  He had struggled long in the bonds of operatic composition, but even here his innovations showed conclusively how he was reaching out toward the form with which his name was to be associated through all time.  The year 1739 was one of prodigious activity.  The oratorio of “Saul” was produced, of which the “Dead March” is still recognized as one of the great musical compositions of all time, being one of the few intensely solemn symphonies written in a major key.  Several works now forgotten were composed, and the great “Israel in Egypt” was written in the incredibly short space of twenty-seven days.  Of this work a distinguished writer on music says:  Handel was now fifty-five years old, and had entered, after many a long and weary contest, upon his last and greatest creative period.  His genius culminates in the ‘Israel.’  Elsewhere he has produced longer recitatives and more pathetic arias; nowhere has he written finer tenor