Jupiter in Argos

of a simple soul—a soul that lives on affection because it knows naught else for sustenance-heaped upon her all the spite and terror that only women can give to another. And so ultimately they killed her socially, such was the senseless prejudice of the time.

Israel in Egypt had failed and the season was ending-a season which had been replete with disaster. A circulated pamphlet which poked fun at Handel's misfortunes, and rejoiced in the fall of " a great bear," cut him to the quick. He had the courage, but little else, to enable him to continue. Funds had practically run out. Former friends were falling away in such numbers, hoping to escape from the cloud which had fallen over him, that he "found consolation in being undisturbed in his thoughts by the accosting of his acquaintances when he walked down Piccadilly.'

On the very day that the theatre doors closed on Israel in Egypt, he completed another work, which he named Jupiter in Argos. He billed its production for 1st May at the King's Theatre, but the performance never took place. He may not have had the money to go on; he may have decided that the mood of the town was so dangerous that he would only risk further disaster if he attempted further productions that season. Jupiter in Argos therefore has never been produced, and is to a great extent a mystery work, for there is apparently no complete copy of it in existence.1

1 Only a very small portion of the autograph is in existence at the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, together with a portion of Christopher Smith's transcription. I have in my collection Christopher Smith's transcription of all the songs in Jupiter in Argos, which are as follows: Gia sai che l'usignuol cantando geme. (Thou knowest already that the nightingale sighs singing.) Svenate il Genitor, perduto il Regno. (The father killed, the Kingdom lost.) Jside, dove sei? (Isis, where art thou ?) In braccio al tuo spavento ti lascio. (In the arm to thy terror I leave thee.) Priva d'ogni conforto. (Deprived of all consolation.) Non é d'un alma grande, etc. (It is not in the nature of a great soul to murmur against fate.) Al gaudio, al riso, al canto. (To joy, to laughter, to song, etc.) D'amor di Jove al canto. (Of Jupiter's love to song.) Non ingannarmi cara speranza. (Dear hope do not deceive me.) Vieni, vieni O de viventi. (Come, come O of the living.) Deh! m'ajutate, oh Dei. (Ah! aid me, O gods.) Taci e spera ti basti cosi. (Be silent and hope.) Se portessero i sospir miei far. (If I could make my sighs.)

There is in the British Museum a copy of these songs, made at a later stage of the eighteenth century and by another hand. But there is ample evidence that this copy was made from that by Christopher Smith in my possession, because in my copy the ink from the notes on the pages has come through, and the copyist, mistaking these stains at times for dots, has put them in. My copy was part of the Aylesford collection. The same volume, by the way, contains also a Hornpipe 3/2 in D major, in three parts, "compos'd for the concert at Vauxhall, 1740."-Author.

There seemed no hope for Handel. All the circumstances of the time were against him. He knew that he had given of his best in Saul and Israel in Egypt; his subsequent revivals of these two oratorios is proof of his faith in them-faith that was ultimately justified. But at this stage anything he produced would have failed, however great its beauty, for the cabal of his enemies was too strong for him.

He was on the verge of breaking. Solitary, yet still content to strive. "As some lone shipAnd then came the war.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST OPERAS

THE trouble with Spain had been long a-brewing, and now it boiled up, owing to an international quarrel over somebody's ear. Jenkins, a mariner of sorts, had been caught by the Spaniards and subjected to the indignity of having his ear torn off. That was his story. Not that Jenkins was above reproach. He had been a bubble on the flood of chance, tossed here, tossed there, making money by very questionable methods, losing it, spending it, till the pit of his stomach compelled him forth to a new adventure.

Jenkins declared that the Spaniards had his ear, and since the quarrels between the English and Spaniards in South America had become a standing sore, Jenkins was believed. He became at once a gentleman, a maltreated hero. On account of this fellow, England went to war with Spain.

The war fever smote London with a sudden blast. Crowds gathered, howled and were dispersed. Bells clashed throughout the city. Any person with an ounce of Spanish blood in his veins, and was known to possess it, ran like a fox to earth. Shares dropped like plummets, young bloods bought up merchant ships and began to pile them with arms with a view to carrying out a little privateering against the Spaniards. A peace-weary people rejoiced.

To produce an ordinary opera under such conditions would have been madness. Handel, with his constant flair for recognising opportunity, set Dryden's Ode for St Cecilia's Day. He completed it in nine days, and produced it at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in November. It was an attempt to catch the interest of the public at a time of upheaval. He had cut his expenses at the Haymarket by moving to the smaller theatre, and the Ode, reflecting the mood of the hour,