Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/304

 out-of-date, and has been undeservedly neglected. Looked at from the point of view of historical development, he sums up the results of the musical tendencies of a hundred years, and carries them to a point beyond which they could not advance. He is the successor of Purcell in England, of Lully in France, of Scarlatti in Italy, and of Keiser in Germany, and he carried choral music to a pitch which it had never reached before, and which it has not exceeded since. He is the culminating point of a school, and, as such, reproduces many of the characteristics of his predecessors, but without suggesting the course of new development of his art. The power of assimilating what is best in the work of others is, indeed, one of his most noticeable characteristics. Besides this, his massive simplicity of effects, and his remarkable skill in expressing with singular directness the less complex side of devotional feeling, have secured for some few of his compositions a place in the hearts of Englishmen which is conceded to no other composer. But despite all the vaunted admiration of Handel, the attempt to revive any of his less known works is rarely made, and when made is usually unsuccessful. Unlike Bach or Haydn, Handel lacked the power by which an artist is impelled to progress beyond his contemporaries and to point the way to new methods which will preserve his art from stagnation. Every composer of the very first rank has possessed this power, and the want of it has prevented those critics who only regard Handel's music in the light of that which succeeded him from doing him full justice. His influence upon modern music is very slight; there is not a single development of modern musical form which can be traced back to him, and for a time the supremacy of his music served only to paralyse musical progress in this country.

All Handel's important vocal works have been mentioned above, under the dates of production ; besides these, various pasticcios were made up from his compositions, to which he added recitatives, &c., as occasion required. There are: 'Ormieda' (1730), 'Lucio Papirio' (1732), 'Catone' (1732), 'Semiramis' (1733), 'Cajo Fabricio' (1733), 'Arbace' (1734), 'Orestes' (1734), 'Alessandro Severe ' (1738), 'Roxana' (1743), and 'Lucio Vero' (1747). 'Honorius,' of which fragments are preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, may have been intended for a pasticcio, or may belong, with 'Tito' (1732), 'Alfonso Prinio' (1732), and 'Flavio Olibrio' (date uncertain), to the category of his unfinished operas. Full lists of his instrumental works are given in Grove's 'Dictionary of Music' (i. 657) and Rockstro's 'Life.' The first attempt at publishing a complete edition of Handel's works was made by Arnold, who issued a prospectus on the subject in 1786. One hundred and eighty numbers were published, when the undertaking came to an end. Arnold's edition is both incomplete and incorrect. In 1843 another attempt was made by the English Handel Society, but this was dissolved in 1848, though the publications were continued by Messrs. Cramer until 1855, by which time sixteen volumes had appeared. In 1856 the German Handel-Gesellschaft was formed, mainly owing to the exertions of Dr. Chrysander. The edition issued under his auspices, when complete, will consist of a hundred volumes (list in, Dict. of Music, iv. 665-6). Its success was secured by the munificence of the late King of Hanover, who guaranteed the publishers against loss. After the events of 1866 the Prussian government took over this liability.

There are many extant portraits of Handel. Besides Roubillac's Vauxhall statue now in the possession of A. Littleton, esq., of Sydenham an engraving of which, by Bartolozzi, was published in Arnold's edition of Handel's works, 1 Jan. 1789, there are three marble busts by the same artist belonging respectively to the queen (at Windsor Castle), the Foundling Hospital, and Alfred Morrison, esq. Roubillac also executed the monument in Westminster Abbey, an engraving of which, from a drawing by E. F. Burney, is given in Burney's 'Commemoration,' and in Arnold's edition. In the private chapel at Belton House, Lincolnshire, there is a marble medallion portrait. Of the paintings and miniatures in existence the exact number is unknown ; the following is a list of those of which there is any record. 1 and 2. Life-size to waist, by Hudson, belonging to the Royal Society of Musicians, exhibited at South Kensington (Nos. 57, 58) in 1885. One of these is a poor replica. 3. Half-length, seated, by Hudson, at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Engraved by Bromley for Arnold's edition and also by Faber (1749) (Chaloner Smith's 'Catalogue,' No. 175). Lithographed by Day. 4. Full-length, seated, by Hudson. Belongs to Lord Howe, at Gopsall. Signed and dated 1756. Described and engraved in the 'Magazine of Art,' viii. 309. Exhibited at South Kensington, 1867 (No. 398). 5. A replica of 4, with slight alterations, such as the absence of a hat, &c. Formerly at Windsor (cf., Royal Residences, vol. i.) ; now at Buckingham Palace. Engraved by J. Thomson in Knight's 'Gallery of Portraits' (1833), ii. 41. 6. Another version of Hudson's Gopsall portrait, with the hat, but with-