Page:Romain Rolland Handel.djvu/97

Rh melodious than his songs. Handel was not slow to discover the folly of striving with Hasse on Italian ground. His superiority was with the choruses; he sought to introduce them into the Opera after the French model. The situation was even less promising for him on the departure of his best protectrix, the Princess Anne, sister of the Prince of Wales. After having compromised Handel by the strong feeling which she had shown in defending him, she left him to the tender cares of the enemies which she had made for him. She left England in April, 1734, to join her husband the Prince of Orange in Holland.

Handel came to be abandoned by his old friends. His associate, Heidegger, the proprietor of the Haymarket Theatre, took the hall for a rival opera,