subject of another long Ordonnance. The next legal subject of importance that absorbed the attention of Daguesseau was that of Entails. This forms the subject of a voluminous Ordonnance, bearing date August, 1747. One of its clauses nullifies entails extending beyond two degrees, not including the testator. An Ordonnance, signed May, 1749, not enough attended to, establishes a sinking fund for paying the debts of the state, and the levy of a twentieth to constitute it. The question of Mortmain is the subject of an Edict in the same year. Wills form another source of legal difficulties which Daguesseau sought to simplify or remove.

The character of Daguesseau has been drawn minutely, and at great length, by one of the most penetrating of his contemporaries, who sat at the council board with him and was his most decided political enemy. Nevertheless, we need go no farther than this very writer, the Duc de St. Simon, for a record of the Chancellor's virtues and genius : “An infinity of talent, assiduity, penetration, knowledge of all kinds, all the gravity of a magistrate, piety and innocence of morals, formed the foundation of his character. He might be considered incorruptible (St. Simon makes an exception); and with all this, mild, good, humane, of ready and agreeable access, full of gaiety and poignant pleasantry, without ever hurting; temperate polished without pride, noble without a stain of avarice. Who would not imagine that such a man would have made an admirable Chancellor? Yet in this he disappointed the world." His faults, according to the same writer, were indecision as a judge, and too high a respect for the Parliament and the legal profession, to which St. Simon asserts he sacrificed the royal authority. In this the aristocratic writer is mistaken. Daguesseau compromised too much for the

independence of Parliament; it is among his faults. "He was the slave of the most precise purity of diction, not perceiving how excess of care rendered him obscure and unintelligible. His taste for science added to his other defects. He was fond of languages, especially the learned ones, and took infinite delight in physics and mathematics; nor did he even let metaphysics alone: in fact, it was for science that he was born. He would, indeed, have made an excellent First President, Chief Judge of Parliament; but he would have been best placed of all at the head of the literature of the country, of the Academies, the Observatory, the Royal College, the Libraries; there his tediousness would have incommoded no one, &c." In short, the Duke, in his scheme of restoring the aristocracy to exclusive influence, found the Chancellor in his way, and wished him out of it. He tells us that Daguesseau was of middling stature, with a full and agreeable countenance, even to the last expressive of wisdom and of wit.

GEORGE FREDERIC HANDEL, whom we will venture to call the greatest of musicians, considering the state in which he found his art, and the means at his command, was born at Halle, in the Duchy of Magdeburg, February 24, 1684. He was intended, almost from his cradle, for the profession of the civil law; but at the early age of seven, he manifested so uncontrollable an inclination, and so decided a talent for the study of music, that his father, an eminent physician, wisely consented to change his destination, and suffered him to continue under the direction of a master of those studies, which he had been secretly pursuing with no other guide than his own genius.

Friedrich Zachau, organist of the cathedral church

of Halle, was the first and indeed the chief instructor of Handel. He discharged the duties of his office so well, that his pupil, when not nine years old, had become competent to officiate for his teacher, and had composed, it is said, many motets for the service of the church. A set of sonatas, written by him when only ten years old, was in the possession of George III., and probably forms part of the musical library of our present sovereign.

In 1703 Handel went to Hamburg, where the opera was then flourishing under the direction of Reinhard Keiser, a master of deserved celebrity, but whose gaiety and expensive habits often compelled him to absent himself from the theatre. On one of these occasions Handel was appointed to fill his place as conductor. This preference of a junior roused the jealousy of a fellow-performer, named Mattheson, to such a degree, that a rencontre took place between the rivals in the street; and Handel was saved from a sword-thrust, which probably would have taken fatal effect, only by the interposition of a music-score which he carried buttoned up under his coat. Till this time he had occupied but a very subordinate situation in the orchestra, that of second ripieno violin; for from the period of his father's death he had depended wholly on his own exertions, nobly determining not to diminish his mother's rather straitened income by any demands on her for pecuniary assistance. But now an opportunity for making known his powers was arrived; for the continued absence of the conductor Keiser from his post induced the manager to employ Handel in setting to music a drama called Almeria. So great was the success of this piece, that it was performed thirty nights without interruption. The year following he composed Florinda; and soon after, Nerone, both of which were received in as favourable a

manner as his first dramatic effort; but not one of these is to be found in the collection formed by George III., and they seem quite unknown to all writers on music except by their titles.

The success of his operas at Hamburg produced a sum which enabled him to visit Italy. Florence was the first city in which he made any stay. He was there received in the kindest manner by the Grand Duke Giovanni Gaston de Medicis, and produced the opera of Rodrigo in 1709, for which he was presented with a hundred sequins, and a service of plate. Thence he proceeded to Venice, where he brought out Agrippina, which was received with acclamation, and performed twenty-seven nights successively. It seems that horns and other wind-instruments were in this opera first used in Italy as accompaniments to the voice. Here the charms of his music made an impression on the famous beauty and singer, Signora Vittoria, a lady particularly distinguished by the Grand Duke; but in this, as in every instance of a similar kind, Handel showed no disposition to avail himself of any partialities exhibited in his favour. His thoughts were nearly all absorbed by his art, and it is but just to conclude that he was also influenced by those sentiments of moral propriety which so distinctly marked his conduct through life. It is to be admitted, however, that he was too much inclined to indulge in the pleasures of the table.

On visiting Rome he was hospitably and kindly entertained by the Cardinal Ottoboni, a person of the most refined taste and princely magnificence. Besides his splendid collection of pictures and statues, he possessed a library of music of great extent, and kept in his service an excellent band of performers, which was under the direction of the celebrated Corelli. At one of the parties made by the Car