Handel's cantatas, there is one entitled "Partenza," the substance of which is a lament that he must leave the beautiful banks of the Tiber. If one does not wish to go so far as to read in this an affair of the heart, it still reveals how hard the parting was for him. From Rome he went to Naples, to Alessandro Scarlatti, the father of Domenico and the founder of the Neapolitan School. His reputation had preceded him, and here also he met with the warmest reception in the highest and most cultivated circles, while surrounded by stimulating influences of every sort. How strongly attracted he was by the society and the life of Southern Italy, is shown by the fact that he remained a whole year in Naples without accomplishing much that was characteristic in his art. The only important work of which we have knowledge is the pastoral: "_Aci, Galatea e Polifemo_," but this was already completed on the 16th of June, 1708. It is related that the society world of Italy became so fond of Handel, that it would gladly have retained him; it is even said that efforts were made to convert him to the Catholic faith. Handel, however, would neither abandon his belief, nor his German spirit; he had come to learn from the Italians, but what they had taught him, it was his intention to use in his own way. By way of Rome and Florence, he now returned to Venice, where, in the carnival season of 1710, he listened again to the performance of his opera "Agrippina." Artists and illustrious friends of art from England and from the electoral court of Hanover were present, also the Hanoverian chapel-master, Abbé Agostine Steffani. In their company he traveled back to Germany and became Steffani's successor in Hanover. He, however, soon obtained leave of absence that he might go to England, whither he was urgently invited. The journey was made by way of Düsseldorf, where one of his patrons, Johann Wilhelm of the Palatinate, resided, and then through Holland. A personality like Handel's seemed especially suited to aid in elevating the musical standard of the English people. Allied with them in race, and understanding therefore their peculiar characteristics, he had acquired, through his residence in Italy, complete mastery of what the English taste now demanded above all else--Italian art. But there was no thought of simply importing this into England just as it grew on its own soil. England could look back with pride upon her musical past. In the sixteenth century she hardly ranked below the other countries of Europe in respect to eminent composers, and in the seventeenth she could boast of no less an artist than Henry Purcell. Since the death of this famous man in the prime of life, there had, however, been a dearth of creative power in the sphere of music. But there remained the persistent desire to establish once more a national English art by appropriating whatever the Germans, the French, and pre-eminently the Italians had created, and