The life of Handel may be resolved into three parts. The first extends to the year 1720, and is preparatory in character. The second ends in 1737, and belongs especially to the opera. The third and last is devoted almost exclusively to the oratorio. Since the earliest English oratorios which he wrote at Cannons, Handel had been long inactive in this sphere of music. It may be said of the coronation anthems of the year 1727 that they resemble the oratorio in style, but the first really new oratorios were produced in 1733. This species of musical composition was still almost unknown to the greater part of the London public, for the performances given at Cannons did not reach a wide circle of listeners. Bernard Gates, however, the director of the boy chorus belonging to the royal chapel, had taken part in the first rendering of "Esther," and the recollection of the work had never left him. He brought it out before a company of invited guests and thereby incited Handel to produce it publicly himself in May of the succeeding year. A performance of "Acis and Galatea," under his own leadership, followed a month later. It is worthy of note that the different singing societies which occupied themselves at this time with the two oratorios of Handel, attempted to put them on the stage with costumes and action, after the manner of the opera. People evidently did not yet know how to deal with this new departure in the musical line, and in Italy it was not at all unusual to produce certain oratorios in theatrical fashion, as "_agioni sacre_." Handel, meantime, disapproved of the custom and only allowed the singers to be placed upon a stage, which was suitably decorated. The two oratorios now composed as a result of the new impulse given to his activity, were "Deborah" and "Athaliah," and the former was first performed at the Haymarket on the seventeenth of March. But the subscription tickets of the opera-goers were not good on this day and, as the price of admission was fixed at one guinea, the house remained empty. At this time, too, Handel's opponents tried to draw him into the field of politics and to bring him into discredit through the accusation that he had allied himself with Minister Walpole for the purpose of draining the resources of the people in every possible way. That such ridiculous assertions could gain credence only for the moment, shows very plainly the high estimation in which Handel was then held by the London public. On the twenty-seventh of March, and on two subsequent occasions, "Deborah" was repeated, and now, for the first time received proper recognition as a work of art. The other oratorio, "Athaliah," had also its vicissitudes. The hostility to the house of Hanover which prevailed in many circles of English society had been shared up to this time by the University of Oxford, and the rector of the same, Dr. Holmes, wishing to promote more friendly relations, took advantage of