Having conquered England at a blow and become the idol not only of high society but of the common people as well, Handel recalled in the spring of 1711 that he was still Kapellmeister of Hanover. In London he had made enemies as well as friends and one of the most implacable of his foes was the great but churlish Addison. His admirers, on the other hand, included a child named Mary Granville, later Mrs. Delany, one of his staunchest friends; the Duke of Burlington, through whom he had entrée to Burlington House; and the famous eccentric, Thomas Britton, a coal dealer by day but who, on certain evenings, sponsored memorable concerts in a specially outfitted loft above his coal shop, which drew prominent London musicians and cultured aristocrats to the Clerkenwell “garret”, where Handel frequently appeared as harpsichord and even organ virtuoso. Back in Hanover June, 1711, he renewed his contacts with Bishop Steffani, composed organ concertos and other chamber music, as well as a quantity of songs to German texts by the Hamburg Senator, Brockes. He would have liked to produce “Rinaldo” but the Hanover Opera was closed. Yet London had entered his blood and nothing would content him but his speedy return, the more so because his English admirers demanded him. He obtained leave “on condition that he return to Hanover after a reasonable time”; and by November, 1712, he arrived in England to supervise preparations for a pastoral, “Il Pastor Fido”, a work hastily thrown together and variously improved more than twenty years later. This time Handel did not repeat his “Rinaldo” sensation and the piece had only half a dozen hearings. To make matters worse, a certain MacSwiney, who succeeded Aaron Hill at the Queen’s Theatre, absconded, leaving nothing but unpaid bills and enraged singers. At this stage there enters the picture a Swiss adventurer, by name Heidegger, a man of unbelievable conceit and homeliness, who was, however, to play an important role in Handel’s future. To recoup the failure of “Il Pastor Fido” the composer turned out in less than three weeks a “tragic opera” in five acts, “Teseo”, with a libretto by Nicolo Francesco Haym, and dedicated tactfully to the Earl of Burlington. “Teseo” came near duplicating the fortunes of “Rinaldo”; and if, as Rolland says, it was “full of haste”, it was also “full of genius.” If anything could have intrenched the composer still more firmly in London it was this opera. He went for a while to live at Burlington House at the Duke’s invitation; met Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, struck up friendships with this and that musician at the Queen’s Arms Tavern in St. Paul’s Churchyard and was never so happy as when he sat with some musical crony, a mug of beer at hand and a harpsichord nearby. The first work he composed in the ideal peace of Burlington House was a Birthday Ode for Queen Anne, whom he had met on his first London visit. The Ode was produced at St.