That summer Charles Jennens gave Handel a compilation of Scriptural texts which he called “Messiah.” Jennens was a literary amateur, born at Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. Rich and bizarre, he was vastly conceited and especially proud of the manner in which he had assembled the various Biblical texts used in this case. Handel had been associated with him before—in the oratorio, “Saul” (1739), and in “L’Allegro ed Il Penseroso” a year later, as a supplement to which he had added some poor verses of his own to the lines of Milton and called the product “Il Moderato.” Robert Manson Myers thinks it “extraordinary that Handel turned to this eccentric millionaire for his libretto of ‘Messiah’.” Jennens was of another mind and even later wrote to an acquaintance: “I shall show you a collection I gave Handel, called ‘Messiah’ which I value highly; he has made a fine entertainment of it, though not near so good as he might and ought to have done.... There are some passages far unworthy of Handel, but even more unworthy of ‘Messiah’”; and deploring Handel’s “maggots” he added that he had “with greatest difficulty made him correct some of the grossest faults in the composition.” Doubtless Handel, had he so chosen, could have picked his texts himself; he compiled the book of “Israel in Egypt” unaided in 1738 and when, a good deal earlier, the Bishop of London wanted to help him with the words for the “Coronation Anthems” he retorted: “I have read my Bible very well, and I shall choose for myself!” Mr. Myers, in his encyclopedic study of “Messiah” feels certain that Handel must have controlled the choice of passages selected.