His criticisms, his advice on style in singing, on gesture in acting, were no less efficacious. He possessed the real "theatre" feeling. He expected life in the stage action, attaching considerable importance to the pantomime "which is a silent music."[61] He waged war against the impossible action and the want of intelligence amongst the German singers and choralists, and he desired that the composer should think always in writing of the action of the player. "The knowledge of facial expression by the actors on the stage," says he, "can often be a source of good musical ideas."[62] This is indeed the language of a true man of the theatre.[63] For the rest, Mattheson was too good a musician to serve music in words. He sought to unite them by safeguarding the independence of both, but ended by giving the preference to the soul over the body, the melody over the words. The words he wrote are the body of the discourses; the thoughts are the soul; the melody is the sun shining on the soul, the marvellous atmosphere which envelops it all. We have said enough to give some idea of this great critic, intelligent and intrepid, who, with many faults, has yet many virtues. One will see how important it was to the young Handel to meet such a guide, even though they were both too original and too self-sufficient for the association to last long. * * * * * Mattheson did Handel the honours of Hamburg. He introduced him at the Opera, and the concerts, and it was through him that Handel entered for the first time into negotiations with England, which was to become his second country.[64] They helped one another mutually. Handel had already an exceptional power on the organ, and in fugue and counterpoint; above all, in improvisation. He shared his knowledge with Mattheson, who in return helped him to perfect his melodic style. Mattheson believed him to be a very feeble melodist. He wrote his melodies at that time, "Oh, long, long, long" (_sehr lange lange Arien_), and cantatas without end, which had neither ability nor good taste, but perfect harmony.[65] It is very remarkable that melody was not a natural gift with Handel, for he now appears to us as a melodic genius. It is not necessary to believe that the simple, beautiful melodies rushed forth without effort from his brain. The melodies of Beethoven, which seem the most spontaneous, cost him years of thoughtful work during which he brooded continually over them, and so Handel also only came to his full power of melodic expression after years of severe discipline, where he learnt as an apprentice-sculptor to model beautiful forms, and to leave them neither complex nor unfinished.