interest to give those pieces which were written by popular composers, and to maintain relationships with successful composers, but jealousy knows no reason. He reset _Almira_ and _Nero_ to music in order to put Handel out of joint,[85] and as he had not the opportunity of publishing his opera _in toto_ he hastily printed the most taking solos from each.[86] But, however quickly he went, his downfall followed faster. Before the volume of his opera airs appeared he had to fly. This was in the end of 1706.[87] Handel and he were destined never to meet again. * * * * * Keiser having brought disaster to the Hamburg Opera, there was nothing left to keep Handel in that city. The direction of the theatre had fallen into the hands of a Philistine, who, to make money, played musical farces. He certainly commissioned Handel for the opera _Florindo und Daphne_, but he mutilated the work on its presentation "for fear," so he said in the Preface of the libretto, "that the music might tire the hearers"; and lest the public should find the work too serious, he intersected it with a farce in low German, _Die lustige Hochzeit_ (The Joyous Wedding). One can well understand that Handel was little interested in his piece so disfigured, and that he did not himself attend the production, but quitted Hamburg. It was about the autumn of 1706 that he made the journey to Italy.[88] It was not, however, that Italy particularly attracted him. Strange to say--it is not unique in the history of art--this man, who was later on to be caught by the fascination of Italy, and secure an European musical triumph in the beautiful Italian style, had then a very strong repugnance for the foreign art. When _Almira_ was being given, he made the acquaintance of the Italian prince, Giovanni Gastone dei Medici, brother of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.[89] He was astonished that Handel interested himself so little in the Italian musicians, and bought him a collection of their best works, offering to take him to Florence to hear them performed. But Handel refused, saying that he could find nothing in these works which deserved the Prince's eulogies, and that angels would be necessary to sing them in order to make such mediocre things sound even agreeable.[90] This disdain of Italy was not peculiar to Handel. It characterised his generation, and above all, the cult of German musicians who lived at Hamburg. Before then, and later on, the fascination of Italy took hold of Germany. Even Hasler, Schütz, Hasse, Gluck, and Mozart made long and earnest pilgrimages to that country, but on the other hand J. S. Bach, Keiser, Mattheson, and Telemann never went there. The Hamburg musicians truly wished to assimilate the Italian art, but they never wished to place themselves under the thraldom of the Italian school. They had the laudable ambition of creating a German style independent of foreign influences. Handel shared these great