To do him full justice, he did not seem much discomfited by this turn of fortune's wheel. He did not put himself about to ask for pardon. He set to work instead and wrote _Amadigi_. It was the very best way for him to plead his cause. George I of Hanover had many faults, but he had one good quality. He loved music sincerely, and this passion was shared by very many of the people more or less notable in his Court. Music had always been for Germany the fountain where soiled hearts purified themselves, the redemption from the petty basenesses of "the daily round, the common task." Whatever King George thought of Handel, he could not punish him without punishing himself. After the success of his charming _Amadigi_, played for the first time on May 25, 1715, he had not the courage to harbour malice any longer against his musician. They were reconciled.[172] Handel resumed his post of Kapellmeister at Hanover by now acting as the music master to the little princesses, and when the King went to Hanover in July, 1716, Handel travelled with him. [Illustration: GEORGE I., IN HIS ROYAL BARGE, LISTENING TO HANDEL'S "WATER-MUSIC." (_From a Painting._)] It was not that he had much occupation at the Court. The King was too engrossed in State business, and with hunting. He did not even find time to be anxious about his old retainer, Leibnitz, who died at Hanover on November 14, 1716, unnoticed at Court. Handel took advantage of this leisure to renew his acquaintance with the German art. There was then in Germany a fashion for musical Passions. There was a religious and theatrical tendency at that time. One cannot separate the influence of Pietism and that of the Opera. Keiser, Telemann, Mattheson, all wrote Passions, which caused a great stir[173] at Hamburg, on the famous text of the Senator Brockes. Following their example, perhaps in order to measure himself with these men, who had all three been rivals or friends,[174] Handel took the same text and wrote on it in 1716 his _Passion after Brockes_. This powerful and disparate work, where bad taste mingles with the sublime, where affectation and pomposity are mingled with the most profound and serious art--a work which J. S. Bach knew well, and very carefully remembered--was for Handel a decided experience. He felt in writing it what a great gulf separated him from the Pietist German art, and on his return to England[175] he composed the _Psalms_ and _Esther_. * * * * * This was the principal epoch of his life. Between 1717 and 1720, whilst he was in the service of the Duke of Chandos,[176] he made a careful examination of his own personality, and created a new style in music, and for the theatre.