Still less can we say that he held to a rigid form with his operas, which were continually adapted to the changing tastes of the theatre public of his age, and of the singers which he had at his disposal, but when he left the opera for the oratorio he varied no less. It was a perpetual experiment of new forms in the vast framework of the free theatre (_theatre en liberté_) of the concert drama; and the sort of instinctive ebb and flow in creation seems to have caused his works to succeed one another in groups of analogous or related compositions, each work in a nearly opposite style of feeling and form. In each one Handel indulged momentarily in a certain side of his feelings, and when that was finished he found himself in the possession of other feelings which had been accumulating whilst he was drawing on his first. He thus kept up a perpetual balance, which is like the pulsation of life itself. After the realistic _Saul_ comes the impersonal epic of _Israel in Egypt_. After this colossal monument appear the two little _genre_ pictures, _The Ode to Cecilia_ and _L'Allegro ed Penseroso_. After the Herculean _Samson_, an heroic and popular tragic comedy sprang forth, the charming flower of _Semele_, an opera of romanticism and gallantry. But if the oratorios are so wonderfully varied they have one characteristic in common even more than the operas, they are musical dramas. It was not that religious thought turned Handel to this choice of Biblical subjects, but as Kretzschmar has well shown, it was on account of the stories of the Bible heroes being a part of the very life-blood of the people whom he addressed. They were known to all, whilst the ancient romantic stories could only interest a society of refined and spoilt _dilettanti_. Without doubt, these oratorios were not made for representation, did not seek scenic effects, with rare exceptions, as for instance the scene of the orgy of _Belshazzar_, where one feels that Handel had drawn on the direct vision of theatrical representation, but passions, spirits, and personalities were represented always in a dramatic fashion. Handel is a great painter of characters, and the Delilah in _Samson_, the Nitocris in _Belshazzar_, the Cleopatra in _Alexander Balus_, the mother in _Solomon_, the Dejanira in _Hercules_, the beautiful Theodora, all bear witness to the suppleness and the profundity of his psychological genius. If in the course of the action, and the depicting of the ordinary sentiments, he abandoned himself freely to the flow of pure music, in the moments of passionate crises he is the equal of the greatest masters in musical drama. Is it necessary to mention the terrible scenes in the third act of _Hercules_, the beautiful scenes of _Alexander Balus_, the Dream of _Belshazzar_, the scenes of _Juno_ and the death of _Semele_, the recognition of Joseph and his brothers, the destruction of the temple in Samson, the second act of _Jephtha_, the prison scenes in _Theodora_, or