"I would not be thought, in any part of this relation, to reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who, in acting this part, only complies with the wretched taste of his audience; he knows very well that the lion has many more admirers than himself; as they say of the famous equestrian statue on the Pont Neuf at Paris, that more people go to see the horse than the king who sits upon it. On the contrary, it gives me a just indignation to see a person whose action gives new majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers, thus sinking from the greatness of his behaviour, and degraded into the character of a London 'prentice. I have often wished that our tragedians would copy after this great master in action. Could they make the same use of their arms and legs, and inform their faces with as significant looks and passions, how glorious would an English tragedy appear with that action which is capable of giving dignity to the forced thoughts, cold conceits, and unnatural expressions of an Italian Opera! In the meantime, I have related this combat of the lion, to show what are at present the reigning entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain." [Sidenote: RINALDO AND THE SPARROWS.] But the operatic year of 1710 is remarkable for something more than the production of Almahide and Hydaspes; for in 1710 Handel arrived in England, and the year after brought out his Rinaldo, the first of the thirty-five operas which he gave to the English stage. For Handel we are indebted to Hanover. It was at Hanover that the English noblemen who invited him to London first met the great composer; and it was the Elector of Hanover, afterwards George I., who granted him permission to come, and who when he in his turn arrived in England to assume the crown, added considerably to the pension which Queen Anne had already granted to the former chapel-master of the Hanoverian court. In 1710 the director of the theatre in the Haymarket was Aaron Hill, who no sooner heard of Handel's arrival in London than he went to him, and requested him to compose an opera for his establishment. Handel consented, and Hill furnished him with a plan, sketched out by himself, on the subject of _Rinaldo and Armida_ in Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_, the writing of the _libretto_ being entrusted to an Italian poet of some note named Rossi. In the advertisements of this opera Handel's name does not appear; not at least in that which calls attention to its first representation and which simply sets forth that "at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket will be performed a new opera called _Rinaldo_." It was in _Rinaldo_ that the celebrated operatic sparrows made their first appearance on the stage--with what success may be gathered from the following notice of their performance, which I extract from No. 5 of the _Spectator_.