On the removal of this votary of Terpsichore,, Handel again sought to purify the public taste by giving it Dryden's "Ode on Alexander's Feast," set to music. Dryden's poem! Handel's music! Surely that ought to have succeeded. It was listened to, played some twelve or fourteen times, and then the fickle-minded public would hear it no longer. This appears to have been the last glimpse of success which Handel enjoyed at that period of his life. When "Alexander's Ode" ceased to interest, he tried opera after opera, each one, however, sang but the requiem of its predecessor.

Every night, depressed and anxious, he repaired to the theatre, hoping that the faithless heart of the public might turn to him again. He hoped in vain, and at length defeated, but not humbled, he was obliged to give up the contest. The whole of his £10,000 was gone, and the autumn of 1737 saw him a ruined man,-crushed by a party which had risen to a multitude, and destroyed him.

His enemies did not escape unhurt. Samsonlike, they buried themselves under the ruins which they dragged on him. The expenses of their antagonistic theatre had been enormous; and in the year which chronicled the fall of Handel, they closed their house, having sustained through it a loss of £12,000.

We have not yet mentioned Handel's more popular works. The "Messiah," for instance, with "Israel in Egypt," and "Jephtha." These were composed at a later period of his life, when grief and misery had tried him-when the buoyancy of youth had fled, and the sad realities of life had made him feel their weight.

Poor Handel! Persecuted in his life-appreciated in his death. His fate, both a sermon and a lesson, an example and a warning for his survivors.

The struggle which Handel had undergone left him a depressed and miserable man, ruined in fortune, shaken in mind, and with a load of debts pressing on him; for, on winding up the affairs of the theatre, the expenses proved to be so heavy, that the remainder of Handel's £10,000 was insufficient to meet the demands of the creditors. To an honourable and independent man this was very galling. He combated the difficulties which beset him, and bore up against his calamities as long as he could; but at last his physical strength giving way, ill-health was added to his other mis. fortunes. An attack of paralysis, by stretching him on a bed of sickness, destroyed the solace of his life-labour, and forced on him-what to his mind then must have been horrible-a life of inactivity.

Change of air and scene was now absolutely necessary for him; but so unwilling was he to quit the scene of his musical career, so loath to leave the sphere which gave him the only means of retrieving his losses, that it required the earnest and repeated representations and entreaties of his

friends, to induce him to go for a short time to Aix-la-Chapelle. He remained there about six weeks, and then, being convalescent, returned to London.

Again in the metropolis, all rest for him was over: he began to work as unceasingly and vigorously as ever.

With a feverish anxiety to pay his debts, he allowed himself no respite; and although he was still doomed to disappointment, still fated to see each of his compositions rejected by the public, he was not deterred from beginning and completing others.

He wrote rapidly--perhaps too rapidly; for at this time of his life, he seems to have undertaken more than he could accomplish. Feeble in body, distressed in mind, he taxed his constitution too severely; and an attack of mental debility was the consequence. Recovered from this, he went on composing again, and completed the opera of "Faramond," in seventeen days. Then he received a command from the King to write the funeral anthem for Queen Caroline, who died on November 20, 1737. He obeyed the order, and finished the anthem in five days-a surprising feat when we know that it contained no less than eighty pages of printing.

"Faramond" was produced at the Haymarket in 1738, and proved another failure. "Alexander Severus and Xerxes," which appeared immediately after, shared the same fate. Almost wild with anxiety-maddened with defeat-every hope failing, poor Handel felt something like despair creeping over him.

At this time, yielding to the entreaties of his friends, he consented to make one more appeal to the public, and, by giving a concert for his own benefit, afford them an opportunity of answering that appeal, and helping him out of his difficulties. He carried his intention into effect, and for a wonder succeeded. The concert was well sup ported; and he cleared a very fair sum.

It is gratifying to mention one friend who held firmly to Haudel all the time: that friend was no less a person than the King, George the Second. He was a passionate admirer of the musician, and had moreover a great esteem for him as a man, and that esteem could never be destroyed by any adverse private feeling or deteriorating public opinion.

In 1738, the Italian Opera was again found to be a losing concern, and, in consequence, closed; so Handel devoted his time to the composition of oratorios.

"Israel in Egypt" was begun and completed in twenty-seven days.

This is perhaps his most powerful work, displaying great force of mind, and continuity of purpose in carrying out his idea. He seems to have identified himself with his subject; to have become in feeling one of the children of bondage; to have groaned with them in their sorrows; rejoiced with them in their deliverance; to have

been imbued with a mighty spirit of enthusiasm in their cause.

A scientific criticism of this great work would be out of place here. To musicians alone it could be interesting, and they are already acquainted with all that can be said on the subject. A few words, however, as to the general construction of the oratorio may not be unacceptable. "Israel in Egypt," then, as the title implies, contains an episode in the history of the Israelites, during the last years of their sojourn in Egypt. The opening chorus announces the fact of a new king having arisen who knew not Joseph, and who set over them (the Israelites) task-masters, to afflict them with burthens.

This is simply an introduction to the following parts, where Israel's woes are first depicted with deep pathos, and their deliverance sung with startling power.

We cannot agree with those persons who single out as points of excellence, in this masterpiece of art, certain passages which they are pleased to style "descriptive music," and which they assert were written with the intention of being such. We cannot believe that Handel, while engaged on the grand ideas pourtrayed in his work, would have designedly sat down, and, bidding his genius fold her soaring pinions, have commanded her to employ her powers in imitating the evolutions of the insect world, the croaking and hopping of frogs, the flutter and buzzing of a fly's wing. Impressed with a vivid picture of the plagues

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of Egypt, he may have unconsciously conveyed to certain passages, the images which were floating rough his brain, connected with the petty details of the work; and thus only can we account for those passages which, from fancied resemblances to the above named entomological proceedings, have been included in the category of descriptive music."

The "Israel in Egypt" is a grand conception grandly carried out, a magnificent embodiment of a magnificent subject; and yet it failed to please the degenerate audience of the day.

Fate seemed in determined hostility to Handel; do what he might, she would not treat him kindly.

In 1739, we again find him at the Lincoln's Inn theatre;-a drowning man, catching at a straw.

His representations there began with Dryden's "Ode to St. Cecilia." But "St. Cecilia" seems to have done him no good, the patroness of music could extend no patronage to him; and the termi nation of that season saw him still further out of pocket. After giving one more benefit, he made up his mind to quit England. Handel was no longer young. Fifty-five years had passed over his head, the greater part of them spent in hard mental labour;-mental labour, unrelieved—unrequited by that public sympathy and approbation which it merited.

(To be continued.)

FOR twelve or thirteen years now past, efforts have been made to improve the state of the English law of marriage, its duties, and its rights. That law differs essentially from the Scotch law, and at every point with a prejudice to the weak, but without reason for the variance. The inconvenience of this conflict is apparent in the fact that persons might live, consistently with the law of Scotland, within Scotland, who would be liable to the pains and penalties of the criminal law, if they crossed the Eden or the Tweed. The anomaly is increased by the fact that natives of England might reside in Scotland unmarried, who would be re-married by taking a five minutes' walk over the border. The cause of this difference is traceable to the character of the Reformation in the two countries. The Church of Rome regards marriage as a sacrament. The Reformation in England included no more than the literal meaning of the word. It was revolution in Scotland. The legislation of this country makes marriage easy, and looks upon it as a civil contract, above, around, and over which the parties may, if they please, place the element of religion. In almost every case it is a religious ceremony, and

the law favours that mode of celebration; but the essential point with our law is publicity.

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The complete separation between the civil and ecclesiastical courts in Scotland allows a greater latitude and thereby greater propriety—here, than the commingling of the two jurisdictions permits in England. The civil law here provides merely for its own business; but in England, nobody can clearly tell where the civil jurisdiction commences, or where the ecclesiastical terminates. The English people should clear away this intermeddling of secular authorities in ecclesiastical business, and of ecclesiastical parties in their secularities.

The legislation of both countries is extremely imperfect upon the rights of women who have married unfortunately. The particular causes which warrant a complete separation in either country are those which not very many females will allege, even through their attornies in court. The bill sent down by the Peers to the Commons in the present session of Parliament stops prosecutions for these offences by the husband, and treats them, in some measure, as wrongs done to society. They

will be punishable, if the act pass, by fine or imprisonment. The bill is confined to England, in the first instance; but being a great improvement on the existing practice of civil actions for damages, it will, we trust, be copied into the Scotch law.

At present, in England, the wife cannot be a party to the action which may be instituted by her husband against an alleged paramour. The result is curiously illustrated in a case-Evans v. Evans -before the Ecclesiastical Court. The husband obtained, some years since, damages against a Mr. Robinson, in civil action, for criminal conversation. The wife could not be a party in that cause. When, however, Mr. Evans adopted the next step towards a dissolution of the marriage; in the Ecclesiastical Court; he was compelled to make Mrs. Evans a party to the cause; and it is lost. The judge held that the evidence adduced before the jury was bad, and perfectly met by counter evidence. Three years since, one person lost five hundred pounds, and another pocketed the sum, in one of our courts, while the wife of the latter lost her character, although she was not permitted to take one step in self defence; and now a higher court finds the whole proceeding worthless. It is time to terminate the possibility of this terrible injustice, and the new bill will accomplish that object.

is made to say something concerning the act of endowing bis future wife with all his worldly goods, and perhaps he may believe it; but onehalf of the more acute and more astute bridegrooms know well enough that they are merely endowing themselves with all that the lady may, could, and should have; all that she has earned or may ever earn-all that she possesses or may ever posses, unless the attorney has got before the clergyman and rectified this blunder by a marriage settlement, for which the poor can never pay.

There is, or was, we think, also something said in the English form of marriage, respecting worshipping the wife, or the wife to be, which was only very ridiculous, and did no more harm than any other "white falsehood."

The justice of the case requires a universal marriage settlement, securing the wife's earnings or property from any responsibilities except those of a domestic character, which she may be properly expected to superintend; and shielding her in the management of her own affairs, except so far as she may authorise her husband to transact them on her account.

This arrangement would be deemed very outrageous by gentlemen in search of fortunes, but it would be quite palateable to other gentlemen who, like Dr. Syntax, only go into the world in search of a wife. An attorney arranges all these matters according to law, for those who can afford to pay him, and pay stamps, and as these preliminaries are attended to generally by wealthy people, we see no reason why the poor should not have the same advantage by general enactment.

The former law professed to treat poor and rich alike. Any person could obtain a private Act of Parliament, who had evidence to support the claim and money to pay for the bill and its preliminaries. The business might have been done by men of moderate charges for three to four thousand pounds. Persons who had not the money to spare could obtain redress in formá pauperis. The extremely poor, and the extremely wealthy, therefore, were guarded by the law; but the numerous classes with incomes varying from one hundred to one thousand pounds per annum-who could not, and who would not, prosecute in formá pauperis-were closed out of court. "The law of England is alike open to rich and poor," said somebody to Horne Tooke. True," replied the political wit," and so is the London Tavern." The new bill will not obviate this evil altogether, but the expense of proceedings under it will be much smaller than by the present processes.

The old matrimonial forms of England, like some other old forms, require amendment. They evince the tendency of the human mind to mistake a farce for a solemnity. A young gentleman

Some inconvenience would be experienced, per

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wife's debts, and a wife were allowed to speculate, without her husband's consent, even with her own money, in shares or stocks. This difficulty requires some provision, and one could be easily made for the investment of the money or property of married women in certain funds, unless in those cases where the consent of their husbands was obtained to their employment in a different way. cases contemplated are those of persons between whom no difference of importance has ever occurred, or is likely ever to occur, and the provision sought would be perfectly just from the day that it became perfectly public; while, at present, individuals obtain credit often upon the understanding that they have married respectably-that is to say, have married ten thousand pounds— until it turns out, when some portion of the ten thousand is wanted, that the money was prudently put out of the husband's reach under trust, or in some other way, and the credit has been founded upon nothing. Complaints may be made against the private arrangement system, but there could be none against a public, regular, steady, unswerv ing rule.

The discussions on matrimonial settlements import an air of banking, bullion, and parchment into courtships," which is very disagreeable. A chill

must be thrown over a young female not acquainted intimately with commercial and monetary life, when she is told by hard men of the world, with grooved faces, that she is going to marry a person who will very probably go to the dogs, in a mercantile sense, and that she may be left penniless in the world if her husband in prospective be allowed to manage her affairs. An announcement of that character must resemble a shower-bath of twenty feet, and a hundred gallons power, in December; and requires cautious management, which might be as well averted by a general rule.

Respectable families, in the pecuniary sense, generally provide against contingencies, but ninetenths of all marriages are not preceded by settlements. The artizans, or working men, never think such documents necessary in their families, and it is well that, as they could not afford them, so they have no ambition for their possession. This is the largest class in society, and furnishes only on that account the largest number of cases in which some legislative remedy is required. The records of police courts show the existence of many husbands from whose rapacity their wives should have some protection for their earnings. After a person has been sentenced to six months with hard labour, for cruelty to his wife, security should also be afforded that he will not sweep away all the results of her six months' hard labour out of prison, in six days after his release, not through her credulity, but by virtue of the law that had condemned him. The drunken and sturdy wife-beater having compensated the law, by the starvation of his family for his last offence, returns in the authority and power that the law affords him, to sweep away the little retail shop, the laundry, or the mangle, with which his wife endeavours to find bread and clothes for the children whom he should support. In all these notorious and public cases, a remedy should be devised easily, and is an equally notorious want.

We do not allege that the original cause of the disgraceful scenes narrated at police courts, is always of the masculine gender, or that all the women who get into these difficulties are deserving persons; but those who have gained a different character will not honestly set up a home for themselves, and the addition to the law which we propose would be of no service to them.

The vast majority-a very great majority-perhaps nine-tenths or nineteen-twentieths of the homes in this country are happy in a passable way. Hard and severe toil may wear down the romance of life in some instances, but divorces, or even "judicial separations" will not be numerous in either of the three kingdoms, unless society change much to the worse in all our social arrangements -our moral and religious feelings.

Still the cases of cruelty and oppression which come before the public are few, when compared with the number of equally bad or worse cases that are never known publicly, and examples of this kind occur as frequently among the operative

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as the wealthy classes. Many persons live a life of misery rather than expose their sorrows to the world, for whom the law makes no provision, except that of fastening the morally dead to the morally living. It is not necessary that a female who has married unhappily should be prevented from educating her children, or even supporting herself by her own earnings, because she is incapable of passing through the ordeal of a court, to escape ex vinculo matrimonii. All that is required for such cases, is the power to appropriate her earnings or her property to a praiseworthy purpose.

On the established principle, that example is stronger than precept, we shall state a case; one of many under our own observation, as an example of the evils arising out of a singular omission and deficiency, in the provisions of the new bill. The omission is this. While the case of the wife who is deserted by her husband is amply provided for that of the woman who, by his conduct, has been compelled to leave her home, and who thus in fact "deserts" him, is not even touched on. No protection to her person or property is afforded, she is indeed left in the same position, as if the present bill had not been introduced. Now in the latter case, the wife is if possible in greater need of protection than in the former, and for the following reasons.

Where the husband is the deserting party, the circumstances of the case are generally sufficiently notorious, to enlist the feelings of the public on behalf of the injured wife; while on the contrary, where the wife leaves her home, those aggressions on the part of the husband, which banished her, are usually known only to herself, or to a very limited number of friends. She goes forth to the world under very different circumstances; and society is often opposed to her proceedings, in ignorance of her reasons.

Again In the former case, the wife at any rate retains her home, the external shelter, together with the custody of her children, and probably some portion if not the whole of her property. In the latter, she is homeless, her husband may step in, claim her means, and take all her property, of whatever nature or character it may be, simply because by "not deserting her," he escapes the law.

True, his brutality may have separated them as effectually as if he had left her; but, by driving her from his house, instead of leaving it himself, he not only secures the shelter of his own roof, but completely evades the law. For such an evil, the new bill does not provide any remedy.

A young woman of industrious habits and high moral principles, held the situation of housemaid to a lady, who respecting the worth of her humble dependant, acted as a mother rather than a mistress to her. This servant in an unlucky hour fell in love. It was a great pity, but she did it, and, as a natural consequence, she married the person to whom she was attached. Her earnings,