1 Messianic views of Handel can be found as early as in Daniel Prat's An Ode to Mr Handel, on his Playing on the Organ (London: Jacob Tonson, 1722). Aaron Hill and the James Harris circle aspired to turn him into the saviour of English music drama (see The Works of the Late Aaron Hill, Esq; in Four Volumes (London: printed for the benefit of the family, 1753), volume 1, 115–116). His Messiah alone saved countless individuals, prompting Burney's comment ‘it has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan, and enriched succeeding managers of Oratorios, more than any single musical production in this or any country’ (Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey and the Pantheon … in Commemoration of Handel (London: for the Benefit of the Musical Fund, 1785), 27). On the composer's intellectual impact see Ilias Chrissochoidis, ‘Handel's Reception and the Rise of Music Historiography in Britain’, in Music's Intellectual History, ed. Zdravko Blažeković and Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie (New York: Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale, 2009), 387–396.

2 See Donald Burrows, ‘Handel and the 1727 Coronation’, The Musical Times 118 (June 1977), 469–473.

3 ‘Indeed, he had a thorough contempt for all our composers at this time’ (Burney, Commemoration, 33n (continues from 32)). Britain's most venerable master was not spared: ‘Mr. Handel made no secret of declaring himself totally insensible to the excellences of Purcell's compositions’ (John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music (London: T. Payne, 1776), volume 2, 105n). The anecdote of Handel clandestinely savouring burgundy while serving port to his dinner guests takes on new meaning when we consider that these guests were performers of his oratorios (Burney, Commemoration, 32n). His heavy indebtedness to Italian masters, recognized already in the eighteenth century, does not necessarily qualify as artistic appreciation of their work.

4 Madame du Bocage's description of an oratorio performance in 1750 confirms that Handel was both its physical and its artistic centre; see Letters concerning England, Holland and Italy (London: E. and C. Dilly, 1770), volume 1, 14–15. In private life Handel appears to have contemplated marriage only with high-society females, at the same time refusing to sacrifice his musical career ([William Coxe,] Anecdotes of George Frederick Handel, and John Christopher Smith (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1799), 28–29). William Hayes extolled his social activism in these words: ‘let Infants … chaunt forth his Praise, whose annual [Foundling Hospital benefit], will render HIM and his MESSIAH, truly Immortal and crowned with Glory’ (Remarks on Mr. Avison's Essay on Musical Expression (London: J. Robinson, 1753), 130). Handel took care of his posthumous reputation, reserving no less than £600 for a commemorative statue at Westminster Abbey and leaving his music library to John Christopher Smith, Jr, a key decision for the survival of his Covent Garden oratorio series (The Letters and Writings of George Frideric Handel, ed. Erich H. Müller (London: Cassell, 1935), 63, 73–74; Otto Erich Deutsch, Handel: A Documentary Biography (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1955), 691, 814; Handel's Will: Facsimiles and Commentary, ed. Donald Burrows (London: The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation, 2009), 35, 53–54). The moulding of Handel's national image by visual means is examined in Suzanne Aspden, ‘“Fam'd Handel Breathing, tho' Transformed to Stone”: The Composer as Monument’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 55/1 (2002), 39–90.

5 ‘so great a man … who's musick will ever be in esteem’. Music and Theatre in Handel's World: The Family Papers of James Harris, 1732–1780, ed. Donald Burrows and Rosemary Dunhill (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 207.

6 Donald Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 608; Richard G. King, ‘On Princess Anne's Lessons with Handel’, Newsletter of the American Handel Society 7/2 (1992), 4. For a thorough examination of the topic see David Hunter, ‘Royal Patronage of Handel in Britain: The Rewards of Pensions and Office’, in Handel Studies: A Gedenkschrift for Howard Serwer, ed. Richard G. King (Hillsdale: Pendragon, 2009), 127–153. Handel's appointments are frequently listed in John Chamberlayne's annual editions of Magnae Britanniae Notitia: or, The Present State of Great Britain (for instance, in 1727 (part 2, 59) and 1728 (part 2, 267)), and mark the beginning of his regular investment activity (see Ellen T. Harris, ‘Courting Gentility: Handel at the Bank of England’, forthcoming in Music & Letters 91/3 (2010). I am obliged to Professor Harris for granting me advance access to her essay).

7 Huntington Library, shelfmark 143253. The leather-bound volume (spine title: ‘BROADSIDES BY SWIFT AND OTHERS’) was described as early as 1849 by W. R. Wilde in The Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1849), 154, 164–181, though he says nothing about this document. It passed through several hands before Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge auctioned it on 9 May 1900 as ‘A UNIQUE COLLECTION consisting of 16 SATIRICAL PIECES IN MS. SAID TO BE IN SWIFT'S AUTOGRAPH, and 62 Broadsides by Swift and others printed at Dublin, many bearing dates, WITH MS. NOTES giving Authorship, Names, Places and other particulars, APPARENTLY IN SWIFT'S HAND’. At the Huntington's collections since at least 1929, it includes sets of forty and forty-four folios, each preceded by a manuscript table of contents. The numbers in pencil on the upper right corner of each recto designate the order of items in each set. A parallel numbering (continuing that of the first set) appears in the lower left corner of the second set, which indicates its addition to the first. The chronological range of the earlier is 1716–1725, with the majority of the items printed in 1724–1725; the second covers the period 1727–1734. The volume's content varies from poems to theatrical prologues, two issues of The Flying-Post; Or, Post-Master 5627 (Tuesday, 13 May 1729) and George Faulkner. The Dublin Journal 873 (Saturday, 10 – Tuesday, 13 August 1734).

8 Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (London: J. Knapton and others, 1755), volume 2, page heading ‘SAT–SAT’.

9 ‘The Charming Brute’ (London, 1754), engraving once attributed to Hogarth; Porcupinus Pelagius [Morgan McNamara], The Scandalizade: A Panegyri-Satiri-Serio-Comi-Dramatic Poem (London: G. Smith, 1750), 27. For Goupy's caricature see Ellen T. Harris, ‘Joseph Goupy and George Frideric Handel: From Professional Triumphs to Personal Estrangement’, Huntington Library Quarterly 71/3 (2008), 432–434, and Ilias Chrissochoidis, ‘Handel, Hogarth, Goupy: Artistic Intersections in Handelian Biography’, Early Music 37/4 (2009), 581–591.

10 See Bob Clarke, From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 72, 57.

11 See, for example, Parker's Ephemeris for the Year of our Lord 1731 (London, 1731).

12 For a detailed history of the site see Samuel Denne, Historical Particulars of Lambeth Parish and Lambeth Palace (London: John Nichols, 1795), 410–422.

13 A Sketch of the Spring-Gardens, Vaux-Hall. In a Letter to a Noble Lord (London: G. Woodfall[, ?1751]), 27; see also The Champion; Or, The Evening Advertiser 422 (Saturday, 31 July 1742)[, 1].

14 Sketch of the Spring-Gardens, 2.

15 ‘great Preparations are making at Spring Gardens, Vaux-Hall, for a Ball after the Italian Manner at their Carnevals’. The Daily Post 3915 (Tuesday, 4 April 1732)[, 1].

16 The London Magazine. Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer [1] (1732), 149. See also The Gentleman's Magazine 2 (1732), 823; The Grub-street Journal 128 (Thursday, 15 June 1732)[, 2]; and [?Aaron Hill,] See and Seem Blind: Or, A Critical Dissertation on the Publick Diversions, &c. Of Persons and Things, and Things and Persons, and what not. In a Letter from the Right Honourable the Lord B----- to A--- H--- Esq (London: H. Whitridge[, 1732]), 30.

17 Lord Wentworth to the Earl of Strafford, 8 June 1732. British Library, Add. Ms. 31145, f. 42r, reproduced here for the first time.

18 The ridotto was the concluding scene in Theophilus Cibber, The Harlot's Progress; Or, The Ridotto Al' Fresco: A Grotesque Pantomime Entertainment ([London:] for the benefit of Richard Cross, 1733), 12.

19 The Ladies Delight (London: W. James, 1732), 22–23. The collection appeared on 20 June (The Daily Journal 3576 (Tuesday, 20 June 1732)[, 2]). One of the poems is advertised as ‘A merry Allegorico Botanico-Bawdinical Piece’ (The Gentleman's Magazine 2 (1732), 831).

20 The London Magazine 1 [1732], 149.

21 John, Lord Hervey, Some Materials toward Memoirs of the Reign of King George II, ed. Romney Sedgwick (New York: AMS Press, 1970; original edition, 1931), [volume 1,] xxxix. For a review of his relationship with the Prince see John Walters, The Royal Griffin: Frederick Prince of Wales, 1707–51 (London: Jarrolds, 1972), 74–89. Tyers bought part of Dodington's moiety of the property in 1752 for £3,800 and the remainder in 1758. Denne, Lambeth Parish, 419, and James Granville Southworth, Vauxhall Gardens: A Chapter in the Social History of England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941), 17.

22 His destinations were Paris and Rome. The Grub-street Journal 128 (Thursday, 15 June 1732)[, 2].

23 The Daily Journal 3575 (Monday, 19 June 1732)[, 1]. Response to the event was lukewarm, though, as ‘there was not half the Company as was expected, being no more than 203 persons, amongst whom were several persons of distinction, but more Ladies than Gentlemen’. The Grub-street Journal 130 (Thursday, 29 June 1732)[, 2].

24 The Daily Courant 5455 (Saturday, 10 June 1732)[, 2].

25 ‘Miss vane was brought / to bed a Sunday of a son[.] an Express was / emadatly [immediately] sent to the Prince[.] he gave / the Messenger a hundred & fifty Guineys’. Lady Strafford to Lord Strafford, 6 June 1732, British Library, Add. Ms. 31145, f. 40r. I thank David Coke for drawing my attention to this fact.

26 Caesar Ripa, Iconologia: Or, Moral Emblems (London: Benj. Motte, 1709), 41, 58; George Richardson, Iconology; Or, A Collection of Emblematical Figures (London: author, 1779), volume 1, 63, 98, and volume 2, 91, 93; James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art (London: John Murray, 1974), 34; and his Illustrative Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art (New York: IconEditions, 1994), 10.

27 ‘Belsize-House, where ev'ry sort and kind / Of Harlots, Fops and Beaux [one] may daily find’ (Belsize-House. A Satyr (London: T. Warner, 1722), 15). An explicit link between this animal celebrity and Italian opera is drawn by the author of A little more of that Same: Or, A Recollection of sundry Material Passages omitted in a late Treatise, entituled, The Devil to pay at St. James's. Particularly, … A most surprizing Account of the Miracles perform'd by the Flying Ass at Belsize. A Proposal for the Improvement of Musick, by manufacturing Eunuchs in England … (London: A. Moore, 1727), 10–13: ‘His Voice is a deep Bass of the Pitch of Palmerini's, but he sings more after Boschi's Manner, excepting when he attempts to sing through the Nose, like Senesino … if he had been castrated in his youthful Days, he would have had a most excellent Voice. If so, what need we be at the Expence of importing Eunuchs from Italy?’.

28 Hall, Dictionary, 231, and Illustrative Dictionary, 37; see also Richardson, Iconology, volume 2, 138.

29 (London: T. Warner, 1724.)

30 [George Duckett,] Pope Alexander's Supremacy and Infallibility examin'd; and the Errors of Scriblerus and his Man William detected (London: J. Roberts, 1729). Copies of a better-quality engraving are housed in Houghton Library, f *EC75.W1654.Zz747t, and in the Folger Shakespeare Library, PR3625.A1.D41 cage.

31 Baron Huffumbourghausen [pseudonym], The Congress of the Beasts (London: W. Webb, 1748).

32 A discussion of their allegorical possibilities appears in Ellen T. Harris, Handel as Orpheus: Voice and Desire in the Chamber Cantatas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 252–255. Owls appear in Joseph Goupy's ‘THE true Representation and Caracter &c’ (1749) and the anonymous ‘Windy Bumm’, a satirical attack on Porpora (1735). See Chrissochoidis, ‘Handel, Hogarth, Goupy’, 582, 586, and Xavier Cervantes and Thomas McGeary, ‘Handel, Porpora and the “Windy Bumm”’, Early Music 29/4 (2001), 608. On the ‘Opera House’ satire see Berta Joncus, ‘One God, So Many Farinellis: Mythologising the Star Castrato’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 28/3 (2005), 450 and [474], Table I, no. 25.

33 On Tyers's efforts to create an Arcadian utopia see Berta Joncus, ‘“His Spirit is in Action Seen”: Milton, Mrs Clive and the Simulacra of the Pastoral in Comus’, Eighteenth-Century Music 2/1 (2005), 30.

34 Burney, Commemoration, 15–16.

35 Elizabeth Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music, 1719–1728: The Institution and Its Directors (New York: Garland, 1989), 320, and Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, ‘The Charter of the Royal Academy of Music’, Music & Letters 67/1 (1986), 50–51.

36 Graham Midgley, The Life of Orator Henley (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), 126–165, especially 136–141. Timothy Scrub [pseudonym], A Rod for the Hyp-Doctor, made out of his own Broom (London: S. West, 1731). The Orator in Henry Fielding's play The Author's Farce (1730) is based on Henley. Sheridan Baker, ‘Political Allusion in Fielding's Author's Farce, Mock Doctor, and Tumble-Down Dick’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 77/3 (1962), 225.

37 See The Plain Dealer: Being Select Essays on Several Curious Subjects (London: J. Osborn, 1734), volume 1, 10–11, and also Heydegger's Letter to the Bishop of London (London: N. Cox, 1724).

38 The Plain Dealer [no. 2, Friday, 27 March 1724], volume 1, 8. According to a source, despite his being ‘an ugly Theatric Hero, or rather a Designer, Heidegger has found Means to charm, nay even captivate, more than one Female’. The Fool: Being a Collection of Essays and Epistles … published in the Daily Gazetteer (London: Nutt, 1748) [no. 42, Saturday, 18 October 1746], volume 1, 298–299.

39 ‘And lo! her Bird (a monster of a fowl! / Something betwixt a H*** and Owl)’, with ‘H***’ identified as ‘A strange Bird from Switzerland’. [Alexander Pope,] The Dunciad Variorum. With the Prolegomena of Scriblerus (London: A. Dob, 1729), 20. There is an explicit identification of Heidegger in A Compleat Key to the Dunciad, second edition (London: E. Curll, 1728), 10, even though only his initial appears in the poem's first edition. The challenge contained in A Compleat Key, ‘Let Pope look to himself next Masquerade’, is realized with the poet's inclusion among Vauxhall's asses.

40 The Touch-Stone: Or, Historical, Critical, Political, Philosophical, and Theological Essays (London, 1728), 192. Once attributed to James Ralph, this important source's authorship is now assigned to Robert Samber. See Lowell Lindgren, ‘Another Critic Named Samber whose “particular historical significance has gone almost entirely unnoticed”’, in Festa Musicologica: Essays in Honor of George J. Buelow, ed. Thomas J. Mathiesen and Benito V. Rivera (Stuyvesant: Pendragon, 1995), 407–434.

41 Vice Chamberlain Coke's Theatrical Papers, 1706–1715, ed. Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), 16–19.

42 Deutsch, Handel, 31.

43 ‘In the year [17]10 I first saw Mr. Handel, who was introduced to my uncle Stanley by Mr. Heidegger, the famous manager of the opera, and the most ugly man that ever was formed.’ The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany, ed. Lady Llanover (London: Richard Bentley, 1861), volume 1, 5–6; also in Mrs. Delany (Mary Granville): A Memoir, 1700–1788, ed. George Paston (London: G. Richards, 1900), 3.

44 See Coke's Theatrical Papers, 176.

45 Coke's Theatrical Papers, 199.

46 Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel's Operas, 1704–1726 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 249. For a detailed examination of Heidegger's career at this period see Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, ‘Heidegger and the Management of the Haymarket Opera, 1713–17’, Early Music 27/1 (1999), 65–71, 73–84.

47 Coke's Theatrical Papers, 199, 201; Deutsch, Handel, 57; ‘Opera Register from 1712 to 1734 (Colman-Register)’, Händel-Jahrbuch 5 (1959), 205.

48 Amadis of Gaul. An Opera. As it is perform'd at the King's Theatre in the Hay-Market (London: Jacob Tonson, 1715).

49 For a detailed account of these seasons see Milhous and Hume, ‘Haymarket Opera, 1713–17’, 69–82.

50 W. Barclay Squire, ‘Handel's Water Music’, The Musical Times 63 (December 1922), 866.

51 Milhous and Hume, ‘Haymarket Opera, 1713–17’, 80. For an overview of masquerades in eighteenth-century England, with special emphasis on their subversive role in gender identity, see Terry Castle, Masquerade and Civilization: The Carnivalesque in Eighteenth-Century English Culture and Fiction (London: Methuen, 1986), 1–51, and The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 82–100.

52 Milhous and Hume, ‘Haymarket Opera, 1713–17’, 82.

53 This treatise on astronomy and natural history by ‘F. A. di C.’ was published in London by J. Bettenham in 1724. The subscription list also features the names of Bononcini, Ariosti, Riva, Haym, F. Bernardi (Senesino), P. Castrucci, Goupy and others, indicating the author's strong links with the Royal Academy of Music.

54 Robert D. Hume, ‘Handel and Opera Management in London in the 1730s’, Music & Letters 67/4 (1986), 350.

55 ‘Heideggerohandelian couple’, Paolo Rolli's mocking reference to the new scheme in his letter to Giuseppe Riva, 12 June 1730. R. A. Streatfeild, ‘Handel, Rolli, and Italian Opera in London in the Eighteenth Century’, The Musical Quarterly 3/3 (1917), 441.

56 Pope to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu[, June 1717], in The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. George Sherburn (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), volume 1, 407.

57 Charon; or, The Ferry-Boat. A Vision. Dedicated to the Swiss Count (London: W. Lewis, 1719).

58 The Briton (London: J. Roberts, 1724) [no. 23, Wednesday, 8 January 1724], 102.

59 A Jacobite ballad from 1721 portrays him as a sexual predator of young native girls (see ‘George I Goes to the Masquerade (1721)’, The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats 42/1 (2009)). Its date suggests that George I attended masquerades during the 1720s (see Donald Burrows and Robert D. Hume, ‘George I, the Haymarket Opera Company and Handel's Water Music’, Early Music 19/3 (1991), 330) and possibly accounts for the royal present of £500 to Heidegger on 18 March 1721 (Deutsch, Handel, 124). The masquerade must have taken place before Craggs the Younger's premature death, on 16 February (The Daily Courant 6030 (Friday, 17 February 1721)[, 1]). Horace Walpole relates that he ‘caught his death by calling at the gate of Lady March, who was ill of the smallpox, & being told so by the Porter, went home directly, fell ill of the same distemper & died’ (Walpole, Reminiscences (Oxford: Clarendon, 1924), 36).

60 [John Macky,] A Journey through England, second edition (London: J. Hooke, 1722), 68.

61 Norman Sykes, Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, 1669–1748: A Study in Politics & Religion in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press / London: Humphrey Milford, 1926), 187–192.

62 The Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal 191 (Saturday, 3 June 1732)[, 1].

63 Moses Statute, Ridotto: Or, Downfall of Masquerades (London: A. Moore, 1723), 11. Sir John Vanbrugh wrote on 18 February 1724 that ‘The masquerade flourishes more than ever’ and that the King himself ‘took occasion to declare aloud in the Drawing-room that whilst there were masquerades he would go to them’ (The Manuscripts of the Earl of Carlisle, preserved at Castle Howard (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1897), 48). Heidegger also drew support from the Freemasons, whom he joined in late 1725 on the recommendation of the Duke of Richmond, their Grand Master and also a director of the Royal Academy of Music (also Freemasons were the Duke of Montagu, Sir John Buckworth, Sir Thomas Prendergrass and James Sandys). See Andrew George Pink, ‘The Musical Culture of Freemasonry in Early Eighteenth-Century London’ (PhD dissertation, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2007), 166–167). I am obliged to Dr Pink for an enlightening discussion on this topic, which remains unregistered in Handel studies.

64 Viscount Percival's diary, 23 January 1730. Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont: Diary of Viscount Percival afterwards First Earl of Egmont. Vol. I. 1730–1733 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1920), 10.

65 Delany, Autobiography, volume 1, 138–139.

66 A Foreign View of England in 1725–1729: The Letters of Monsieur Cesar De Saussure to His Family, trans. and ed. Madame van Muyden (London: Caliban, 1995; original edition, 1902), 163.

67 On 13 June 1728. Edward Croft Murray, ‘The Painted Hall in Heidegger's House at Richmond—I’, The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (1941), 106, note 3.

68 ‘Some Account of the late M. Heidegger’, in The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle 34 (1764), 213. Given that his personal integrity was never questioned, part of the criticism against his entertainments was really a covert attack on Whiggism.

69 Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 22 February 1771, in Horace Walpole's Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann VII, ed. W. S. Lewis, Warren Hunting Smith and George L. Lam (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), 271.

70 ‘Shaftesbury's Memoirs of Handel’, Public Record Office 30/24/28/84, f. 424r; reprinted in Deutsch, Handel, 844.

71 The Contre Temps; or, Rival Queans: A Small Farce (London: A. Moore, 1727)[, 4].

72 The Session of Musicians. In Imitation of the Session of Poets (London: M. Smith, 1724), 4.

73 The Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal 77 (Saturday, 28 March 1730)[, 2]; reprinted in The Grub-street Journal 13 (Thursday, 2 April 1730)[, 2].

74 The Daily Post 3414 (Friday, 28 August 1730)[, 1]; reprinted in Read's Weekly Journal, Or, British-Gazetteer 284 (Saturday, 29 August 1730)[, 3]; The Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal 99 (Saturday, 29 August 1730)[, 2]; The Evening Post 3294 (Thursday, 27 – Saturday, 29 August 1730)[, 2]; Charles Burney, A General History of Music, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period … Volume the Fourth (London: author, 1789), 349.

75 The Evening Post 3310 (Saturday, 3 – Tuesday, 6 October 1730)[, 3]; reprinted in The Grub-street Journal 40 (Thursday, 8 October 1730)[, 2].

76 The Grub-street Journal 41 (Thursday, 15 October 1730)[, 2].

77 The Daily Advertiser 375 (Wednesday, 12 April 1732)[, 1].

78 See the letters of Electress Sophia of Hanover from June 1710 in Donald Burrows, ‘Handel and Hanover’, in Bach, Handel, Scarlatti: Tercentenary Essays, ed. Peter Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 39.

79 Hervey, Materials, volume 1, 273.

80 See Walpole, Reminiscences, 22.

81 On Caroline's patronage of the fine arts see Joanna Marschner, ‘Queen Caroline of Anspach and the European Princely Museum Tradition’, in Queenship in Britain, 1660–1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics, ed. Clarissa Campbell Orr (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 130–142, especially 133–140.

82 Richard G. King, ‘Two New Letters from Princess Amelia’, Händel-Jahrbuch 40/41 (1994/1995), 170. For a review of Handel's court appointments see Donald Burrows, ‘Handel as a Court Musician’, The Court Historian 3/2 (1998), 2–9.

83 King, ‘On Princess Anne's Lessons with Handel’, 4.

84 Hawkins, History, volume 5, 180.

85 Hervey, Materials, volume 1, 66; Richard G. King, ‘Handel's Travels in the Netherlands in 1750’, Music & Letters 72/3 (1991), 378–379; Veronica P. M. Baker-Smith, A Life of Anne of Hanover, Princess Royal (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 61.

86 Baker-Smith, Anne of Hanover, 23.

87 Hervey, Materials, volume 1, 195.

88 Walpole, Reminiscences, 123 (see also 111), and Memoirs of King George II, ed. John Brooke (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), volume 1, 140, note 5.

89 ‘the Queen to break her of this [ambition], asked her one day what She woud sell her Chance for, now the Duke was before her as well as the Prince—She replied, ‘if I had seven brothers, & they had each seven sons, I woud not sell my chance’. Walpole, Reminiscences, 123.

90 Richard G. King, ‘On Princess Anne's Patronage of the Second Academy’, Newsletter of the American Handel Society 14/2 (1999), 1, 6.

91 ‘Shaftesbury's Memoirs of Handel’, in Deutsch, Handel, 845.

92 Burney, Commemoration, 100; see also Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal, 292.

93 ‘'Tis considently reported, that a Marriage is actually treating between his most serene Highness the Prince of Nassau-Orange, and her Royal Highness the Princess Royal; on which Occasion the Prince is shortly expected at this Court.’ The Daily Advertiser 375 (Wednesday, 12 April 1732)[, 1].

94 A Guide to the Oratory: Or, an Historical Account of the New Sect of the Henleyarians (London: W. Osborn, ?1726), 4.

95 The Secret History of Mama Oello, Princess Royal of Peru. A New Court Novel (London: J. Dent, 1733), 13. A handwritten key identifies the characters as Anne, Walpole and the Prince of Orange.

96 Kenneth Nott, ‘Sacred and Profane’, The Musical Times 136 (February 1995), 89.

97 See Ilias Chrissochoidis, ‘His Majesty's Choice: Esther in May 1732’, Newsletter of The American Handel Society 22/2 (2007), 4–6.

98 Gio. Giacomo Zamboni to Alexander J. Sulkowsky in Dresden, 26 August [according to Lowell Lindgren probably 26 August / 6 September] 1732, in Lowell Lindgren, ‘Musicians and Librettists in the Correspondence of Gio. Giacomo Zamboni (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Rawlinson Letters 116–138)’, [Royal Musical Association] Research Chronicle 24 (1991), 146.

99 Gio. Giacomo Zamboni to Johann Heinrich von Heucher in Warsaw, 11 July 1732, in Lindgren, ‘Zamboni’, 144.

100 Lady A. Irwin [to Lord Carlisle], 31 March [1733], in The Manuscripts of the Earl of Carlisle, 106.

101 Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, ‘Handel's Opera Finances in 1732–3’, The Musical Times 125 (February 1984), 88.

102 Judith Milhous, ‘Opera Finances in London, 1674–1738’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 37/3 (1984), 592.

103 Letters of Rolli to Senesino, 21 December [1728] and 25 [January] 1729. See Deutsch, Handel, 229; Sesto Fassini, ‘Il melodramma italiano a Londra ai tempi del Rolli’, Rivista musicale italiana 19 (1912), 579–580; Luigia Cellesi, ‘Attorno a Haendel: Letter inedite del poeta Paolo Rolli’, Musica d'oggi 15/1 (1933), 11–13; Streatfeild, ‘Handel, Rolli, and Italian Opera’, 438–439.

104 Rolli to Senesino, 4 February 1729, in Streatfeild, ‘Handel, Rolli, and Italian Opera’, 439. Streatfeild mistakenly reads ‘di questo R.’ as a reference to ‘a questo residente Vignola’ a few lines above in the letter. Deutsch corrects the mistake in his translation (Deutsch, Handel, 237).

105 Rolli to Riva, 6 November 1729, in Streatfeild, ‘Handel, Rolli, and Italian Opera’, 440.

106 Winton Dean, Handel's Operas, 1726–1741 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), 128.

107 Lotharius, An Opera. As it is performed at the King's Theatre in the Hay-Market (London: T. Wood, 1729), ‘Argument’; Dean, Handel's Operas, 1726–1741, 140.

108 Dean, Handel's Operas, 1726–1741, 156.

109 [Samuel] Humphreys, Deborah. An Oratorio: or Sacred Drama (London: John Watts, 1733), ‘Dedication’.

110 Milhous and Hume, ‘Handel's Opera Finances in 1732–33’, 89.

111 Ruth Smith, Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 281.

112 ‘Riva è inferocito, perchè vede il Bonacino escluso dall'orgoglio proprio e dall'orgoglio del Capo Compositore, da quale dovrà dipendere ogni altro.’ Rolli to Senesino, 4 February 1729, in Sesto Fassini, Il melodramma italiano a Londra nella prima metà del Settecento (Torino: Bocca, 1914), 165, and Streatfeild, ‘Handel, Rolli, and Italian Opera’, 440.

113 Do you know what you are about? Or, A Protestant Alarm to Great Britain (London: J. Roberts, 1733), 16–17.

114 The Bee: Or, Universal Weekly Pamphlet 2 (1733) [Saturday, 2 – Saturday, 9 June], 635.

115 Thomas McGeary, ‘Handel, Prince Frederick, and the Opera of the Nobility Reconsidered’, Göttinger Händel-Beiträge 7 (1998), 160–161.

116 Do you know what you are about?, 16.

117 Baron De la Warr to the Duke of Richmond, 16 June 1733, in McGeary, ‘Opera of the Nobility’, 157.

118 Charles Delafaye to William, Third Earl of Essex, 24 May 1733, British Library, Add. Ms. 27732, f. 172v, first given in Carole Mia Taylor, ‘Italian Operagoing in London, 1700–1745’ (PhD dissertation, Syracuse University, 1991), 279, note 60. Taylor's erroneous identification of Delafaye's first name as ‘Thomas’ is corrected in Suzanne Elizabeth Aspden, ‘Opera and Nationalism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain’ (DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford, 1999), 68.

119 [Samuel Johnson,] Harmony in an Uproar: A Letter to F—d—k H—d—l, Esq; … from Hurlothrumbo Johnson, Esq (London: R. Smith, 1733), 24.

120 Sir Henry Liddell to Henry Ellison, 27 November 1735, in Taylor, ‘Italian Operagoing’, 279, note 60; Walpole, Reminiscences, 80.

121 Burney, Commemoration, *20n. (The asterisk is part of the original numbering.)

122 George E. Dorris, Paolo Rolli and the Italian Circle in London, 1715–1744 (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1967), 112–113.

123 Bünau to Zamboni, 22 December 1733, in Lindgren, ‘Zamboni’, 154.

124 Duke of Newcastle to the Earl of Essex, 24 September 1733, British Library, Add. Ms. 27732, f. 246r. First given (without naming a specific day) in Taylor, ‘Italian Operagoing’, 195.

125 McGeary, ‘Opera of the Nobility’, 157.

126 Thomas Bowen to the Earl of Essex, 31 December 1733, British Library, Add. Ms. 27738, f. 95r.

127 Letters of Baron Bielfeld, trans. ‘Mr. Hooper’ (London: Robinson and Roberts, and Richardson and Urquhart, 1770), volume 4, 63.

128 Walpole, Reminiscences, 111.

129 British Library, Add. Ms. 28050, f. 223v; reprinted in Thomas McGeary, ‘Farinelli and the Duke of Leeds: “tanto mio amico e patrone particolare”’, Early Music 30/2 (2002), 205.

130 See David Bindman, ‘Roubiliac's Statue of Handel and the Keeping of Order in Vauxhall Gardens in the Early Eighteenth Century’, The Sculpture Journal 1 (1997), 22–31; Aspden, ‘“Fam'd Handel Breathing, tho' Transformed to Stone”’, 45–54 (revised chapter of her PhD dissertation from 1999); Joncus, ‘Comus’, 28–40.

131 The Fool: Being a Collection of Essays and Epistles … published in the Daily Gazetteer (London: Nutt, 1748), volume 2, 140 [no. 70, Wednesday, 7 January 1747].

132 The Ladies Delight, 22. The subtitle for ‘RIDOTTO al' FRESCO’ reads: ‘Describing the Growth of this Tree [arbor vitae] in the famous Spring-Gardens at Vaux-Hall, under the Care of that ingenious Botanist Doctor H---GG---R’ [title page].

133 The Daily Journal 3559 (Wednesday, 31 May 1732)[, 1]; also in The Daily Courant 5036, for the same date[, 2].

134 The Flying-Post: Or, Weekly Medley 36 (Saturday, 7 June 1729)[, 4]; The Country Journal: Or, The Craftsman 153 (Saturday, 7 June 1729)[, 2]. The visit did not take place (The London Evening-Post 235 (Tuesday, 10 – Thursday, 12 June 1729)[, 2]).

135 Since the Gardens covered about eleven acres, the reference to ‘about twenty Acres and a Half’ (Sketch of the Spring-Gardens, 2) implicitly takes into account their surrounding area, which was also under Tyers's control. I thank David Coke for clarifying this point.

136 The Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal 191 (Saturday, 3 June 1732)[, 1].

137 See the admission ticket in ‘Historical Collections relative to Spring Garden at Charing Cross, closed by Cromwel in 1654; and to Spring Garden, Lambeth, 1661. since called Vauxhall Gardens’, British Library, Cup.401.k.7, page 104. See also Joncus, ‘Comus’, 30.

138 The Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal 191 (Saturday, 3 June 1732)[, 1].

139 The Daily Courant 5040 (Monday, 5 June 1732)[, 2].

140 David Coke assures me that the gardens at this time were anything but picturesque (personal communication). This does not exclude, of course, the presence of temporary constructions for the opening ridotto.

141 The London Journal 135 (Saturday, 24 February 172[2]), 6.

142 The Daily Courant 6340 (Thursday, 15 February 1722)[, 1].

143 British Library, Egerton Ms. 2322, f. 37v.

144 The Daily Post 2957 (Thursday, 13 March 1729)[, 1], 2969 (Thursday, 27 March 1729)[, 1], and 2981 (Thursday, 10 April 1729)[, 1]. The name of the latter work is mistakenly given as ‘Radamantus’ in British Library, Egerton Ms. 2322, f. 240v.

145 The Country Journal: Or, the Craftsman 148 (Saturday, 3 May 1729)[, 3].

146 James Granville Southworth, Vauxhall Gardens: A Chapter in the Social History of England (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941), 79.

147 Caspar Wilhelm von Brocke to King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, [12] January 1734, in Deutsch, Handel, 341.

148 King, ‘Handel's Travels’, 385.

149 See also Aspden, ‘Opera and Nationalism’, 63–66.

150 Sketch of the Spring-Gardens, 3.

151 Hercules Mac-Sturdy, A Trip to Vaux-Hall: Or, A General Satyr on the Times (London: A. Moore, 1737), 3.

152 The Country Journal: Or, the Craftsman 151 (Saturday, 24 May 1729)[, 3].

153 ‘Twenty-four Overtures for Violins, &c. in eight Parts’, The Country Journal: Or, the Craftsman 309 (Saturday, 3 June 1732)[, 3].

154 [Samuel Richardson,] Letters written to and for Particular Friends, on the most Important Occasions. Directing not only the Requisite Style and Forms to be observed in writing Familiar Letters; but how to think and act justly and prudently, in the Common Concerns of Human Life (London: C. Rivington, J. Osborn, and J. Leake at Bath, 1741), 224.

155 The London Daily Post, and General Advertiser 1082 (Tuesday, 18 April 1738[, 2]).

156 The Daily Advertiser 1953 (Friday, 29 April 1737)[, 1].

157 See Ilias Chrissochoidis, ‘Handel at a Crossroads: His 1737–1738 and 1738–1739 Seasons Re-examined’, Music & Letters 90/4 (2009), 606–610.

158 Folger Shakespeare Library, M.b. 49, 1220–1221.

159 The London Daily Post, and General Advertiser 1082 (Tuesday, 18 April 1738[, 2]).

160 The London Evening Post 1625 (Thursday, 13 – Saturday, 15 April 1738[, 1]).

161 (London: C. Corbett[, 1737–1739],) volume 2, 21.

162 For a similar reading of later edifices in the Gardens see Joncus, ‘Comus’, 39.

163 The pamphlet appears in The Miscellaneous Works of the Late Dr. Arbuthnot (Glasgow: James Carlile, 1751), volume 1, 213–223, and in a later edition (London: W. Richardson and L. Urquhart, and J. Knox, 1770), volume 1, 2[07]–217. The work is cited in Burney, Commemoration, 19.

164 The Devil to pay at St. James's (London: A. Moore, 1727), [1,] 7. The passage is reprinted in Gibson, Royal Academy, 430.

165 Henry Fielding, The Author's Farce; and The Pleasures of the Town (Dublin: S. Powell, 1730), 46.

166 J[ohn] Henley, Milk for Babies: … Being No V. of Oratory Transactions (London, 1729), 36–42.

167 Oratory Transactions. No II, third edition (London: Mrs. Dodd, ?1728).

168 Midgley, Henley, 99.

169 Touch-Stone, 196.

170 Midgley, Henley, 99; [Alexander Pope,] The Dunciad, 45.

171 ‘The Academical, or Week-Day's Subjects of the ORATORY, from July 6, in the first Week, 1726, to August 31, 1728’, 18, in Oratory Transactions. No. II, third edition.

172 (London: M. Turner, 1729.) The attribution is made by D. F. Foxon for good reasons (English Verse, 1701–1750 (London: Oak Knoll Press / The British Library, 2003), volume 1, 338); however, the poem does not appear among Henley's writings in Midgley, Henley, 290–291.

173 Second edition (London: J. Roberts, 1736; reprinted 1743).

174 [?Hill,] See and Seem Blind, 16.

175 [?Hill,] See and Seem Blind, 15, 14.

176 The Dunciad, Variorum, 66.

177 On this production see Ilias Chrissochoidis, ‘Early Reception of Handel's Oratorios, 1732–1784: Narrative – Studies – Documents’ (Ann Arbor: UMI (PhD dissertation, Stanford University), 2004), 45–48.

178 Ronald Paulson, Hogarth, Volume 1: The ‘Modern Moral Subject,’ 1697–1732 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 215 and 369, note 13.

179 Hogarth's Graphic Works, compiled by Ronald Paulson, third, revised edition (London: The Print Room, 1989), 85, 383. Paulson is careful to note that the basis for these identifications is tradition and contemporary perception.

180 Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth, third edition (London: John Nichols, 1785), 202. Jeremy Barlow mistakenly cites page 187 for this information in The Enraged Musician: Hogarth's Musical Imagery (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 18, note 29.

181 See Midgley, Henley, 56–59.

182 Burney, Commemoration, 100–101. Arthur Jacobs has contested the reliability of Burney's witnesses, but Winton Dean rightly affirms the primacy of positive evidence over negative evidence. ‘Handel and the Bishop’, The Musical Times 111 (February 1970), 158, and (April 1970), 387.

183 In 1731 a sermon at Hanover Square based on Esther v. 13 attracted Gibson's scrutiny for possible anti-government subtexts (Sykes, Gibson, 145, note 2). Although nothing objectionable was found therein, the story of Esther might have registered as a ‘potentially seditious text’ in the Bishop's mind (see Smith, Handel's Oratorios, 282).

184 ‘A Narrative by Mr. Welstede’, in Oratory Transactions. No. I (London, 1728), 10.

185 Simon Croxeall [pseudonym], The reed of Egypt piercing the hand that leans upon it. Or, a demonstration that the arguments of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London, in his second pastoral letter against the deists, are inconsistent with his principles (London: Benj. Ginks, 1730).

186 The London Daily Post, 5 November 1737, quoted in Midgley, Henley, 128.

187 Sykes, Gibson, 237. Henley was arrested on 8 February 1728 ‘for publishing two scandalous and foolish Advertisements in a News Paper, relating to the Convocation, Bishops, &c.’. The British Journal: Or, The Censor 4 (Saturday, 10 February 1727/1728)[, 3].

188 Touch-Stone, 195.

189 ‘A Narrative by Mr. Welstede’, 14.

190 Books written, and publish'd, by the Reverend John Henley, M.A. (London, 1724), 9.

191 See Edmund Gibson, The Excellent Use of Psalmody, with a Course of Singing-Psalms for Half a Year [London, after 1724]; Sykes, Gibson, 206; and also the insightful discussion in Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal, 294–296.

192 Winton Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 193, note 1.

193 (London: E. Curll and J. Pemberton, and A. Bettesworth, 1714.) For a discussion of the poem see Midgley, Henley, 17–22.

194 Thomas Brereton, Esther; Or, Faith Triumphant. A Sacred Tragedy (London: J. Tonson, 1715). For discussions of this work and Handel's oratorio see Smith, Handel's Oratorios, 276–277, and Annette Landgraf, ‘Esther: Von der Bibel über Brereton zu Händel’, Händel-Jahrbuch 52 (2006), 129–138.

195 ‘A Narrative by Mr. Welstede’, 7.

196 (London: A. Bettesworth, E. Curll and J. Pemberton, 1715.) On the changes to Handel's advertised title see Ilias Chrissochoidis, ‘Born in the Press: The Public Molding of Handel's Esther into an English Oratorio’ (unpublished).

197 (London: E. Curll, 1720), 72–73.

198 Books written, and publish'd, by the Reverend John Henley, 6.

199 A Guide to the Oratory, 3.

200 ‘The Theological, or Lord's-Day's Subjects of the ORATORY, from July 3. 1726. being the first Sunday, to August 31. 1728’. 5, in Oratory Transactions. No. II, third edition.

201 The Grub-street Journal 89 (Thursday, 16 September 1731)[, 1, 2].

202 Faithful Memoirs of the Grubstreet Society (London: for the benefit of the Grubstreet Society, 1732), 109–112.

203 Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques, 193, note 1.

204 Milo Keynes, ‘Handel and His Illnesses’, The Musical Times 123 (September 1982), 613–614; David Hunter, ‘Miraculous Recovery? Handel's Illnesses, the Narrative Tradition of Heroic Strength and the Oratorio Turn’, Eighteenth-Century Music 3/2 (2006), 253–267; David Hunter, ‘Handel's Ill Health: Documents and Diagnoses’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 41 (2008), 69–92.

205 William A. Frosch, ‘Moods, Madness, and Music. II. Was Handel Insane?’, The Musical Quarterly 74/1 (1990), 45.

206 Charles Peter, ‘Observations, on Mercury, Jesuits Powder, Opium and Steel’, in his New Observations on the Venereal Disease, with the True way of Curing the same, third edition (London: Philip Monckton, 1704), 4.

207 Augustin Belloste, The Hospital Surgeon. Vol. II (London: John Clarke, 1729), 66–67.

208 An Antidote: Or, Some Remarks upon a Treatise on Mercury (London: J. Roberts, 1732), 3 and Preface[, 1].

209 Richard Mead, A Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays, second, revised, edition (London: Ralph Smith, 1708), 109.

210 Dr. Allen's Synopsis Medicinae … and a Curious Treatise of all Sorts of Poysons (London: J. Pemberton and W. Meadows, 1730), volume 2, 250–251.

211 The Country Journal: Or, the Craftsman 353 (Saturday, 7 April 1733)[, 1].

212 [John Mainwaring,] Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel (London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1760), 121.

213 L. W. Johnson and M. L. Wolbarsht, ‘Mercury Poisoning: A Probable Cause of Isaac Newton's Physical and Mental Ills’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 34/1 (1979), 1–9.

214 A Letter from a Member of Parliament to his Friend in the Country, concerning the Sum of 115,000 l. granted for the Service of the Civil List. To which is added, A Collection of Pictures by the best Hands (London: J. Walker[, 1729]). As with many popular ephemera, existing copies of this title present inconsistencies. The list is absent from the copy I examined at the British Library (8138.df.9). The second and third editions bear no date, but they were advertised in The Daily Journal 2659 (Wednesday, 16 July 1729)[, 2,] and The Daily Post 3059 (Thursday, 10 July 1729)[, 2]. According to Lord Chesterfield, Pulteney possessed uncommon wit and literary talent, which make him a likely author of the list (‘Appendix to Lord Chesterfield's Works’, in Miscellaneous Works of the Late Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield … Volume the Fourth (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1779), 30). The exact relationship of the list to Walpole's legislation is unclear. As the bill aimed to help George II pay Civil List arrears, one assumes that the listed individuals were seeking money owed to them. Given the magnitude of the amount, the reference to the Court of Requests, established to settle small debts of the common people, is ironic. The inspiration for this particular satirical mode could have been the picture auction room, adjacent to the Court of Requests, or even the armorial devices and mottoes in Westminster Hall.

215 (London: A. Moore, no date.) See The Daily Journal 2654 (Thursday, 10 July 1729)[, 1].

216 The Daily Journal 2661 (Friday, 18 July 1729)[, 2]; The Daily Post 3070 (Wednesday, 23 July 1729)[, 2]. The advertisement of 25 July begins ‘With the Collection of the Court Pictures, and the Supplement thereto’ and specifies ‘This is the only Edition printed from the Original, and all others are spurious’. The Daily Journal 2667 (Friday, 25 July 1729)[, 2].

217 Letters to and from Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, and her Second Husband, the Hon. George Berkeley; from 1712 to 1767 (London: John Murray, 1824), volume 1, 339–346. I thank David Coke for directing me to this source.

218 Private communication from Lowell Lindgren. See ‘Biographical Account of Mr. ST. ANDRE’, The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle 51 ([July] 1781), 320–322.

219 N. St André, A Short Narrative of an Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbets perform'd by Mr. John Howard Surgeon at Guilford, second edition (London: John Clarke, 1726).

220 Molyneaux is listed in the service of the Prince of Wales as early as September 1716 (‘Samuel Molineux Esqr. Secr[etar]y & Keeper of the Privy Seal’ at £640 a year, British Library, Add. Ms. 61492, f. 232r). His death, on 13 April 1728, was reported in The London Evening-Post 54 (Thursday, 11 – Saturday, 13 April 1728)[, 1]. His wife was Lady Elizabeth Capel, sister of the Earl of Essex, a leading opera patron (The Daily Post 2672 (Monday, 15 April 1728)[, 1]).

221 The London Evening-Post 243 (Thursday, 26 – Saturday, 28 June 1729)[, 2].

222 The Daily Courant 8650 (Wednesday, 2 July 1729)[, 2]; Brice's Weekly Journal 220 (Friday, 4 July 1729), 3.