That Handel was born on the 23rd of February, 1685, and not on the 24th of February, 1684, is correctly
2
Hawkins's 'History of Music,' Vol. V., p. 253.
5
That Handel was born on the 23rd of February, 1685, and not on the 24th of February, 1684, is correctly stated in J. J. Walther's 'Musicalisches Lexicon,' Leipzig, 1732. To settle the uncertainty about the date, which appears to have arisen chiefly through Mainwaring's mis-statement, J. J. Eschenburg consulted the Baptismal Register of the Frauenkirche in Halle, where he found the year 1685 given. (See 'Dr. Karl Burney's Nachricht von Georg Friedrich Handel's Lebens umständen, und der ihm zu London im May und Juny, 1784, angestellten Gedächtnissfeyer, aus den Englischen übersetzt von J. J. Eschenburg; Berlin, 1785'). – Förstemann ('Händel's Stammbaum,' Leipzig, 1844), and others, have subsequently convinced themselves that Eschenburg's date is correct. The year 1684, given on Handel's Monument in Westminster Abbey, therefore, requires rectifying.
6
Chrysander ('G. F. Handel,' Leipzig, 1858, Vol. I., p. 52) surmises that Handel was not in Berlin in 1698, but in 1696, when he was eleven years old.
7
This is a mis-statement. Handel, born in 1685, was 18 years old; and Mattheson, born in 1681, was 22 years old.
11
He was not quite twenty years old.
12
See the note above, page 11.
13
Mainwaring had probably obtained some of his information from Handel himself; but he may have forgotten the dates, or Handel may not have remembered them exactly.
14
Handel was 74 years old when he died.
15
Mattheson is mistaken here. It has been satisfactorily ascertained that Handel left Hamburg for Italy in the year 1706. (See G. F. Händel, von F. Chrysander, Leipzig, 1858, Vol. I., p. 139.)
16
The following well-authenticated data may serve to correct the "corrections" of Mattheson: – Handel was born in 1685; went to Hamburg in 1703; thence to Italy in 1706; from Italy to Hanover in 1710; thence to London in 1710; back to Hanover in 1711; returned to England in 1712, where he died in 1759.
17
Two works by Mattheson.
20
'Sagen, Gebräuche, und Märchen aus Westfahlen, gesammelt von A. Kuhn. Leipzig, 1859.' Vol. I., p. 175.
21
'Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, by T. Crofton Croker; London, 1862,' p. 22. – Compare also 'Hans mein Igel,' in Grimm's Kinder und Hausmärchen.
22
'Deutsche Sagen, herausgegeben von den Brüdern Grimm; Berlin, 1816;' Vol. I., p. 330.
23
'Niederländische Sagen, herausgegeben von J. W. Wolf; Leipzig, 1843;' p. 464.
