definite decision. Indecision is a common symptom of overstrained nerves,
and anyone who has attempted musical composition or taught it to students
will understand the hesitation and uncertainty which often attends the
first writing down of a musical theme, although, once the initial idea has
been settled, the continuation and development of it may proceed without
difficulty. Any musician who studies the examples printed by Sedley Taylor
will at once exclaim that for a man of Handel's experience, to say nothing
of his fertility or indeed of his genius, it would have been far less
trouble to compose an original setting of given words than to adapt them
so laboriously to music written by someone else for a totally different
purpose. But after his attack of paralysis there may well have been
occasional moments when Handel could not make up his mind to write down an
idea of his own, but may very likely have found that when once he had an
idea ready on paper before him, whether that of another composer or an
old one of his own, he could then continue to compose, and often make
alterations in the music under his eyes which transformed it from a
commonplace into a masterpiece.

In the autumn of 1739 Handel transferred his concerts to the smaller
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where at first there seemed some hope of
success. On November 17 he produced his setting of Dryden's _Ode for St.
Cecilia's Day_; it was repeated several times, _Alexander's Feast_ and
_Acis and Galatea_ being added to the programmes. But a month later an
exceptionally severe frost set in; the Thames was frozen over, and for two
months it was useless to open the theatre, owing to the impossibility of
warming it adequately. In February he produced _L'Allegro_, adapted by
Charles Jennens from Milton's _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, to which
Jennens had added a third part of his own, _Il Moderato_; but the public,
whether from indifference to the work or from fear of the cold, refused to
come to it. Handel was once more on the verge of ruin, but that did not