Italy must inevitably have been a wonderful education in the humanities,
otherwise he could never have been received as he was on his first visit
to London by the society which most nearly resembled that of his Italian
friends and patrons.

Professional musicians, and especially those connected with the theatre,
were regarded in England as being more or less disreputable, unless they
held university degrees and posts of distinction. Handel moved among them
in his professional life, as was only natural, but his more intimate
friendships seem, throughout his career, to have been confined mainly
to the innermost circle of the well-bred amateurs; we must not forget,
however, that it was only persons of that class whose letters and memoirs
have come down to us. Burney and Hawkins at any rate were well acquainted
with the professional world, and their testimony tends to confirm that
Handel stood more or less aloof from it. It was only in later life that he
associated on terms of friendship with such a person as Mrs. Cibber, the
singer. In an age when all opera-houses were, with some truth, regarded as
centres of sexual promiscuity, it is indeed remarkable that not the least
evidence exists, with one solitary exception, that Handel was ever even
alleged to have had an illicit love-affair. Mr. Flower discovered a copy of
Mainwaring's biography, with marginal notes said to be in the handwriting
of George III, and there we read: "G. F. Handel was ever honest, nay
excessively polite, but like all Men of Sense would talk all, and hear
none, and scorned the advice of any but the Woman he loved, but his
Amours were rather of short duration, always within the pale of his own
profession." The _Anecdotes of Handel and Smith_ mention two occasions on
which he was said to have become engaged to be married, or nearly so, but
the writer is so reticent that little faith can be placed in his statement,
and in any case the _Anecdotes_, published in 1799, are not very reliable
as far as Handel is concerned.