But the air was never called by
this name before 1820; about that time a young music-seller at Bath, who
had previously been a blacksmith's apprentice, earned the nickname of "the
harmonious blacksmith" because he was always singing that particular tune.
Somehow the name got transferred from the singer to the song, and in 1835
the story of Handel's having been inspired to compose the tune after
hearing a blacksmith at Edgware produce musical notes from his anvil was
first put into print in a letter to _The Times_. Not long afterwards an
imaginary blacksmith of Edgware was invented, and his alleged anvil sold by
auction.
Whether the air is Handel's own composition at all is a matter of
uncertainty; there would be nothing in the least unusual about any composer
taking another man's air as a theme for variations, and it has been
suggested, with some plausibility, that the tune is that of an old French
song.
On August 8, 1718, Handel's sister Dorothea Sophia died of consumption
at Halle. She was not more than thirty years of age; the other sister,
Johanna, had died in 1709. The sermon preached at Dorothea's funeral on
August 11, 1718, has been preserved, and tells us that one of her favourite
texts from the Bible, which she was often in the habit of quoting, was,
"I know that my Redeemer liveth.
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