He seems to
have lent the theatre to Buononcini for some performances of _Griselda_,
and, when the lease came to an end, it was Heidegger who left Handel in the
lurch and allowed a rival organisation to secure it.
There was, too, a further reason for the general hostility against Handel.
Encouraged by the success of _Acis and Galatea_, he had composed a new
oratorio, _Deborah_, which was performed at the opera-house on March 17,
by the King's command. For this work prices were doubled; tickets were a
guinea each, and admission to the gallery half a guinea, instead of five
shillings. At the second performance the normal prices were charged. The
raising of prices for an extraordinary performance might well seem nothing
unreasonable; but the event came exactly at the moment of the popular
outcry against Walpole's Excise Bill, and the satirists of the day seized
the opportunity of comparing Handel with Walpole.
Handel was now nearly fifty years of age. In the days of _Rinaldo_ he had
been a young man of twenty-five, making friends with those of his own age
or younger, a new attraction with all the fascination of genius and youth.
In the course of a generation he had become an established institution. He
had made a success; he had amassed a fortune; he had secured to himself the
unshaken confidence of the court; but he had inevitably made enemies.
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