Handel burst out laughing. "Mr. Sharp, have you
never read' the Scriptures? Do you not remember? If the blind lead the
blind, they both fall into the ditch."
He underwent various operations, but derived only partial benefit from
them. During these last years he led a very retired life, but he continued
to play the organ at his oratorios, at first from memory, and later
extemporising the solos in his concertos, which were always an integral
feature of his concerts. The profits of these were enormous, and when he
died in 1759 he left investments to the extent of 20,000. Composition
naturally became a more difficult matter after blindness set in, but new
songs were added to many of the oratorios, and in 1758 he made a complete
revision of his old Italian cantata, Il Trionfo del Tempo. Morell
translated it into English, and seventeen new numbers were added. Some of
these were new, but many were adapted from other works of Handel's, chiefly
from Parnasso in Festa, and there are also borrowings from Lotti and Graun.
Two choruses by Graun had already been utilised in the revision of the
Italian version which Handel brought out in 1737.
All this time John Christopher Schmidt, now known as Smith, had been his
indispensable factotum.
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