Note 244 — HIS LIFE (continued 2)

Handel wrote the Messiah between August 22 and September 14, 1741. Certain historians have attributed the composition of the libretto to him. There is no reason for robbing Jennens, a man of intelligence, author of the excellent poem of Belshazzar, of this honour, and of that shown by the fact that Handel changed none of the text which Jennens gave him. A letter of March 31, 1745, to a friend (quoted by Schoelcher) shows that Jennens found the music of the Messiah hardly worthy of his poem.