Note 5 — MATTHESON ON HANDEL.

That Handel was born on the 23rd of February, 1685, and not on the 24th of February, 1684, is correctly stated in J. J. Walther's 'Musicalisches Lexicon,' Leipzig, 1732. To settle the uncertainty about the date, which appears to have arisen chiefly through Mainwaring's mis-statement, J. J. Eschenburg consulted the Baptismal Register of the Frauenkirche in Halle, where he found the year 1685 given. (See 'Dr. Karl Burney's Nachricht von Georg Friedrich Handel's Lebens umständen, und der ihm zu London im May und Juny, 1784, angestellten Gedächtnissfeyer, aus den Englischen übersetzt von J. J. Eschenburg; Berlin, 1785').—Förstemann ('Händel's Stammbaum,' Leipzig, 1844), and others, have subsequently convinced themselves that Eschenburg's date is correct. The year 1684, given on Handel's Monument in Westminster Abbey, therefore, requires rectifying.