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best writings of that truly great artist,
exalted them in my opinion, and at my
return renewed my pleasure in hearing
them performed.
As yet I had heard little but church
music in Italy; however, in that stile,
with instruments, all other compositions
appeared feeble by comparison. The
subjects of the fugues were, in general,
trivial and common, and the manner
of working them dry and artless. Indeed
the church stile, without instruments, ex-
cept the organ, was well known in Italy,
and all over Europe, long before Han-
del's time; and melody is certainly much
refined since: it is more graceful, more
pathetic, and even more gay; but for
counterpoint, fugues, and chorusses of
many voices, with instruments, I repeat it,
I neither have heard, nor do I ever expect
to hear him equalled.
10th. This morning I went again to
the church of the convent of St. Lau-
rence, where, besides a mass of Signor
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