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Delany was settling down to being the wife of a dean. The summer was devoted to the composition of Belshazzar, for which Jennens had supplied the libretto.
John Jennens, 1651, gave 2l. 10s. for the use of the poor, born and living in Birmingham; and also 20s. on St. Thomas's day. Joseph Pemberton gave 40s. per annum, payable out of an estate at Tamworth, and 20s. out of an estate in Harbourne. Richard Smallbrook gave to the poor of Birmingham 10s. per annum, arising out of a salt vat in Droitwich. Robert Whittall gave the pall, or beere cloth.
It is always a great pleasure to me if I have an opportunity to show the sincere respect with which I have the honour to be, Sir, &c., &c., Jennens was a conspicuous figure in the London society of his day. At the time of this correspondence he was thirty-five, and unmarried; he had inherited vast wealth in his youth and spent it freely.
Handel protested perpetually against the length of the work, for the Handelian style of composition naturally extended the prolixity of the words; Jennens greatly resented the musician's criticism, and insisted on printing the poem in full.
In February he produced L'Allegro, adapted by Charles Jennens from Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, to which Jennens had added a third part of his own, Il Moderato; but the public, whether from indifference to the work or from fear of the cold, refused to come to it.
It was probably in the earlier part of 1735 that he made the acquaintance of Charles Jennens, a young man who was eventually to play a great part in his life, for on July 28 he wrote to Jennens to say that he was just starting for Tunbridge. The letter is so short that it may be quoted here in full, for it gives us a great deal of interesting information. London, July 28, 1735. Sir,
The musical library of Handel's English friend Charles Jennens contained a large collection of Scarlatti's manuscripts, and there can be little doubt that it was Handel who brought them with him from Italy.
He was seriously injured, but was stated in a London paper of August 21 to be out of danger. Nor is it known when he returned; we have no further news of him until in January he began work on Jephtha. Morell says that he himself wrote Jephtha in 1751, but, as Handel had completed the first act on February 2, it is probable that Morell, like Jennens, supplied him with the words in instalments.
No actual proof of this was given, nor did Woodburn mention Jennens' ownership. III. The Croker portrait. We have it on the authority of Boaden that this portrait, which he said was the property of the Right Hon. J. Wilson Croker, was a replica of the Janssen. There was a mystery, not in the least cleared up, concerning these two pictures and their history.
Charles Jennens, of Great Ormond Street, who wrote many of Handel's librettos, and arranged the words for the "Messiah."
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