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Postscript
Since this volume went to press, I have learned that the huge collection of papers belonging to James ('Hermes') Harris (1709-80)--formerly in the private library of the Earl of Malmesbury, and briefly mentioned by Clive Probyn in the Bibliography to his Harris biography of 1991 (The Sociable Humanist, p. 355)--has now been placed in the Hampshire County Record Office in Winchester, and will shortly become available to scholars wishing to explore the wealth of new material it contains. Included in the collection are no fewer than 32 letters from John Hoadly to Harris. Most have nothing to do with music, but there are two which are directly relevant to three works (The Choice of Hercules, The Force of Truth, and The Song of Moses) discussed above; a third relates to the availability of performing parts of Florimel which Harris was, it appears, planning to perform in Salisbury sometime in the winter season of 1743-44, while a fourth not quoted here (Malmesbury Collection, 9M73/G485/9) would seem to confirm Hoadly's authorship of the set of six cantatas ('The Trophy') mentioned above (and sent to Greene for setting sometime prior to 28 October 1746). The Harris papers also contain a great many references to Handel, music and theatrical performances generally; an edition of these (scheduled for publication by the Oxford University Press) is being prepared by the County Archivist, Miss Rosemary Dunhill, and Professor Donald Burrows, who very kindly drew the correspondence to my attention. I am also greatly indebted to the Earl of Malmesbury for permission to reproduce the substance of these three letters here. In the transcriptions which follow, standard eighteenth-century contractions like 'ye.', 'yt.', 'wch.', and 'wd.' have been silently expanded into 'the', 'that', 'which'- and 'would' respectively.
The first letter (Malmesbury Collection, 9M73/G485/2) is dated Wolvesey House,
Winchester, 17 December 1739, and is addressed, some what teasingly, to 'My dear Lord Harris'
(in Salisbury). It reads:
The second (9M73/G906) was written on 5 November 1743 and sent to Harris from Hoadly's fashionable London residence in Grosvenor Street. As is apparent from the letter, Greene was at that very moment involved in the composition of The Force of Truth. The work referred to in the first paragraph, however, is the libretto of The Song of Moses, an autograph copy of which Hoadly includes with the letter. The postscript is followed by the same 'Sonnet in the Manner of Milton' as also appears in the Otago manuscript and is quoted by Keith Maslen in his article in vol. 48, p. 90 (n. 10); but for a couple of very minor changes in the text and the usual differences of spelling, punctuation and capitalization, the two are virtually identical.
I hope This will catch You before you go for Bath, that you may have a little something a brewing in your Head, while you are at that Place of total Idleness. You hinted once that something of this Kind wou'd be agreable, if a Prospect of too much Work did not frighten You. I hope 3 Airs, 3 Choruses, & a Duet will not have that terrible Effect upon You; tho' I own the Subject is great, & worthy of your Gravity, & great Skill in Chromatics.
Greene's Papers [see letter 3] are ready box'd up for You, whenever you please to send for them. He has made a great Progress in my Oratorio [The Force of Truth], & most delightfully is it express'd: which is all that the Poet can wish, or pretend to understand. . . .
P.S. I propose to inscribe the Oratorio to Mrs Bowes, who was formerly the Florimel of my Pastoral; & have enclos'd the following Lines on that Occasion.
The third letter (9M73/G485/4) was sent from Winchester just a month earlier (8 October
1743) to inform Harris that he [Hoadly] had
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