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Another recent member: My name is Ruth Smith and I earn my keep as a Careers Adviser at Cambridge University Careers Service. 'On the side' I pursue a topic which I began 25 years ago as a research student, the intellectual contexts of Handel's English oratorios (Handel's Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought, Cambridge UP, 1995). My interest is the ways in which the words of Handel's English works reflect both the preoccupations of their time in the areas of nationalism, religion, biblical history, political theory, aesthetics and literary criticism, and the lives and preoccupations of their authors. I am about to start work on a biography of Handel's most interesting librettist, Charles Jennens (1700-73), and would be grateful for any information about him not contained in my 1989 article about him in Music & Letters. He was a Leicestershire/Warwickshire landowner (Gopsall Hall), student at Balliol, editor of Shakespeare, friend of Edward Holdsworth, Jacobite sympathiser, non-juror, art collector and patron. As I don't hold an academic post I'm not able to supervise theses, but I am frequently consulted by people pre-publication (I had a previous career as an academic editor) and am willing to help with any current work in my areas. Special message for Dr Deconinck-Brossard: as you'll see from the notes to my book, I found your work on sermons very helpful - many thanks! Ruth Smith Cambridge University Careers Service, Stuart House, Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1XE fax 01223 338281 email [log in to unmask]