When generations have been melted into tears, or raised to religious fervor—when courses of sermons have been preached, volumes of criticisms been written, and thousands of afflicted and poor people supported by the oratorio of "The Messiah"—it becomes exceedingly difficult to say anything new. Yet no notice of Handel, however sketchy, should be written without some special tribute of reverence to this sublime treatment of a sublime subject. Bach, Graun, Beethoven, Spohr, Rossini and Mendelssohn have all composed on the same theme. But no one in completeness, in range of effect, in elevation and variety of conception, has ever approached Handel's music upon this one subject.
—Rev. H. R. Haweis
GEORGE HANDEL
id you meet Michelangelo while you were in Rome?" asked a good Roycroft girl of me the other day.