"And now forgive this dry letter, and believe me, yours very truly,
"Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy."
Reading between the lines of the last-quoted letter, it is easy to see that Mendelssohn was much annoyed at the public announcements, made by Mr. Lumley in his opera prospectus of 1847, to the effect that "The celebrated Dr. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy will likewise visit England, and produce an Opera expressly composed for Her Majesty's Theatre, the Libretto, founded on 'The Tempest' of Shakespeare, written by Scribe." These advertisements were, to say the least, very premature, as Mendelssohn had not only disapproved of parts of the libretto, but had not written a note of the music! The suggestion contained in the above letter that he (Mendelssohn) should postpone his visit till the autumn, must have caused some consternation amongst his London friends, especially as all arrangements had been made for the various performances of the revised oratorio, which were to be given under his own personal direction. Bartholomew—ever resourceful and indefatigable—at once wrote the following letter to the composer:—
"2, Walcot Place, Hackney, March 19, 1847.
"My dear Sir,—Yours of the 10th came to hand last night, and in reply to it I can tell you twenty reasons why you should come, and not one why you should not come. Upon the faith of your letter, which Buxton has been obliged to quote from in order to prove his warranty to treat for your coming with the Committee at Exeter Hall, he has made the engagement for you with them, and they have made their engagements with others for April 16th and 23rd; and, I think, the 28th. The Manchester Hargreaves Society have fixed their date for one of the intervening days and advertised it.... Everybody is now in town expecting you and anxious to hail your appearance. Nobody will be in town in the autumn. (Is that a reason why you should come then?) If you don't come, 'Elijah' would go—for go it must—but I mean it won't go well....
"You have no idea how they are inundated with enquiries at Newgate Street [Ewer & Co.'s] as to when 'Elijah' will be published.... God bless you, dear Sir!
"W. Bartholomew."
Whatever influence this letter from Bartholomew may have had upon its recipient, and doubtless others wrote in the same strain, Mendelssohn duly came to London—alas! for the last time—at the beginning of April, 1847, the year in which he died.
The first performance of the revised version of "Elijah"—the form in which we now know the oratorio—took place, under the auspices of the Sacred Harmonic Society, at Exeter Hall, London, on Friday, April 16, 1847, conducted by the composer. Miss Birch, Miss Dolby (afterwards Madame Sainton-Dolby), and Mr. Henry Phillips replaced Madame Caradori-Allan, Miss Hawes, and Herr Staudigl, who had "created" their respective parts at Birmingham. "Lockey would be quite sufficient for all the tenor solos," wrote Mendelssohn, and so he proved to be.