The performance having taken place, the newspapers vied with each other in commendation and praise. I give you an extract from one:—
"On Tuesday last, (the day I suppose was changed), Mr. Handel's sacred grand Oratorio, the Messiah, was performed in the New Music Hall, in Fishamble-street. The best judges allowed it to be the most finished piece of music. Words are wanted to express the delight it afforded to the admiring crowded audience. The sublime, the grand and the tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestic, and moving words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear. It is but justice to Mr. Handel, that the world should know, he generously gave the money arising from this grand performance to be equally shared by the society for relieving prisoners, the Charitable Infirmary, and Mercer's Hospital, for which they will ever gratefully remember his name.
This is high encomium, but the audience paid him higher still. When the chorus all struck up, "For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth," in the Hallelujah, they were so transported that they all together started up and remained standing till the chorus ended."
A few days after the performance of the Messiah, Handel waited on Lord Kinnoul, with whom he was particularly acquainted. His Lordship, as was natural, paid him some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given in the town. "My Lord, said Handel, I should be sorry if I only entertained them, I wish TO MAKE THEM BETTER."
The Messiah has remained the most popular of Oratorios. It is never announced in anything like a fitting manner without attracting the public. It invariably forms part of the programme at all the festivals, and the day on which it is performed is always the most productive. The Sacred Harmonic Societies particularly give it every year for the benefit of distressed musicians. Truly does it deserve the touching eulogy that "it has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and fostered the orphans."
But I must hasten to a conclusion. Before I conclude this sketch of Handel, I must introduce you to one more of his Oratorios, "L'Allegro."
This magnificent composition has been eulogized by an eminent poet,—a beautiful pigeon! and an old parson! I will briefly tell you the eulogy of each, for brief is the eulogy itself.
The Poet having heard the oratorio performed, wrote thus:—
"If e'er Arion's music calm'd the floods
And Orpheus ever drew the dancing woods!
Why do not British trees and forest throng
To hear the sweeter notes of Handel's song?
This does the falsehood of the fable prove—
Or seas and woods when Handel harps would move."
The Pigeon.—"Let me wander not unseen," is considered one of Handel's finest inspirations. Hawkins says, "Of the air, the late Mr. John Lockman relates the following story, assuring his reader, that himself was an eye-witness to it," viz:—