Return to Table of Contents

If biographers will occasionally make assertions at random, and pass lightly over important events, because their records are not at hand, while they give ample development to others, just because the materials for doing so are more abundant, it is well that there is to be found here and there an industrious littÉrateur, who will leave no leaf unturned, and no corner unexplored, if he suspects that any error has been committed, or any passage of interest slighted, in the memoirs of a favourite author.

Mr Mainwaring, the earliest biographer of Handel, and, on his authority, a host of subsequent writers, took upon them to assert, without any apparent foundation, that the oratorio of the Messiah was performed in London in the year 1741, previously to Handel's visit to Ireland; but that it met with a cold reception, and this was one cause of his leaving England. Dr Burney, when composing his History of Music, examined all the London newspapers where public amusements were advertised during 1741 and for several previous years, but found no mention whatever of this oratorio. He remembered, too, being a school-boy at Chester when Handel spent a week there, waiting for fair winds to carry him across the Channel, and taking advantage of the delay 'to prove some books that had been hastily transcribed, by trying the choruses which he intended to perform in Ireland.' An amateur band was mustered for him, and the manuscript choruses thus verified were those of the Messiah. In the absence, therefore, of stronger evidence to the contrary, Dr Burney believed that Dublin had the honour of its first performance. An Irish barrister has now proved this, we think, beyond dispute.[1] His evidence has been drawn from the newspaper tomes of 1741, preserved in the public libraries of Dublin, confirmed by the records of the cathedrals and some of the charitable institutions, and yet more emphatically from some original letters of this date. He has thus succeeded in doing 'justice to Ireland,' by securing for it, in all time to come, the distinguished place which it is entitled to occupy in the history of this great man. Perhaps we should rather say, he has done justice to England, by clearing it of the imputation of having 'coldly received' a musical production to which immortal fame has since been decreed. While the musical world will thank our author for several new facts particularly interesting to them, the main attraction for general readers will probably be found in the glimpses which this volume affords of a beau monde which has passed away.

In 1720, a royal academy for the promotion of Italian operas was founded in London by some of the nobility and gentry under royal auspices. Handel, Bononcini, and Areosti, were engaged as a triumvirate of composers; and to Handel was committed the charge of engaging the singers. But the rivalry between him and Bononcini rose to strife; the aristocratic patrons took nearly equal sides; and a furious controversy on their respective merits was carried on for years. Hence the epigram of Dean Swift—

When the withdrawal of both his rivals left Handel in sole possession of the field, he quarrelled with some of his principal performers, and thereupon ensued new scenes of discord. Ladies of the highest rank entered with enthusiasm into the strife; and while some flourished their fans aloft on the side of Faustina, whom Handel had introduced in order to supersede Cuzzoni, another party, headed by the Countess of Pembroke, espoused the cause of the depressed songstress, and made her take an oath on the Holy Gospels, that she would never submit to accept a lower salary than her rival. The humorous poets of the day took up the theme, Pope introduced it into his Dunciad, and Arbuthnot published two witty brochures, entitled Harmony in an Uproar, and The Devil to Pay at St James's. The result of these and other contests, in which Handel gradually lost ground, was the establishment of a rival Opera at Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was patronised by the Prince of Wales and most of the nobles; and not even the presence of the king and queen, who continued the steady friends of Handel, could attract for him an audience at the Haymarket. It became quite fashionable to decry his compositions as beneath the notice of musical connoisseurs. Politics, it is said, came to mingle in the controversy; and those who held by the king's Opera were as certainly Tories, as those who went to the nobility's were Whigs. Of course all this was very foolish, and very wrong; yet in our days of stately conventionality, when perfect impassibility is deemed the highest style of breeding, there is something refreshing in reading of such animated scenes in high life. The crowning act of hostility to Handel, was when the Earl of Middlesex himself assumed the profession of manager of Italian operas, and engaged the king's theatre, with a new composer, and a new company.

Handel had, for some time, been meditating a withdrawal from the Opera, in order to devote himself exclusively to the composition of sacred music, of which he had already produced several fine specimens. He was wont to say, that this was an occupation 'better suited to the circumstances of a man advancing in years, than that of adapting music to such vain and trivial words as the musical drama generally consists of.' The truth was, he had discovered his forte. But the tide of fashionable feeling ran so strongly against him, that even the performance of the oratorios of Saul and Israel in Egypt scarcely paid expenses. Unwilling to submit his forthcoming Messiah also to the caprices of fashion, and the malignity of party, he wisely embraced an opportunity which was opened to him of bringing out this great work in Dublin, under singularly favourable auspices, and crossed the Channel in November 1741.

Those who are acquainted with the Irish metropolis—not merely with the handsome streets and squares eastward, which are now the abodes of gentility, but with the dirty thoroughfares about the cathedrals—have observed the large houses which some of them contain, now let in single rooms to a wretched population, and need scarcely be told that they were once the abodes of wealth and luxury. Fishamble Street, in this quarter of the town, is one of the oldest streets in Dublin. 'Under the eastern gable of the ancient cathedral of Christ's Church, separated and hidden from it by a row of houses, it winds its crooked course down the hill from Castle Street to the Liffey, as forlorn and neglected as other old streets in its vicinity. A number of trunkmakers' shops give it an aspect somewhat peculiar; miserable alleys open from it on the right and left; a barber's pole or two overhang the footway; and huxters' shops are frequent, with their wonted array of articles more useful than ornamental. One would never guess, looking at this old street, that it was once the festive resort of the wealthy and refined. It needs an effort of imagination to conceive of it as having witnessed the gay throng of fashion and aristocracy; the vice-regal cortÈge; ladies, in hoops and feathers; and "white-gloved beaux," in bag, and sword, and chapeau; with scores of liveried footmen and pages; and the press of coaches, and chariots, and sedan-chairs. Yet such was the scene often presented here in the eighteenth century.' For see, in an oblique angle of the street, and somewhat retired from the other houses, is a mean, neglected old building, with a wooden porch, still known by name as the Fishamble Street Theatre. This is the remaining part of what was originally 'the great music-hall,' built by a charitable musical society, 'finished in the most elegant manner, under the direction of Captain Castell,' and opened to the public on the 2d October 1741. It was within these walls that the notes of the Messiah first sounded in the ears of an enraptured audience, and here that its author entered on a new career of fame.

To prepare for the reception of this, his master-work, Handel first gave a series of musical entertainments, consisting of some of his earlier oratorios, and other kindred compositions. They commanded a most distinguished auditory, including the Lord-Lieutenant and his family, and were crowned with success in a pecuniary point of view, answering, and indeed exceeding, the composer's highest expectations. In a letter written at this time to Mr C. Jennens, who had selected the words of the Messiah, and composed those of a cantata which had been much admired, he describes, in glowing colours, his happy position, and informs him that he had set the Messiah to music before he left England—thus inferentially affording additional evidence that it had not been performed there. Moreover, the advertisements call it Handel's new oratorio, and boast that it was composed expressly for the charitable purpose to which the proceeds of its first performance were consecrated. This is confirmed by reference to the minutes of one at least of these institutions, in which it appears that Handel was in correspondence with them before he had completed his composition.

The people of Dublin are passionately fond of music, and charitable musical societies form a peculiar and interesting feature of its society during the last century. These were academies or clubs, each of which was attached in the way of patronage to some particular charity, to which its revenues were consecrated. Whitelaw, in his History of Dublin (1758), mentions a very aristocratic musical academy, which held its meetings in the Fishamble Street Hall, under the presidency of the Earl of Mornington—the Duke of Wellington's father. His lordship was himself the leader of the band; among the violoncellos were Lord Bellamont, Sir John Dillon, and Dean Burke; among the flutes, Lord Lucan; at the harpsichord, Lady Freke; and so on. Their meetings, we are told, were private, except once a year, when they performed in public for a charitable purpose, and admitted all who chose to buy tickets. It does not appear, however, that this academy was identical with the association that built the hall, and whose concerts seem to have been much more frequent, as well as its benevolent designs more extensive. It was called, par eminence, The Charitable Musical Society; the others having distinctive designations besides. The objects of its benevolence were the prisoners of the Marshalseas, who were in circumstances similar to those which, many years afterwards, elicited the benevolent labours of John Howard: confined often for trifling debts, pining in hopeless misery, and without food, save that received from the casual hand of charity. This society made a daily distribution of bread among some of these, while others were released through their humane exertions. On the 17th of March 1741, they report, that 'the Committee of the Charitable Musical Society appointed for this year to visit the Marshalseas in this city, and release the prisoners confined therein for debt, have already released 188 miserable persons of both sexes. They offered a reasonable composition to the creditors, and many of the creditors being in circumstances almost equally miserable with their debtors, due regard was paid by the committee to this circumstance.' Their funds must have improved considerably after the erection of their Music Hall, which seems to have been the largest room of the kind in Dublin, and in frequent requisition for public concerts, balls, and other reunions where it was desirable to assemble a numerous company, or employ a large orchestra. The hire of the hall on such occasions would form a handsome addition to the proceeds of their own concerts.

It was to these funds that the proceeds of the first performance of the Messiah were devoted, in connection with those of Mercer's Hospital, an old and still eminent school of surgery—and the Royal Infirmary, which still exists in Jervis Street as a place for the immediate reception of persons meeting with sudden accidents. The performance was duly advertised in Faulkner's Journal, with the additional announcement, that 'many ladies and gentlemen who are well-wishers to this noble and grand charity, for which this oratorio was composed, request it as a favour that the ladies who honour this performance with their presence would be pleased to come without hoops, as it will greatly increase the charity by making room for more company.' In another advertisement it is added, that 'the gentlemen are desired to come without their swords.'

On the ensuing Saturday, the following account was given of this memorable festival: 'On Tuesday last (April 13, 1742), Mr Handel's sacred grand oratorio, the Messiah, was performed in the New Musick Hall in Fishamble Street; the best judges allowed it to be the most finished piece of musick. Words are wanting to express the exquisite delight it afforded to the admiring, crowded audience. The sublime, the grand, and the tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestick, and moving words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished heart and ear. It is but just 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; and that the gentlemen of the two choirs, Mr Dubourg, Mrs Avolio, and Mrs Cibber, who all performed their parts to admiration, acted also on the same disinterested principle, satisfied with the deserved applause of the publick, and the conscious pleasure of promoting such useful and extensive charity. There were above 700 people in the room, and the sum collected for that noble and pious charity amounted to about L.400, out of which L.127 goes to each of the three great and pious charities.'

Handel remained five months longer in the Irish metropolis, during which period it is recorded that 'he diverted the thoughts of the people from every other pursuit.' On his return to London in August 1742, he was warmly received by his former friends; his enemies, too, were greatly conciliated. His having relinquished all concern with operatic affairs, and opened for himself a new and undisputed sphere, removed the old grounds of hostility; while the enthusiastic reception which he had met in Dublin, had served as an effectual reproach to those whose malignity had forced him to seek for justice there. Notwithstanding some difficulties at the outset of his new career at home, he lived to realise an income of above L.2000 a year, and never found it necessary or convenient to revisit Ireland; but the custom of performing his oratorios and cantatas for the benefit of medical charities was maintained for many years; and it is believed that the works of no other composer have so largely contributed to the relief of human suffering.