But soon, ah soon, rebellion will commence, If Music meanly borrows aid from sense: Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands, Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands: To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes, And Jove’s own thunders follow Mars’s drums. Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more.— She heard—and drove him to th’ Hibernian shore. “On his arrival in Dublin,” we are told by Dr. Burney, in his Commemoration of Handel, “he, with equal judgment and humanity, began by performing the Messiah for the benefit of the city prison. This act of generosity and benevolence met with universal approbation, as well as his music, which was admirably performed.” He remained in Ireland about nine months, where his finances began to mend, an earnest, as it were, of the more favourable reception which he experienced on returning to London in 1742. He then recommenced his oratorios at Covent Garden; Sampson was the first performed. And now fortune seemed to wait on all his undertakings; and he took the tide at the flood. His last oratorio became most popular, and the Messiah was now received with universal admiration and applause. Dr. Burney remarks, “From that time to the present, this great work has been heard in all parts of the kingdom with increasing reverence and delight; it has fed the hungry, clothed the naked, fostered the orphan,” and, he might have added, healed the sick. Influenced by the most disinterested motives of humanity, Handel resolved to perform his Messiah annually for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital, and, under his own direction and that of his successors, it added to the funds of that charity alone the sum of £10,300. How much it has produced to other benevolent institutions, it is impossible to calculate; the amount must be enormous. He continued his oratorios till almost the moment of his death, and derived considerable pecuniary advantage from them, though a considerable portion of the nobility persevered in their opposition to him. George II., however, was his steady patron, and constantly attended his performances, when they were abandoned by most of his court.