The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON HANDEL'S " MES-
sull."—Handel's extraordinary popularity through-
out the length and breadth of England—to which
may be added America, where his oratorios are
more frequently heard than in Germany, or, in
short, than in any country except our own—must
not be attributed to his having made Biblical heroes
sing martial songs, Biblical prophets utter prophecies
in sounding declamatory recitative, Biblical Israelites
shout paeans in solemn chorus,to the consternation of
Biblical Philistines. He might have done all this
and more, and still not have been, a century after
his death, what he now is to the English and Ame-
rican peoples. He did, in fact, accomplish more.
He described with graphic and appalling power the
miracles of " Exodus," and then, in the " Song of
Moses," recapitulated these miracles in hymns of
thanksgiving and praise that for sublimity have
never been approached. But " Israel in Egypt,"
matchless as it is, would not have made Handel
the Handel we revere. Musicians would have ex-
tolled him to the skies. Gluck, Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, would have said—" Behold our mas-
ter !" Mendelssohn would have written—" Israel"
is " the greatest and most lasting piece." And yet
the world, the Christian world at large, would not
have adopted Handel as it has almost universally
adopted him. But, in addition to " Israel" and the
rest, which, separate or combined, would have pro-
claimed him a colossus, Handel wrote " Messiah"—
or, as he first entitled it, " a sacred oratorio"—a
work which musicians may justly regard as the
greatest production of their art, but which has
also still higher pretensions. He wrote " Mes-
siah" when fortune for him had done her worst.
In 1739, he bad produced " Saul," " Israel in
Egypt," the " Ode to St. Cecilia," and other great
pieces, not one of which materially helped him to
steer clear of overwhelming difficulties ; in the year
following he composed " L'Allegro ed it Penseroso,"
&c., but with no happier result. In the midst of
those labours he returned to Italian opera, which
had always proved his Nemesis, and just at this
period had brought him to the brink of ruin. Two
new operas, and an old one revived, were all failures
at the theatre under his management in Lincoln's
Inn-fields. The aristocracy, whom he had unwit-
tingly offended, were his uncompromising enemies.
His oratorios and cantatas, as well as his Italian
operas, were alike disregarded till, on the verge of
bankruptcy, he bethought him of a visit to Ireland,
which he had long contemplated, and which now he
argued might help to relieve his fallen fortunes.
Indomitable hero, no less than indomitable producer !
He would not go to the Irish—" that generous and
polite nation," which had long expressed an admi-
ration for his works—without something new ; as if
nineteen-twentieths of the superb things he had
already produced would not have been as good as
new to a new country. So he composed " Messiah."
Where? Howl All we can find is that he com-
posed it before he left England. Thus much we
learn from a letter to his friend, Charles Jennens
(Dublin, Dec. 29, 1741); who had, it appears, com-
piled, or more probably helped to compile, the words.
Jennens resided at Gopsall Hall, Leicestershire (this
surely should be as interesting a spot as Cannons,
or the house in Brook-street), and at Gopsall Hall
some insist that Messiah must have been written,
while others assert the contrary. All we care to

the allusions, both prophetic and narrative, from
the Old Testament and the New, to the incidents
of the Passion bring the most absorbing moments
of the earthly career of Jesus intensely before us ;
but this, too, ends with the jubilant " Hallelujah,"
which proclaims His triumph and our salvation.
These are the three great choruses of " Messiah," to
which all the rest is incidental and subordinate. A
more dramatic form would not have fitted the sub-
ject of the, Redemption ; and with all the genius of
Mendelssohn, it is fair to doubt whether his
" Christus," intended to be an epitome of the life
of the Saviour, from the birth to the Ascension,
would, whatever the grandeur of the music, have
found in the end such general favour as his less
ambitious oratorios " St. Paul" and " Elijah."
That it could ever supersede " Messiah," the most
enthusiastic partisans of Mendelssohn would have
been as unlikely as Mendelssohn to imagine.
" THE LONDON REVIEW " ON THE EAST AND
WEST ENDS.-If modern Babylon has its head' of
gold, it has also its feet of clay; if the one is seen
towering superbly among trees of St. James's Park,
the towers of Westminster, and the squares of Bel-
gravia, the others may be tracked amid mire and filth
through noisome lanes and'crowded courts of White-
chapel. But what does Belgravia or Pall-mall know
of Whitechapel and the Docks ? It has never even
seen them, except when whisked along as by magic
above the level of their narrow streets, or when sail..
ing gaily and swiftly through a forest of masts on
the Thames. " Paris I know, and Brussels I know,
but who are ye ?" Such is its language. It is
familiar with the lakes of Cumberland, the High-
lands, the Drachenfels, and the Tiber winding
through its marble wilderness. Not to be familiar
with these would be a disgrace indeed ; but what
has the West-end of London in common with the
East, with the rookeries, and the homes of the great
unwashed? What are the masses in Shoreditch to
the elite of Belgrave-square ? " Let the people eat
grass," said old Foulon during the scarcity of 'B9 ;
and many a West-end matron, who will not adven-
ture to set the sole of her foot on the pavement for
delicateness, would, if you talked to her of destitu-
tion in the East, feel little more concern than Fciu-
lon for the diet of its poor. No one is eligible to
the Travellers' Club who has not " travelled out of
the British islands to a distance of at least 500
miles from London in a direct line," but are any of
those gentlemen required to have journeyed as far as
Bethnal-green and the Isle of Dogs ? How many
of the existing members would be found qualified
for the club if were clogged with such conditions ?
No : practically the head of gold says the feet
of clay are not of the body; put rre they, there-
fore, not of the body ? If these members suffer,
will not all the members suffer with them s If
the feet of clay become unsteady or inert, if
they dance in mad freak, stamp with wild fury and
kick, or frisk fearlessly along the brink of political
and social precipices, will not the great image also
begin to reel, and the golden glories of the head be
abased ? A nation has ere now gone mad, as
Bishop Butler predicted that it might. Let the
West-end look well to it, lest dog-days come, in
which the East-end shall be bitten •, remembering
what no mean seer has told us, that the " earth
itself is but a larger kind of doghutch—occasionally
going rabid." If the home traveller, who has
reached the broad-way extending from the Minories
to Whitechapel Church, will turn aside from its
numerous public-houses and butchers' shops, and
pierce the narrow openings which issue from it on
either side, he will soon discover how much the East-
end has need of the West, and how much the West-
end has to fear from the East. Where formerly, as
Stow relates, rose fair hedgerows of elm trees, with
bridges and easy styles to pass over into the plea-
sant fields, very commodious for citizens therein to
walk, shoot, and otherwise to recreate and refresh
their dull spirits in the sweet and wholesome air, a
thousand pestilent courts now swarm with 'beggary,
ignorance, andvice. If the wanderer in this Mesheck
has visited Rome, he is reminded of the Ghetto,
when he sees to what an extent the system of living
in the street prevails, notwithstanding our untoward.
climate. It is, so far as health is concerned, a re-
medy in part for the evils resulting from over-
crowded hovels, and as such we may rejoice in it.
But for the rising generation it is the prelude to a
life of vagrancy. Ragged, muddy, and half-naked,
the little Creatures patter about the kennels, with
garbage, oyster shells, and broken crockery for toys,
while their elder brothers gamble with buttons and
halfpennies, wrangling and blaspheming beneath
the crowded passage to their courts. Many of them
are turned out of doors to seek their food for
the day. Many are orphans or deserted—to be
swept into the maelstrom of crime, unless rescued
betimes betimes by the Ragged or Charity Schools.
Their minds and bodies are alike unfed, and the
ignorance which exists among such children and
young persons has lately been brought before the
public very prominently in the Report of the Chil-
dren's Employment Commission. It has proved by
inquiry that, in spite of all the efforts made
to instruct and reclaim them, a large proportion of
those who work in faCtories between the ages of 7
°and 18 are utterly ignorant of the most elementary
knowledge. Many will tell you that " Queen Vic-
toria is the Prince of Wales," that " a violet is a
pretty bird," that " nobody has a soul," that they
do not know who made the world, and that " g
people the
,
devil is a good man." To such youn
whether in the street or in factories, instinct is the
only law. If they are hungry they steal ; what can
be more natural ? There are pickpockets of five
years old, and skilled practitioners of seven ! If the
gentlemen of the West-end, who live at home at
ease, would judge of their moral condition, let them
inspect the densely-crowded rooms, where childrei
and adults of every age and each sex pig together
without air or light. Or if they will leave town
every season without any personal effort to relieve
*the misery in the East, let them tread in the steps of
Dr. Hunter and visit the cottages of the poor within
a mile of their park-gate. He has examined 5,375
such dwellings in various counties, and his statements
dislose a painful and shocking state of things.
About half the number contained one bedroom only,
with an average of four -persons sleeping in each
room. Mr. Simon, the medical officer to the Privy
Council, gives particular instances of packing in
Cambridgeshire and Essex, which remind us more
of the hold of an emigrant ship than of those ideal
haunts of peace which honeysuckles clasp and elms
overshadow. In one place six adults, without
counting children, huddle together by night ; and
in another eight adults in a hut measuring 12 feet
6 inches square ! In Lubenham, Leicestershire, a
married pair, two youths of twenty and eighteen, a
girl of seventeen, and a grandchild, live in one bed-
room • while grown-up daughters with their natural
children lie constantly strewn on the floor with their
brothers, leaving the parents to occupy some mise-
rable bedstead. The population increases ; but,
both in town and country, house-room has been on
the decrease during the last ten years. Houses have
been destroyed to a considerable extent during that
period in 821 separate parishes or townships in
England. In 1861 the population of these places,
though 5 and a third per cent. greater than in 1851,
was squeezed into house-room - 4 per cent. less.
Squares and terraces, " parks and ordered gardens