_Saul_ was performed on May 25, and a second performance of _Messiah_ took
place on June 3. Handel left Ireland on August 13. In another letter to
Jennens he says that his plans for the winter are undecided; for "this time
twelve-month" (i.e. September 1743) he intended to continue his oratorios
in Ireland. For some reason or other this second visit to Ireland never
took place.
It was not until February 17, 1743, that Handel came before the London
public again with _Samson_, which, unlike most of his oratorios, had
an immediate success. He had by this time dropped the Italian singers
altogether, and depended mainly on Mrs. Cibber and John Beard, a tenor who
had more sense of artistic style than power of voice. Mr. Flower says that
his voice was more powerful than sweet; Horace Walpole, who heard him, said
that he had only one note in it, and Mrs. Pendarves, whose judgment was
probably more trustworthy, said that he had no voice at all. The first
London performance of _Messiah_ was given on March 23, but it had no more
than two subsequent repetitions this season. There were many reasons why it
should have fallen flat. Jennens himself was extremely dissatisfied with
it. _Israel_ had been a failure too, and it is extremely probable that
musical people, accustomed to the Italian opera, were estranged by a
setting of Bible words in prose instead of a libretto in verse laid out on
more or less dramatic lines.
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