recollect, was himself blind.

"Total eclipse! No sun!--no moon!
All dark amidst the blaze of noon!
Oh! glorious light! No cheering ray
To glad my eyes with welcome day.
Why thus deprived thy prime decree?
Sun, moon, and stars are dark to me."

On the 6th April, 1759, the "Messiah" was performed for the last time
under the direction of the author.

After returning home from this performance, he went to bed, never to
rise again. Seized with a mortal exhaustion, and feeling that his last
hour was come, in the full plenitude of his reason, he gently rendered
up his soul to die, _on the Anniversary of the first performance of the
"Messiah_," Good Friday, 13th April, 1759, aged seventy-four years.

He was buried with all honour and respect in Westminster Abbey, the
Pantheon of Great Britain. His remains were placed in what is called
"the Poet's Corner," wherein lie buried Shakspere, Milton, Dryden,
Thompson, Sheridan, Gray. And he is in his place there; for who was ever
more of a poet than Handel?--who deserved better than he to enter the
Pantheon. They might have written upon his tomb the words which Antony
spoke when he beheld the body of Caesar, "_This_ was a man."

Yes: this was a man who had done honour to music as much by the nobility
of his character as by the sublimity of his genius. He was one of the
too few artists who uphold the dignity of art to the highest possible
standard. He was the incarnation of honesty. The unswerving rigidity of
his conduct captivates even those who do not take him for a model. He
worked ceaselessly for the improvement of others without ever feeling
weary. He was virtuous and pure, proud and intrepid. His love of good
was as unconquerable as his will. He died at his post, working to the
last hour of his life. He has left behind him a luminous track and a
noble example.

A Handel, like a Homer or a Milton, a Shakspere or a Dante, is only once
given to a nation. No man need ever expect to rival the genius of
Handel, or approach his powers of expression; but all may emulate his
love for his fellow-man--his sympathy for the distressed--his desire to
promote the glory of his God. For these noble qualities I commend
Handel to your consideration; and for these I hold him forth this
evening as a man worthy of our imitation.

"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands o