Other oratorios followed--"Samson," "Judas Maccabeus," and "Jephtha"--but none of them equalled "The Messiah." To this great work Handel had given freely of his best, before that dark cloud arose which saddened all his later days. For gradually blindness crept over him, till at last his sight departed for ever. In spite of this he continued to conduct his own works, and to the last insisted on being led to the organ, that he might play the concertos and voluntaries between the parts of his oratorios. And we hear how, when the fine solo in "Samson"--
"Total eclipse--no sun, no moon: All dark amid the blaze of noon,"
was sung with great feeling at one performance, the sight of the blind composer sitting at the organ was so indescribably touching, that many present were moved to tears.
On the 5th of April, 1759, a notice appeared in the _Public Advertiser_ that "The Messiah" would be performed in Covent Garden on the 6th of April for the last time in the season.
Handel conducted his work, was carried fainting from the hall, and in less than a week had passed away. His own wish, when he knew how near the end loomed, was that he might die on Good Friday, "in hopes," he said, "of meeting my good God and sweet Saviour on the day of His resurrection." And in this trustful spirit he went to the God he had so worthily worshipped.
His funeral was intended to be private, but thousands came to it, and though no trace remains of the music sung on that occasion, I cannot help hoping that some boy's clear voice rang through the aisles as he sang "I know that my Redeemer liveth." Nothing would have been so fitting, and those are the words, nobler far than any epitaph, which the good taste of some friend caused to be inscribed on his monument in the Poets' Corner.
The desire of Abou Ben Adhem that his name might be handed on as one "who loved his fellow-men" would form a fitting epitaph not only to those great-hearted workers in the cause of humanity whom the Abbey has delighted to honour--William Wilberforce, the liberator of the slave, and David Livingstone, the missionary and explorer in Darkest Africa--but also to those others who toiled with them in the same great cause of freedom, and whose claims to the grateful recollection of the nation are recorded only by monuments--Granville Sharp, Jonas Hanway, Zachary Macaulay, Fowell Buxton, and Anthony Astley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. A few words first about one of these latter, Granville Sharp, for he it was who became the pioneer of that noble band who never ceased from their labours till they had freed the slave on British territory.