_Handel's Organ at the Foundling Hospital._--It is generally understood
that the organ in the chapel of this Institution was the gift of Handel.
That great musician conducted a concert of sacred music upon the opening
of the chapel in 1749, and superintended the annual performance of his
oratorio, "The Messiah," from 1751 to 1759. In his will he left to the
charity "a fair copy of the score, and all its parts," of the same
oratorio; which score is still preserved, and has furnished the editor
of the new edition, lately produced by the Handel Society, with several
new and important readings.
Dr. Burney, in his "Sketch of the Life of Handel," prefixed to his
_Account of the Commemoration_, 4to., 1785, says, "The organ in the
chapel of this [_i.e._ the Foundling] hospital was a _present_ from
Handel." But how are we to reconcile this statement with the following,
which I find in the _European Magazine_ for February, 1799:
"Handel _did not give_ the organ to the Foundling Hospital. It was
built at the _expense_ of the charity, under the direction of Dr.
Smith, the learned Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, who added
demitones, &c., and some of the niceties not occurring in other
organs."