prevent him from giving a performance of his two most popular works, _Acis_
and _Alexander's Feast_, for the benefit of a new musical charity.

The charity in which Handel was so keenly interested had been founded in
1738 to assist impoverished musicians and their families; it still carries
on its honourable work under the title of the Royal Society of Musicians of
Great Britain.

The same year saw the inauguration of another charitable institution which
owed much to the continued generosity of Handel, the Foundling Hospital.
Like Hogarth, who was also a benefactor, Handel did not confine his support
to an occasional gift, but took the warmest personal interest in the place,
and eventually both he and Hogarth were made governors of it.

The managers of the Opera had found themselves quite unable to continue
productions on the grand scale of former years. In the winter of 1739-40
there had been an insignificant season at Covent Garden; it seems to have
been directed by the Italian composer Pescetti, who, in the following
winter, started concerts at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. Mrs.
Pendarves, who during the last few years had not lived much in London, and
had thus dropped out of Handel's life, wrote in November: "The concerts
begin next Saturday at the Haymarket. Carestini sings, Pescetti composes;
the house is made up into little boxes, like the playhouses abroad." Dr.
Burney gives a comic account of the undertaking. "The opera, a tawdry,
expensive and meretricious lady, who had been accustomed to high keeping,
was now reduced to a very humble state. Her establishment was not only
diminished, but her servants reduced to half-pay. Pescetti seems to
have been her prime minister, Carestini her head man, the Muscovita her
favourite woman, and Andreoni a servant for all work." Concerts and
_pasticcios_ formed the main repertory, and Burney ascribes such success as