George Frideric Handel's oratorio, Samson, premieres in London on February 21.

It is a great success, leading to a total of seven performances in its first season, the most in a single season of any of his oratorios.

Samson will retain its popularity throughout Handel's lifetime and has never fallen entirely out of favor since.

Considered one of his finest dramatic works, it is usually performed as an oratorio in concert form, but on occasions has also been staged as an opera.

The well-known arias "Let the bright Seraphim" (for soprano) and "Total eclipse" (for tenor) are often performed separately in concert.

The effects of the Licensing Act upon British theater are profound.

The public mistrusts plays that pass the censors.

One effect is that the plays that are passed are more domestically oriented, more sentimental, and, aside from Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Oliver Goldsmith, who both will write old-style plays, authors of melodrama will enjoy greatest success.

Arguably, the Licensing Act had created an immediate vacuum of new plays to perform, and this leaves theaters with little option but to stage revivals.

The number of productions of Shakespeare plays staged in the 1740s will be far higher than previously (one fourth of all plays performed in the decade).

Additionally, the Licensing Act has diverted politically interested authors away from the stage and into writing novels.

Fielding and Brooke are only two of the authors who turn their energies to novel writing.

Many other novelists, such as Tobias Smollett and Laurence Sterne, never approach the stage.

Prior to the Licensing Act, theater had been the first choice for most wits.

After it, the novel is.

The Act is not solely responsible for the transformation of the British stage in the eighteenth century away from satire and toward lofty and "sentimental" subject matter, but it is responsible for stopping one of the theatrical movements away from sentiment and domestic tragedy.