Saul (HWV 53), an oratorio in three acts written by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Charles Jennens, is first performed on January 16, 1739, at the King’s Theatre in London.

Taken from the 1st Book of Samuel, the story of Saul focuses on the first king of Israel’s relationship with his eventual successor, David; one which turns from admiration to envy and hatred, ultimately leading to the downfall of the eponymous monarch.

The work, which Handel began in 1738, includes the famous Dead March, a funeral anthem for Saul and his son Jonathan, and some of the composer's most dramatic choral pieces.

Many historians believe the libretto for Israel in Egypt (HWV 54), a biblical oratorio by Handel, was compiled by Handel's collaborator Charles Jennens; it is composed entirely of selected passages from the Hebrew Bible, mainly from Exodus and the Psalms.

Israel in Egypt premieres on April 4, 1739, at London's King's Theatre in the Haymarket.

Handel had started it soon after the opera season at King's Theatre was cancelled because of a lack of subscribers.

Probably the Organ Concerto in F major "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale", which Handel had finished before, was played between the acts among other things.

The oratorio is not well received by audiences, although commended in the Daily Post, and the second performance is shortened, the mainly choral work now augmented with Italian arias.

Henry Brooke had begun his career as a poet.

His now forgotten Universal Beauty was published in 1735, and Alexander Pope thought its sentiments and poetry fine.

He then turned dramatist by adapting extant plays, such as The Earl of Essex.

He writes from the Tory point of view and becomes one of the most important figures in Augustan drama, although not for his successes.

His Gustavus Vasa is not particularly savage or dark, and it takes relatively few liberties.

However, his previous The Earl of Essex had been perceived as highly political, and therefore Gustavus Vasa (1739) earns the distinction of being the first play banned by the Licensing Act of 1737.

The play concerns the liberation of Sweden from Denmark in 1521 by King Gustav I of Sweden (then regent).

Robert Walpole believes that the villain of the play resembles him.

Further, a facetious "attack" on it is the first public writing of Samuel Johnson, whose A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the English Stage feigns support for Walpole while it drives the censor's argument to reductio ad absurdum.

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.