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 9^1 
 
 MONOGRAM 
 
 OUR NATIONAL SONG. 
 
MONOGRAM 
 
 OUR NATIONAL SONG. 
 
 Rev. ELIAS NASON, M. A. 
 
 condiscb modos, amanda 
 
 Voce quos beddas : minuentur atkab 
 Carmine cueae. Horace, Car., lib. iv, car. xi. 
 
 ' I KNEW A VERY WISE MAN THAT BELIEVED THAT IF A MAN WERE 
 PERMITTED TO MAKE ALL THE BALLADS, HE NEED NOT CARE WHO 
 
 SHOULD MAKE THE LAWS OF A NATION." Anclrew Fletcfier. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 JOEL MUNSELL. 
 
 1869. 
 

 
 

 A MONOGRAM 
 
 OUR NATIONAL SONG, 
 
 I. Of the Ministry and Power of Music. 
 
 " Be sure there's something coldly wrong 
 About the heart that does not glow 
 To hear its own, its native song." 
 
 Music is a mysterious agent chiming grandly 
 into this world's magnificent drama and im- 
 parting something of life and splendor to its ever 
 shifting scenes. The universe itself, which for 
 its harmony^ the Greeks denominated xoa^oc, — 
 beauty, is but a royal harp — bird-strings, wind- 
 strings, star-strings, swept by the invisible fin- 
 gers of the illustrious Composer himself, and 
 throwing up sparkles of spray from the vast 
 tone-ocean, rolling far beyond, to cheer the 
 
 1 Plato asserts that the soul of the world is conjoined with 
 musical proportion ; Sir Isaac Newton held that the princi- 
 ples of harmony pervade the universe, adducing as a proof 
 
 2 
 
6 A MONOQBAM OF 
 
 heart of man and give him some bright earnest 
 of felicities to come. The grand Master of 
 music is ever sending forth his bold authems 
 from the echoing mountains over which the 
 pealing thunder breaks ; from the woodlands 
 rocked by tempests; from the ever-heaving 
 sea; — he softens these wild symphonies by the 
 gentle song of the nightingale, the whispering 
 of the reeds and the dying cadences of the 
 evening breeze ; — he also gives man power to 
 mingle in the general concert, with his own 
 sweet strains of vocal or of instrumental music, 
 and thus by the ministry of art enhance the 
 common song. 
 
 From the inexhaustible fountain of music he 
 permits us to draw special strains for special 
 ends ; and these sometimes steal into the inte- 
 rior kingdom of the soul with power almost 
 irresistible, unlock the cells of memory and 
 
 of this the analogy subsisting between color and sound. 
 So Shakespeare says : \_Mer chant of Venice, Act Y, Scene 1.] 
 
 " There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubims ; 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls; 
 But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.''' 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 7 
 
 perform angelic marvels for the way-worn and 
 the weary. 
 
 Now a touch of some cunning harper summons 
 wandering reason to its throne ; now an Italian 
 Tarantella, quick and joyous, allays the poison 
 of a viper's sting; now a captive's plaintive 
 melody melts a tyrant into tears and moves 
 him to unbind the chains of slavery ; now some 
 Ranz des Vaches^ from Alpine horn makes 
 the poor Swiss soldier pant and die for home ; 
 now a battle march or pibroch from a Highland 
 bagpipe turns the tide of war, and now a Mar- 
 seillaise, uprising as the swell of ocean, from a 
 hundred thousand sons of liberty shakes a 
 throne and shapes the destiny of an empire. 
 
 We underrate, I apprehend, the power of 
 patriotic song. That Marseillaise was called by 
 Lamartine, the firewater of the, old French 
 revolution. It has several times been banished 
 
 1 Airs played on a long trumpet called the alp-horn by the 
 mountaineers of Switzerland. J. J. Rousseau relates that 
 these strains were so dear to the Swiss in the French armies 
 that the bands were forbidden to play them under penalty 
 of death, since they caused the Helvetians to desert or die 
 of what they called la tnaladie dupays. — 3Ioore's Cyc. Music^ 
 in loco. 
 
8 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 from the kingdom as an institution quite too 
 strong for kings manage ; and in the late up- 
 heaving of the masses in our own beloved land, 
 I sometimes thought the grand old patriotic 
 peal of Hail Columbia, the heart thrilling war 
 song of the Star Spangled Banner, exercised a 
 mightier sway than any other single cause 
 whatever. The name of our illustrious leader 
 acted as a charmed spell ; the favoring smiles 
 of beauty sent electric energy through the sol- 
 dier's heart; the stars and stripes still fanned 
 the sacred flame ; but the rousing notes of our 
 national patriotic music — whether rising from 
 the mighty congregation — organs and voices 
 joining, or from the black war-ship on the 
 moon-lit ocean, or from the screaming fife and 
 pealing drum upon the tented field, struck 
 deeper chords and moved to nobler daring. 
 Hence the leaders of the late rebellion were 
 compelled to ostracize our national songs in 
 order to keep their cause in countenance with 
 the people. Yanhee Doodle must be silenced 
 ere the brave old flag could be cut down. So 
 long as its rich, rolicksome notes came rolling 
 out, the stars and stripes must float. 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 
 
 II. The Secret of the Power of Patriotic 
 
 Song. 
 
 1. Were we to ask the secret of this tran- 
 scendent power of patriotic song, I think it 
 would be found consisting mainly in the prin- 
 ciple of association of ideas — of ideas so com- 
 pletely correlated that the latter of necessity 
 brings up a long and brilliant train which, in 
 the hallowed glow of feeling music only can 
 impart, come trooping in upon the mind with a 
 redoubled strength and splendor. 
 
 A patriotic song is an enchanted key to me- 
 mory's deepest cells ; it touches secret springs, 
 it kindles sacred flames in chambers of the soul 
 unvisited by other agencies. It wakes to life 
 ten thousand slumbering chords and makes 
 them thrill and pulsate — just as if some loving 
 angel's finger touched them — to the grand God- 
 given sentiment of liberty. 
 
 A patriotic song, like the enchanter's magic 
 wand, calls up the honored forms from 
 
 " Fame's eternal camping ground ; " 
 
10 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 it makes the immortal patriots live and breathe 
 again ; reveals the long lines of gleaming bayo- 
 nets on the battle-field; renews the headlong 
 charge of the impetuous cavalry ; repeats again 
 the wild huzza of the invincible phalanx of the 
 infantry; makes us hear once more the exult- 
 ing scream of victory, and points our moistened 
 eye to the torn and bloodied flag still fluttering 
 in the breeze, and to the nation, rocked by the 
 scathing tempest, righting itself once more be- 
 neath the rainbow of enchanting peace flung 
 sweetly over it. 
 
 We hear a patriotic song in boyhood from 
 the lips of an honored sire who has filled our 
 greedy ear with the wild adventures of his old 
 campaigns ; we listen to the rousing strain on 
 some cold winter evening by the ample hearth- 
 stone — the rude queen's arm with battered 
 stock, still hanging in its leathern loop above 
 the mantle piece — we hear the grand old sto- 
 ries and each note of music then becomes a 
 chain of gold linked with the deeds of heroes — 
 Adams, Warren, Schuyler, Washington. 
 ■ We hear the song again in riper years — it 
 opens the flood-gates of patriotic feeling, and 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 11 
 
 gilds it with the sunniest dreams of our young, 
 bounding life. 
 
 The nation in its glory, with its imposing 
 cavalcade of illustrissimi, marches along before 
 the eye of finest fancy, and rises heaven-crowned 
 to its magnificent destiny ! 
 
 2. Again, a patriotic song, as the old Mar- 
 seillaise, is the embodiment of a nation's grand- 
 est thought. It ever springs, Minerva-like, out 
 of some dreadful exigence. It is a child of 
 agony — but still a child of liberty — a rain- 
 bow on the darkest fold of the terrific storm ! 
 
 When Rouget de I'lsle ^ in winter poverty 
 struck from the broken strings of his crushed 
 heart the electrifying dithyrambics of the Mar- 
 seillaise, that heart was France. What his 
 whole bleeding country felt, that single soldier 
 felt ; and with more of truth than of the pom- 
 pous Louis Quatorze, it could be said of that 
 young brave — The kingdom it was he! 
 
 1 Joseph Rouget de I'lsle, born 1760, received a pension 
 of 1500 francs per annum for the composition of the words 
 of the Marseillaise. The song was first sung by. the Mar- 
 seilles confederates, or Grirondists, in 1792. It was sup- 
 pressed by the Bourbons, but came up again in 1830, and 
 has since been one of the national hymns of France. 
 
12 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 Money, some years ago, was offered for a 
 national hymn. Futility ! money may buy 
 machinery — sometimes in the form of men — 
 but inspiration, never ! ^ 
 
 The very sentiment of a national song is the 
 grand idea of the liberty-loving people- — the 
 words are from the burning heart of the nation 
 itself — God speaking through it — they are 
 the synthetic expression of the politics of the 
 nation — they are the golden censer that en- 
 shrines the hopes of the nation. They hence 
 become the living tongue of the nation, the 
 leader of the nation, the guardian angel of the 
 nation. 
 
 From the very spirit then in which they are 
 conceived; from the very truths which they 
 enunciate, as well as from the associations which 
 they awaken, they become eloquent preachers 
 in every crusade against oppression — engines 
 mightier than the rifled cannon — because be- 
 hind the rifle cannon for defending liberty. 
 
 As they spring, electric flashes, from the 
 heart of a nation, so are they in turn winged 
 
 1 In tlie spring of 1861, a committee of gentlemen of New 
 York offered the sum of $500 for the best national hymn 
 
ojjB National song. 13 
 
 with such power to reenkindle the heart of a 
 nation, and while true music, always of itself 
 awakens thoughts of the invisible, the spiritual 
 and the grand, so being allied to words that 
 breathe as heard in our great national anthems — 
 it in union aids to swell the tide of patriotic 
 emotion till it surges over the barriers to human 
 progress and leaves the constellated stars of free- 
 dom shining in unclouded radiance over us. 
 
 III. But Little Music in the Old Colonial 
 
 Times. 
 
 1. I have intimated that a great national 
 song is the offspring of a great national emotion ; 
 hence we could hardly look for any remarkable 
 patriotic hymn in this country anterior to the 
 revolution. 
 
 Our forefathers were too busy to be musical ; 
 too sedate to listen to secular songs ; too dis- 
 
 adapted to the then existing condition of the country. Some- 
 thing like twelve hundred competitors presented lyrical 
 pieces, but not one of them was deemed of sufficient merit 
 to claim the prize. 
 
 3 
 
14 A MONOGBAM OF 
 
 tinct in race and government to be inspired by 
 the same living, fostering, patriotic thought. 
 God was their commander ; the songs they sang 
 were in the main addressed to him; and, if 
 sometimes a secular ditty was heard to break 
 the dull monotony of the spinning wheel of a 
 winter's evening, it was in some mournful minor 
 key, as 
 
 " My name was Kobert Kidd ^ 
 And so wickedly I did ; 
 Grod's laws I did forbid 
 As I sailed, as I sailed." 
 
 or 
 
 Lord Bateman, he was a noble lord, 
 A lord of high degree. 
 
 or of the Gruel Barbara Allen} 
 
 Such wild songs as the Maypole of Merrie 
 
 Mount; Begone dull Care; Betty Martin (from 
 
 0! miJii heati Martini) ; 
 
 Old Adam was caused to slumber, 
 A rib taken out of his side ; 
 
 being heard only in those Bacchanalian revels 
 
 ] Executed May 9th, 1701. See Cooper's History of the 
 Navy^ vol. I, p. 25. 
 
 ^ This is an ancient Scottish ballad inserted in Allan 
 Ramsay's Tea Tahle lliscellany. Sir W. Scott's Remarks 
 on Popular Poetry. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 15 
 
 which the bar-room of colonial times would 
 sometimes witness. 
 
 Even the revolution itself did not produce 
 any very creditable patriotic song. The famous 
 semi-sacred psalms of Gliester and Columbia, by 
 that famous Boston tanner and musician, Wil- 
 liam Billings/ over whose sign-board some one 
 hung a couple of contending cats to indicate 
 the music which he made, were the favorite 
 camp songs of that day. 
 
 2. Gen. James Wolfe s Song. 
 
 The earliest American soldier-song which 
 became broadly popular is said to have ema- 
 nated from the fertile fancy of Gen. James 
 Wolfe, in 1759. 
 
 As the boat of this gallant soldier was glid- 
 ing over the silent tide of the St. Lawrence on 
 
 1 Born October 7, 1746, and died in Boston, September 
 26, 1800. He published six different works on psalmody, 
 embracing many pieces of his own composition. The spirit 
 of the revolution appears in many of his verses, and some of 
 his psalm tunes were frequently played on the fife and drum 
 in the revolutionary army. The words to Chester which 
 were written by himself, are : 
 
 Let tyrants shake their iron rod, 
 
 And slavery clank her galling chains ; 
 
 We'll fear them not — we trust in Grod ; 
 New Ena;land's Grod forever reis'ns. 
 
16 A MONOOBAM OF 
 
 the eve of that battle which gave him death and 
 glory, he repeated in a low wailing tone, that 
 celebrated, and to him prophetic strain of Gray : 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave, 
 Await alike the inevitable hour ; 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 and then under the inspiration of the hour and 
 yet as if in contrast to the thought — a sparkle 
 of light upon the darkling wave — he sang : 
 
 How stands the glass around ! ^ 
 For shame ye take no care, my boys ; 
 
 How stands the glass around ! 
 
 Let mirth and wine abound 
 
 The trumpet sounds. 
 The colors, they are flying, boys. 
 
 which was sung in the messes of officers and 
 squads of soldiers in both armies through the 
 revolution, and which is still a popular military 
 song. 
 
 The death of Wolfe created an intense sensa- 
 tion both in England and America, and a few 
 
 1 The idea is from Why Soldibvs, why^ in the Patron, 
 1729. How stands the glass a7'ound, first appeared in Wil- 
 liam Shield's Siege of Gibo^altar, 1775. It is questionable 
 whether Wolfe composed the song. See Chappell's Popu- 
 lar Music of the Olden. Times, vol. li, p. 689. 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 17 
 
 years afterwards the notorious Thomas Paine, 
 author of the Age of Reason, wrote his cele- 
 brated ode in memory of the lamented hero. 
 It is a beautiful specimen of English anapestic 
 verse ; graceful in rhythm and melody, yet a 
 little over strained in sentiment. The music 
 is the fine old plaintive English air called The 
 Gods of tJie Greeks, and is well adapted to the 
 words. 
 
 This song continued popular. long after the 
 revolution, and nothing brings my dear old 
 father's features more distinctly to my mind 
 than the words of the closing stanza, which his 
 noble tenor voice would render so effectively as 
 to leave our young eyes brimming full of patri- 
 otic tears ! ^ "To the plains of Quebec " — it is 
 the death angel who speaks : 
 
 " To the plains of Quebec with the orders I flew ; 
 
 He begged for a moment's delay; 
 He cried ' forbear ! let me victory hear 
 
 And then thy commands I'll obey ! ' 
 Witii a darksome thick film I encompassed his eye 
 
 And bore him away in an urn, 
 Lest the fondness he bore for his own native shore, 
 
 Should induce him again to return." 
 
 1 " The melody of youthful days 
 Which steals the trembling tear of speechless praise." 
 
18 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 Mr. Paine afterwards wrote in the same 
 graceful measure and to the same beautiful tune, 
 his well known Liberty Tree : 
 
 " In the chariot of light from the regions of day 
 
 The goddess of Liberty came ; 
 Ten thousand celestials directed her way, 
 
 And hither conducted the dame. 
 A fair budding branch from the gardens above, 
 
 Where millions with millions agree, 
 She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love. 
 
 And the plant she named Liberty &ee." 
 
 which had influence in fanning the flame of 
 patriotism in the days of yore. 
 
 IV. Music of the Revolution, Yankee 
 Doodle. 
 
 It were quite easy to trace the progress and 
 to write the history of the American revolution 
 itself, from this period to its eventful close, by 
 the patriotic songs which were written in com- 
 memoration of the scenes as they transpired ; 
 and these songs, though homely in style and 
 sentiment, sung in the camps of the soldiers. 
 
OUR NATIONAL BONG. 19 
 
 were undoubtedly as effective in inspiring and 
 keeping alive the spirit of patriotism as the 
 voices of Adams, Otis, and of Henry, in the 
 forum. I can, however, refer only to one of 
 the most prominent of these songs. Its music 
 touched the heart of every patriot soldier then ; 
 and rings with a fresh power through every 
 patriotic bosom still. It bears the quaint but 
 spirit-stirring name of Yankee Doodle I 
 
 This is indeed a free and easy, queer and 
 comical, good-for-nothing, rolicksome sort of a 
 tune ; with a dash of a saucy, mind-your-own- 
 business in it ; a drole, as a Frenchman, and a 
 rigmarole, as an Englishman, would be like to 
 call it ; and yet it is fairly naturalized; and this 
 by one of the most intelligent nations in the 
 world J which unmistakeably implies, what I 
 most honestly believe, that the tune has real 
 " snap and ring and ginger " in it ; and though 
 of humble origin, is worthy of a brief biography. 
 The term Yankee is evidently a corruption of 
 the word English or of the French, Anglais,^ as 
 
 1 " Le mot Yankee," says M Philarete Chasles, Revue des 
 Deux Mondes, May 15, 1850," n'est autre que le mot Eng- 
 lish transforme par la prononciation defectueuse des indige- 
 
20 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 imperfectly and gutturally spoken by the In- 
 dians and the real meaning of Yankee Doodle 
 would therefore be English simpleton. 
 
 The tune, it is very well known, is a daughter 
 of the regiment — -coming to us by adoption. 
 Its parentage is involved in great obscurity ; 
 many cities, as in case of Homer, claiming it. 
 Some consider it an old vintage song of France ; 
 the Spaniards think their vales have echoed to 
 its notes in early days ; ^ the Magyars, with 
 Louis Kossuth, recognize in it one of. their old 
 national dances. England entertains some sha- 
 
 nes du Massacliusetts ; Yenghis, Yanghis, Yanhies. Les 
 Anglais quand ils se moquent des Yanhies, se moquent 
 d'eux-memes." 
 
 And so the Rev. James C. Eiclimond rightly sings : 
 
 " At Yankies, John, beware to laugh ; 
 Against yourself you joke ; 
 For Yenghees, English, is but half 
 By Indian natives spoke." 
 
 1 The following note is from a secretary of legation at 
 
 ^^^"■'^^ Madrid, June 3, 1858. 
 
 My Dear Sir : The tune Yankee Doodle, from the first 
 of my showing it here, has been acknowledged by persons 
 acquainted with music to bear a strong resemblance to the 
 popular airs of Biscay ; and yesterday, a professor from the 
 north recognized it as being much like the ancient sword 
 dance played on solemn occasions by the people of San Se- 
 bastian. He says the tune varies in those provinces, and 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 21 
 
 dowy traditions of its birth before the times of 
 Cromwell; and the Dutchman claims it as a 
 low country song of tithes and bonnyclabber ; 
 giving, it is said, as the original words : 
 
 " Yanker didel, doodel, down ; 
 Didel, dudel, lauter, 
 Yanke viver, voover vown 
 
 Botermilk and tather." [tithes] 
 
 But whatever may have been its origin, this 
 child of the regiment, so far as I can learn, first 
 appeared in America on the banks of the Hud- 
 
 proposes in a couple of months to give me the changes as 
 they are to be found in their diflferent towns, that the 
 matter may be judged of and fairly understood. Our na- 
 tional air certainly has its origin in the music of the free 
 Pyrenees; the first strains are identically those of the 
 heroic Danza Esparta, as it was played to me, of brave 
 old Biscay. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Buckingham Smith. 
 
 The origin of the word YanJcee has greatly perplexed the 
 etymologists ; yet that given in the text is by far the most 
 probable. Anbury, in his Travels through the Interior of 
 North America, vol. ii, p. 46, says it is derived from a Che- 
 rokee word, eankke, which means coward and slave. See 
 Drake's Booh of the Indians, book l, p. 23. Others deduce 
 it from the old Scotch word Yanlde, a sharp, clever woman. 
 A writer in the Boston Weekly Magazine, for January 29, 
 1803, says it is from Yankau, an Indian word for con- 
 4 
 
22 -4 MONOGRAM OF 
 
 son, in June, 1755 ; ^ and was introduced into 
 the American camp by one mischievous Dr. 
 Richard Shuckburgh ^ of the British army in 
 this amusing way. Our colonial companies 
 under Gov. William Shirley, then encamped 
 on the left of the British army, meanly 
 disciplined and still more meanly clad; some 
 in long tailed blue coats, some in long-tailed 
 black coats, some in no coats at all, heads 
 shorn — heads unshorn, and marching after 
 music quite two centuries old, incurred, of 
 course, the ridicule of their fashionable trans- 
 atlantic allies. 
 
 queror ; but most writers now agree with Mr. Heckewelder, 
 that it is a corruption of the word Anglais, or Englisli, made 
 by the Indians in pronouncing it. 
 
 Yengees, says Mrs. Child, in Hohomok, p. 39, is " The 
 Indian term for English from which Yankee is probably 
 derived." 
 
 Dr. Trumbull says, in a note to one of his poems, 
 " The Indians, in attempting to utter the word English, 
 with their broad, guttural accent, gave it a sound which 
 would be nearly represented in this way; Younghees — 
 [Yankees]." 
 
 1 For the history of this national air, see N. H. Carter's 
 article in Moore's Historical Miscellany, vol. ill, p. 217. 
 
 '^ Richard Shuckburg was appointed secretary of Indian 
 affairs by Sir William Johnson, in 1760. Documentary 
 History of Neio York, il, 460. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 23 
 
 To keep the sport along, this naughty Dr. 
 Shuckburgh, wit, fiddler, surgeon as he was, 
 tells the Americans that their music is too 
 comical, and that he will get up a tune for 
 them in modern style, and so he gives Yankee 
 Boodle I " Mighty fine ! " the raw recruits cry 
 out. It strikes at once the strong chord in the 
 American heart, and is heard immediately, and 
 nothing else is heard throughout the camp — 
 the colonies. 
 
 It became our battle march -^ in the revolution, 
 and although the British gave it us, June, 1755, 
 we gave it back to them, June, 1775, with 
 compound interest. We then baptized the 
 bantling in the blood of heroes ; placed upon it 
 the fair name of Freedom, rocked it in old Fa- 
 neuil Hall, and took it home to live with us 
 forever. 
 
 By a strong poetic license, Geo. P. Morris 
 makes the adoption of Yankee Doodle date back 
 only to the destruction of tea in Boston harbor; 
 
 1 " While every rebel fife iu play 
 To Yankee Doodle tuned its lay, 
 And like the music of the .spheres, 
 Mellifluous soothed their vanquished ears." 
 M'Fingal, Canto vi. 
 
24 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 yet well he writes in the bright spirit of the 
 tune, and to the tune itself. 
 
 " A long war then they had, in which 
 John was at last defeated ; 
 And Yanhee Doodle was the march, 
 To which their troops retreated. 
 
 ' Cute Jonathan, to see them fly. 
 
 Could not restrain his laughter ; 
 ' That tune,' said he, ' suits to a T, 
 
 I'll sing it ever after,' " 
 
 And so he still keeps singing it — and so the 
 foe still flies before it. 
 
 The brigade under Lord Percy played Yan- 
 Tcee Doodle in contempt of the Americans as 
 they moved on Lexington^ — they played an- 
 other tune returning — but still they sang it 
 through the streets of Boston to such words as : 
 
 "Yankee Boodle came to town, 
 For to buy a firelock ; 
 We will tar and feather him, 
 
 And so we will John Hancock." 
 
 Although the British gave us Yankee Doodle 
 as a joke, I think we fully paid them back in 
 
 1 In his very able acc^ount of the battle of Lexington, the 
 Hon. Charles Hudson says : " Percy marched out through 
 Roxbury, to the tune of Yankee Doodle." See History of 
 Lexington, p. 197-8. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 25 
 
 their own coin for it, in the merry songs which 
 it inspired at their expense before the revolu- 
 tion ended. 
 
 The most remarkable of these was written 
 by Francis Hopkinson, Esquire,^ author of Gene- 
 ral Wasliingtmis March, and most appropri- 
 ately called the Battle of the Kegs. 
 
 In 1777, a genuine Yankee, by the name of 
 David Bushnell, born in Saybrook, undertook 
 to blow up the British fleet, then lying at Phila- 
 delphia, by a sort of a gim-crack which he called 
 his submarine torpedo; 'which nonsensical in- 
 strument, looked like a mud tortoise with a 
 man astride his back ; and was just about as 
 slow in movement. 
 
 Failing in this, he then prepares a quantity 
 of wooden kegs, or porpoises ; fills them with 
 some kind of explosive powder ; arranges them 
 with a spring lock so as to go ofi" when coming 
 
 1 Son of Judge Thomas Hopkinson, wlio assisted Dr. 
 Franklin in his electrical discoveries. He was born at 
 Philadelphia, in 1737, and died on the 8th of May, 1791. 
 " His head is not bigger than a large apple," writes John 
 Adams to his wife in 1776, " yet he is genteel, well-bred 
 and very social." He married the accomplished Miss Ann 
 Borden, of Bordentown, New Jersey, in 1767. 
 
26 ^ MONOOBAM OF 
 
 in contact with a solid body ; and sends them 
 floating down the Delaware river among the 
 vessels of the British fleet. One of these black- 
 heads bumping against some object in the river, 
 happens to explode, and the British soldiers 
 seeing the stream alive with them, and sup- 
 posing each to contain a living Yankee, are 
 most wofully alarmed and open a general fire, 
 which is of course returned by a general 
 fizzle, from Bushnell's battery. This engage- 
 ment, fitly named Tlw Battle of the Kegs, 
 afibrded the facile pen of Hopkinson, a theme 
 for the wittiest ballad of the revolution. Hear 
 for example, the cry of the aflrighted British 
 sailors : 
 
 " These kegs, I'm told, the rebels hold, 
 Packed up like pickled herring ; 
 And they're come down to attack the town, 
 In this new way of ferrying ! " 
 
 and when was British valor ever better eulo- 
 gized than in the closing stanzas : 
 
 "From morn to night these men of might 
 Displayed amazing courage ; 
 And when the sun was fairly down, 
 Retired to sup their porridge. 
 
OUR NATIONAL BONG. 27 
 
 A hundred meu with each a pen 
 
 Or more, upon my word, sir, 
 It is most true, would be too few 
 
 Their valor to record, sir. 
 
 Such feats did they perform that day. 
 
 Against these wicked kegs, sir ; 
 That years to come, if they get home, 
 
 They'll make their boast and brags, sir." 
 
 Qod Save King George, began the revolution, 
 Yorktown and Yanhee Doodle — for it was 
 played at the surrender of Cornwallis^ — ended 
 it ; and so on its great march rejoicing, this 
 queer, old, plucky, continental, saltpetre, and 
 brimstone tune, has been outsoldiering its ene- 
 mies, and continues to outsoldier them till our 
 dear old striped bunting now streams from 
 every flag-staff in the land again ! 
 
 Men laugh at Yankee Doodle, yet they love 
 it ; they find all. manner of fault with it, as 
 with the romping, reckless, hoyden girl of the 
 family ; and yet they make the most of it. The 
 world indeed has no tune like it. 
 
 Over the River to Charlie ; ^a ii^a, a la Lan- 
 terne, les Aristocrats; St. Patrick's Day in the 
 
 '^ See John F. Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, vol. 
 p. 333. 
 
 II, 
 
28 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 Morning, are as much inferior to it as Charles 
 the Pretender, or Maximilian Robespierre, or the 
 tutelary saint of Ireland were to Washington. 
 "Independence now, and independence forever," 
 rings in every note of it; and we never feel half 
 so much like the very '76 itself, as when we 
 hear it rolling. "For a change," once said a hon 
 vivant, "let me have water, but for a steady 
 drink, Old Cogniac ! " For a change, I also say, 
 let me have brass and Yerdi; but for steady 
 martial music, fife and drum and Yankee Doodle. 
 It is a perfectly democratic tune — alike for 
 lofty and for lowly. This, the young country 
 fiddler, seated on a trunk among the wasps and 
 cobwebs of the attic, first learns to scrape out 
 upon his squeaking catgut. On this the grand 
 maestro weaves his wild fantasia and calls it 
 "Opus number 42." To this the raw recruit 
 first learns to "mark the time" upon the muster 
 field. To this the young collegian writes his 
 Latin thesis : 
 
 " Nunc rite gratulandum est ; 
 Nee abstinendum joeo; 
 Peractis binis saeculis 
 Desipitur in loco ! " 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 29 
 
 Its music cheers the fisherman on the lonely 
 coast of Labrador; it rises mid the wildest 
 acclamations when the stately 74 flings out her 
 pennon of the stripes and star^ in the enchant- 
 ing Bay of Naples. This is the pas de charge 
 of our victorious troops advancing on the hostile 
 legions ; the last strain that greets the soldier's 
 ear before he wakens to the rapturous songs of 
 the celestial armies. 
 
 It has done something for the people, and 
 the people love it. It is the blood of their 
 political life, and you might as well attempt to 
 rob them of Bunker Hill, or of the Stars and 
 Stripes themselves, as of this dear old clinking, 
 clattering, right about face, defiant battle march ! 
 
 V. Songs at the Close of the Last Century, 
 Egbert Paine's Adams and Liberty, etc. 
 
 ■y 
 
 The year 1798 brought forth three celebrated 
 national songs. Our country, then steering 
 itself between the political Sylla and Charybdis 
 of France and England, was expecting to be 
 
30 -4 MONOGRAM OF 
 
 dashed upon the rocks on one side or the other. 
 The caldron of party strife was seething hotly ; 
 democrats and federalists were roused to fury 
 by the contending factions in the hostile govern- 
 ments of Europe, so that the calm voice of 
 Washington and these immortal songs seem, 
 alone, to have saved us from political destruc- 
 tion. They came, according to a law to which 
 I have referred, out of the bosom of the storm ; 
 and they in turn most powerfully conspired to 
 quell the storm. 
 
 Two of them were written by sons of signers 
 of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Robert Treat Paine, born in Taunton, Massa- 
 chusetts, Dec. 9, 1773, was christened by, to 
 him, the unfortunate name of Thomas, which 
 he subsequently had changed to Robert because, 
 as he observed, in allusion to the author of the 
 Age of Reason, " he had no Christian name." 
 
 Vain, fanciful, indolent, he was petted and 
 spoiled in college, and then married a beautiful 
 play-actress, for which his father foolishly for- 
 bade him access to his house. He subsequently 
 gave himself up to poetry, wine and theatricals, 
 any one of which is enough to ruin a man. 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 31 
 
 He inherited, however, from his honored sire, 
 the spirit of patriotism, and at the age of 
 twenty-five produced his celebrated song Adams 
 and Liberty, which rang like an angel's trumpet 
 through the land, and for which he received 
 seven hundred dollars cash, and immortality.^ 
 It opens grandly thus : 
 
 " Ye sons of Columbia who bravely have fought 
 
 For those rights which unstained from your sires had de- 
 scended, 
 May you long taste the blessings your valor has bought, 
 And your sons reap the soil which your fathers defended ; 
 'Mid the reign of mild peace 
 May your nation increase, 
 With the glory of Rome and the wisdom of Greece ; 
 And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
 While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves." 
 
 The eighth stanza was written impromptu, 
 under a double pressure, and is of course the 
 best. Many a verse has been inspired by wine, 
 but this was written for the want of it. 
 
 1 He died Nov. 13th, 1811, and his works were published 
 in one volume by Charles Prentiss in 1812. He is the 
 author of Rise Cohhmhia, 1794, and other patriotic songs. 
 Referring to him, one of his biographers observes : " he was 
 an electric battery charged ; if you touched him, the sparky 
 flew." 
 
32 ^ MONOGBAM OF 
 
 Dining with, his friend, Major Benjamin Rus- 
 sell, of the Gentinel, one day, Paine was reminded 
 that his lyric was imperfect, inasmuch as the 
 name of Washington was omitted; and his host 
 declared he should not taste a drop of wine until 
 he had produced another stanza. 
 
 The bibacious poet sees the glasses sparkling 
 on the board, and calling for a pen immediately 
 writes as from the innermost shrine of his 
 glowing heart : 
 
 " Should the tempest of war overshadow our land, 
 
 Its bolts would ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder, 
 For unmoved at its portals would Washington stand, 
 And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder ; 
 His sword from the sleep 
 Of its scabbard would leap, 
 And conduct with its point, every flash to the deep ; 
 And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves. 
 While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves." 
 
 Joseph Hopkinson's Hail Columbia. 
 
 The same year, 1798, when war with France 
 appeared inevitable — indeed had actually be- 
 gun — gave birth to another liberty hymn, con- 
 ceived in the very loftiest style of patriotic 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 33 
 
 devotion — enshrining, as it were, the spirit of 
 freedom and the glory of the illustrious sage of 
 Mount Vernon about to ascend to heaven, and 
 passing them, over embalmed in music to the 
 incoming century. 
 
 The field music of the revolution consisted 
 mainly of Yankee Doodle; On the Road to Boston; 
 Rural Felicity; My Dog and Qun, and Washing- 
 ton's March ;^ but on the occasion of Washing- 
 ton's first attendance at the theatre in New 
 York, 1789, a German by the name of Feyles 
 composed a tune to take the place of Washing- 
 ton's March, christening it with the name Presi- 
 dent's March. 
 
 It soon became a favorite, and on a certain 
 Monday evening in the summer of 1798, an 
 indifferent singer by the name of Fox, belonging 
 to the Philadelphia theatre, was about to take 
 his benefit. 
 
 Saturday morning came; not a ticket had 
 been sold and a "beggarly account of empty 
 boxes" was before him, when a good thought 
 struck his brain. 
 
 ^ Composed in Gr, by the Hon. Francis Hopkiuson. See 
 Historical Magazine for January, 1859. 
 
34 -1 MONOGRAM OF 
 
 Congress was in session; political strife ex- 
 citing; the storm of war was lowering, and a 
 patriotic song, especially if he could get one 
 written to Feyles's President's March, would 
 save him. 
 
 He knew a clever young lawyer, once his 
 schoolmate, and son of the witty author of the 
 Battle of the Kegs. His name was Joseph Hop- 
 kinson* — name famous then in law and lite- 
 rature, but still more famous now. 
 
 The poetic lawyer pities his friend Fox, bids 
 him call again on Sunday afternoon, and then 
 
 he gives him the prize that glides into 
 
 the poor player's fingers, and through those 
 fingers into this great nation — he gives him — 
 
 " Hail Columbia, happy land, 
 Hail ye heroes, heaven-born band, 
 Who fought and bled in freedom's cause, 
 And when the storm of war was gone 
 Enjoyed the peace your valor won; 
 
 1 Son of Francis and Mary (Borden) Hopkinson, and 
 born in Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 1770 ; graduated at the 
 University of Pennsylvania, and was counsel for Dr. Rush 
 in his suit against the celebrated William Cobbett. Con- 
 gressman from 1815 to 1819, and appointed judge in 1828. 
 He was president of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, 
 and died, highly respected, Jan. 15, 1842. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 35 
 
 Let independence be your boast ; 
 Ever mindful wbat it cost; 
 Ever grateful for the prize, 
 Let its altar reacL. tbe skies. 
 Firm, united let us be, 
 Rallying round our liberty ; 
 As a band of brothers joined, 
 Peace and safety we shall find." 
 
 And then : 
 
 "Immortal patriots rise once more. 
 Defend your rights, defend your shore." 
 
 And still more grand it rolls along to the 
 pealing climax : 
 
 " Sound, sound the trump of fame ; 
 Let Washington's great name 
 Ring through the world with loud applause." 
 
 Nine times the audience call for it, and then 
 rising altogether join with rapturous tongues in 
 the full chorus. 
 
 It filled the theatre — it fired the national 
 heart — it raised the dome of patriotism far 
 above the minarets of faction, and bound us with 
 the bands of faith and probity in political union. 
 
 It is, you will observe, a purely patriotic 
 hymn. It makes no reference to France or 
 
36 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 England, democrat or federalist. It therefore 
 pleased alike each party. Every word is 
 instinct with freedom. It is a clarion peal, 
 each note of it, from the avant couriers of our 
 liberty; and as it electrified the hearts of 
 Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, McHenry, 
 then, so its great glowing thoughts make our 
 hearts leap exultingly to-day. 
 
 Jefferson gave us the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence ; Hamilton gave us the Constitution ; 
 Washington gave us his Farewell Address — 
 was the benefaction less when Hopkinson gave 
 us Hail Columbia ? '^ 
 
 Sumner's Ode on Science. 
 
 I am inclined to believe the citizens of Taun- 
 ton are not remarkably felicitous in respect to 
 the names of their children. We have seen it 
 
 ^ In the original arrangement of this celebrated song, 
 which lies before me, it is styled, " The favorite new Federal 
 Song adapted to the President's March : sung by Mr. Fox, 
 written by J. Hopkinson, Esq." The music is in the key 
 of C. For the author's own account of the composition, see 
 Moore's Encyclopedia of llusic, article " Hail Columbia." 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 37 
 
 in the singular mistake of ushering one of them 
 into the world under the unchristian title of 
 Thomas Paine, and a clerical friend of ours 
 recently administered the holy rite of baptism 
 in one of the churches of that thriving town to 
 a little love pledge under the sweet name of 
 Mary, when the father terrified flew up to him, 
 in face of the assembly, saying : "We have one 
 Mary in the family already — what a sad mis- 
 take — can you not unbajptize her?" And many 
 a year ago a father gave his little son the 
 unmerciful prsenomen of Jazaniah to bear along 
 with him through this gainsaying world; but 
 Jazaniah Sumner came to be a noble hearted, 
 unpretending, patriotic man; a deacon of the 
 church, who loved his country more than his 
 political party, and when in 1798 the excellent 
 Mr. Simeon Daggett was preparing the young 
 gentlemen and ladies for the fiftieth annual 
 e:iamination of the Taunton Academy, the good 
 deacon, Jazaniah Sumner, was inditing a song, 
 both words and music, to be sung on the occa- 
 sion. Though political in its bearing, he gave 
 it the name of Ode on Science, and this, so far 
 
 as I can learn, is the first good patriotic song 
 
 
38 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 whose music and whose words were both com- 
 posed by an American. The author's letter^ 
 to Mr. Daggett, with the autograph of the 
 original music lies before me as I write. The 
 words are strictly national and patriotic : 
 
 I. 
 
 '■ The morning sun shines from the east 
 And spreads his glories to the west, 
 All nations with his beams are blest 
 
 Where'er his radiant light appears ; 
 So Science spreads her lucid ray 
 O'er lands that long in darkness lay : 
 She visits fair Columbia 
 
 And sets her sons among the stars." 
 
 II. 
 "Fair Freedom her attendant waits 
 To bless the portals of her gates, 
 To crown the young and rising states. 
 
 With laurels of immortal day. 
 The British yoke, the G-allic chain. 
 Was urged upon our sons in vain ; 
 All haughty tyrants we disdain, 
 
 And shout — ' Long live America.' " 
 
 The author strikes at France and England 
 alike, exalting our own land in glory between 
 
 1 Jazaniah Sumner's Letter to Mr. Simeon Daggett^ 
 Preceptor of Taunton Academy. 
 
 Sir : While I was anticipating the pleasing satisfaction 
 of a respectable audience who will probably attend on the 
 day of exhibition, I was anxious that we on our part might 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 39 
 
 them, and when on a certain occasion the 
 federalists in that part of Taunton, since called 
 Raynham, inserted the word Jacobins instead of 
 tyrants in the chorus and thundered out : 
 
 " All haughty Jacobins we disdain, 
 And shout ' Long live America.' " 
 
 a terrific storm of indignation burst forth from 
 the Jeffersonian wing of the house and the 
 meeting broke up in confusion. Though the 
 words of this song are not remarkably poetical, 
 the music is as original and peculiar as Timothy 
 Swan's old tune of Gliina. The chorus comes 
 out in fine relief to the plaintiveness of the quar- 
 
 add something to the novelty of the day. In searching our 
 church music I could find nothing suitable which was the 
 cause of my attempting this small piece of music, together 
 with the lines. It will be a sufficient apology for me to say 
 that I have no pretensions to a poetical genius, nor have I 
 trod the flowery path of science, but hope my attempt may 
 emulate some superior genius who may offer something more 
 worthy your acceptance. 
 
 Such as it is it is humbly dedicated to you, sir (together 
 with my sincere wishes that you may long preside over the 
 useful institution in this place, and have the satisfaction to 
 see your labors crown'd with success), by your most obedient 
 
 ^^^^^^'^^' Jazaniah Sumner. 
 
 Taunton, April 3, 1798. 
 
 To Mr. Simeon Dao-gett. 
 
40 -4 MONOGRAM OF 
 
 tette with the ring of a war trumpet. Had 
 the tune commenced, as the Gods of the Greehs, 
 upon a lower note, it would have been more 
 popular still. The first step is unfortunately 
 the longest one, and that too often prevents the 
 people from taking any step at all ; but the tune 
 is national, our first national patriotic tune ; it 
 performed good service in its day, and hence in 
 memory of the times gone by we love to sing it 
 and to speak the name of Jazaniah Sumner still. 
 
 VI. The Early Songs of this Present Century. 
 
 Of the patriotic songs which appeared in the 
 early part of this century and even to the war 
 of 1812, none perhaps were more popular than 
 Mrs. Susanna Rowson's spirited America, Com- 
 merce and Freedom; and Jefferson and Liberty, 
 written to an old Irish air in 1801. Our ladies 
 used to sing at that period Thomas Campbell's 
 Exiles of E7'in; Since then Fm Doomed, from the 
 Spoiled Child; Tell me, habhling Echo, and 
 Bidwell's Friendship ; our seamen, Blach Eyed 
 Susan, and Charles Dibdin's beautiful Tom Bow- 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 41 
 
 line; our young sentimentalists, Gen. John 
 Burgoyne's Encompassed in an AtigeVs Frame, 
 and Sterne's Maria; while our old men in their 
 social interviews made the welkin ring with Sail 
 Colunibia, Adams and Liberty, and Sumner's Ode 
 on Science, bringing in as interludes, it might be, 
 the Soldiers Return; the Bright Rosy Morning ; 
 Life let us Glie7'isli ; Begone didl Care, and 
 intermingling now and then the minor strains 
 of the old Indian Death Song : ^ 
 
 " The sun sets at niglit and the stars shua the day." 
 
 Gilderoy ; Wife, Children and Friends ;^ Msijor 
 Andre's Lament, and Oswald's sorrow-breathing 
 Roslin Castle.^ 
 
 1 The words of this once popular song, sometimes ascribed 
 to Philip Freneau, were written by Mrs. John Hunter, a 
 sister of Sir Everard Home. " The idea was suggested seve- 
 ral years ago," says the author, "by hearing a gentleman who 
 had resided many years ago in America among the tribe 
 called the Cherokees, sing a wild air which he assured me 
 it was customary for those people to chant with a barbarous 
 jargon, implying contempt of their enemies in the moments 
 of torture and death." See Duyckinck's Gyc. of Am. Lit.., 
 vol. I, p. 341. 
 
 2 By the Hon. William R. Spencer, 1770-1834.— (7yc. 
 Eng. Lit., ii, 421. 
 
 ^ " Its no a Scots tune, but it passes for one. Oswald 
 
42 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 But the impressment of seamen, the embargo 
 and Mr. Madison's Avar that followed, threw the 
 country into another exigence, and by the law 
 that the bruised flower yields the sweetest per- 
 fume, another national lyric, the brightest of 
 the constellation, sprang from it to breathe 
 fresh inspiration into every loyal heart. The 
 war had come down to its darkest hour, and 
 while in commemoration of our naval victories 
 inferior hands were striking out such clever 
 songs as Our Flag is tliere, and while some in 
 livelier mood were giving us the Jolly Enterprise 
 and Boxer, and, to the tune oi JEkelines Bower, 
 
 " I often have been told, 
 That the British seamen bold, 
 Could beat the tars of France neat and handy, 0." 
 
 One solitary eye in fine frenzy rolling, caught 
 a spark of true Promethean fire and conferred 
 a royal benefaction on his native land. 
 
 made it himsell, I reckon. He has cheated mony ane, but 
 he canna cheat Wandering Willie. He then played your 
 favorite air of RosUn Castle with a number of beautiful 
 variations." — Red Gauntlet, p. 31. 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 43 
 
 Francis Scott Key's Stae Spangled Banner. 
 
 In the month of August, 1814, the country 
 hung upon the verge of ruin. Our army led 
 by Dearborn, Hull and Winder was diminishing 
 under a succession of deplorable reverses. The 
 democrats and federalists were burning with 
 political rancor; our financial credit had run 
 down to zero, and our currency was such that 
 it required a dollar to buy a single yard of 
 cotton cambric cloth. In the midst of this 
 general gloom Lord George Cockburn enters 
 the Chesapeake with a fleet of 20 sail, and 
 makes a quick advance on Washington. 
 
 At Bladensburg, Md., the British army, 
 4,000 veterans, under Major Robert Ross, en- 
 counters Gen. William H. Winder, who, fight- 
 ing feebly, soon sets out on what is called the 
 Bladensburg races, for the woods. 
 
 Cockburn enters Washington — the capitol — 
 ascends into the speaker's chair and puts the 
 question to his soldiers : " Shall this harbor of 
 Yankee democracy be burned ? " " Yes ! yes ! " 
 cry out a thousand voices, and, in a little, flames 
 
44 -4 MONOGRAM OF 
 
 are rising over all the city, and the capital is in 
 ruins. 
 
 Cockburn now turns his course on Baltimore, 
 defended by 10,000 men and FortM'Henry. Ross 
 lands his troops below the city and commences 
 marching on it ; while the fleet, increased to forty 
 sail, prepares for the bombardment of the fort. 
 
 Meantime a little vessel guided by a brave 
 young man, and bearing a white flag of truce, 
 shoots out from underneath the guns of Fort 
 M'Henry, and glides like a bird down the 
 broad bay directly to the flag ship of the British 
 squadron. 
 
 That man is Francis Scott Key.^ He goes to 
 intercede for the deliverance of his dear old 
 friend Dr. Beanes, who had been taken prisoner 
 at the races. 
 
 Cockburn detains him. 
 
 The squadron, forming a vast semicircle, 
 moves, like a vulture with its talons spread, 
 
 1 Francis Scott Key, son of John E-oss Key, an officer in 
 tlie revolutionary army, was born Aug. 1, 1779, and died 
 Jan. 11, 1843, leaving a numerous family. One of his sons 
 was shot in a duel by John Sherburne of Portsmouth, N. H., 
 and another, Philip Barton Key, was killed at Washington 
 by Daniel E. Sickles on Sunday, Feb. 27, 1859. 
 
OTIB NATIONAL SONG. 45 
 
 as if to grasp and crush at one fell swoop the 
 silent fort. 
 
 Key's boat is kept astern of the flag ship of 
 the admiral, himself a prisoner in it, and from 
 this point he hears above the booming of the 
 floods the steady cannonading on the shore. 
 
 From this point he sees the lingering sun- 
 beams of the 13th of September fade away 
 beneath the forests on the west; he sees the 
 heavy clouds come rolling over the dark waters of 
 the bay, and a dim twinkling light from the low 
 promontory of the Fort M'Henry, now the slen- 
 der pivot on which our national destiny is 
 turning. 
 
 From that frail skiff, moored to the tall 
 admiral he marks the mighty preparations for 
 the onset — the clearing of the decks, the 
 ranging of the guns, the furling of the canvas. 
 
 And now — ah, look, the long and curved 
 line of brazen lips are spouting forth the fiery 
 streams of death, directed to one common cen- 
 tre — Fort M'Henry. 
 
 Ah, look ! The globes of fire cast lurid 
 gleams upon the inky clouds above, the waves 
 are flashing in the flames below. 
 
46 , ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 Ah look ! A torrent hissing from the fort 
 comes crashing back into the ships ; and now 
 sheets of flame and bursting shells, and red hot 
 shot, and bugle notes and falling masts, and 
 streams of gore and battle agony — the conster- 
 nation and the havoc and the din of direful 
 war. You can see it, tell it I cannot. 
 
 All through the thundering crash of that 
 long, horrid night,^ the prisoner stands in his 
 light skiff, intently gazing on the rolling floods 
 of fire — heaven, earth, and sea in one wild 
 blaze; a leaf — himself and country — shaken 
 by the tempest to the very verge of doom. 
 
 ' Sixteen hundred bombs by old Cockburn's command, 
 At our fort were discharged by his famed sons of plunder, 
 
 While unmoved stood brave Armistead's well chosen band. 
 Sending back their full change in red hot Yankee thunder. 
 
 Battle of North Point. 
 
 The bombardment began at daylight on the 13th inst., 
 and continued till the. morning of the 14th, about twenty- 
 five hours. The night was dark and stormy, with thunder 
 and lightning. Four hundred shells exploded within the 
 fort, and yet only four of our men were killed. See The 
 Late War by William James, vol. ii, p. 307 ; also Notices 
 of the War of 1812, by John Armstrong, vol. it, p. 136. 
 In his HiMory of Maryland^ John M'Sherry says, vol. ll, p. 
 343, the bombardment began on the evening of the 13th of 
 September, which is evidently a mistake. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 47 
 
 But lo ! the fire balls cease to flame across 
 the bay ; the roar of the terrific conflict is sub- 
 siding, and now all is dark and still again. 
 
 Has the fort M'Henry struck her flag ? 
 
 Oh, what an hour of agony ! 
 
 With straining eyes Key waits and watches 
 for the first gray beam of breaking day — even 
 as the saint for the first gleams of immortality. 
 
 But now the clouds roll by, the dawn is 
 trembling on the headlands, the mist is clearing, 
 and there, just rising dimly from the ramparts 
 through the gray vail of the morning Key dis- 
 cerns — oh, thrilling as the vision of an angel 
 from the gates of Eden — Key discerns the 
 dear old stripes and stars still waving ! 
 
 Snatching an old letter from his pocket, he 
 lays it on a barrel-head, and while the flag is in 
 his eye, the fiery tides of liberty coursing 
 through 'his soul, he writes : 
 
 I. 
 
 " 0! say can you see by the dawn's early light, 
 
 What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming; 
 Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, 
 O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming; 
 And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
 Grave proof through the night that our flag was still there. 
 say ! does the star-spangled banner still wave, 
 O'er the laud of the free and the home of the brave ! " 
 
48 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 II. 
 
 " On the shore dimly seen through the mist of the deep, 
 Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 
 What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep. 
 
 As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? 
 Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 
 In full glory reflected, now it shines on the stream ; 
 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O ! long may it wave, 
 O'er the laud of the free and the home of the brave." 
 
 III. 
 " thus be it ever when freemen shall stand. 
 
 Between their loved homes and war's desolation ; 
 Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land. 
 
 Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. 
 Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just. 
 And this be our motto — ' In Grod is our trust.' 
 And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave. 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." ^ 
 
 Cockburn soon left the bay; God save the 
 king — the country ! 
 
 The music of the Star Spangled Banner was 
 composed by Dr. Samuel Arnold/ Oxford, Eng- 
 land, for the old hunting song Anacreon in 
 Heaven. 
 
 1 These words were originally published in the Baltimore 
 Patriot on the 20th of September, 1814, under the title cf 
 The Defence of Fort McHenry. 
 
 2 Dr. Samuel Arnold [1739-1802], author of The Maid 
 of the Mill, and the oratorios of The Prodigal Son, 
 AUmelech, The Curse of Saul, and The Resurrection; 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 49 
 
 It is, I dare maintain in opposition to the 
 critics, original, elevated, soul-inspiring and 
 most admirably suited for a national anthem. 
 
 It commences on a key so low that all may 
 join in it. 
 
 It has unity of idea. The melodic parts 
 most naturally succeed each other, and if I 
 may so speak, are logically conjoined and bound 
 together. It consists of solo, duett and chorus, 
 and thus in unity presents variety. It is bold, 
 warlike, and majestic ; stirring the profoundest 
 emotions of the soul, and echoing through its 
 deepest chambers something of the prospective 
 grandeur of a mighty nation tramping towards 
 the loftiest heights of intellectual dominion.^ 
 
 was organist and composer to his majesty's chapel at St. 
 James's, and published a splendid edition of the works of 
 the immortal Greorge F. Handel in 1786. He also published 
 four volumes of cathedral music. 
 
 1 The effect of this national air as sung by ten thousand 
 voices at the Peace Festival in Boston, June 15, 1869, with 
 full orchestra, drum corps, chiming of bells, and artillery 
 accompaniments was truly grand. At the conclusion of the 
 last stanza the vast audience sprang up and filled with deaf- 
 ening cheers the Coliseum. 
 
50 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 YII. OuE Songs during the Tranquillity 
 WHICH Mr. Madison's War secured. 
 
 Under the cerulean skies which followed the 
 hard contest, there frequently appeared a beau- 
 tiful American song to gladden our hearts and 
 homes, and elevate the tone of social life. As 
 the country advanced in wealth and education, 
 the people had more leisure and more taste for 
 cultivating and enjoying music. The piano- 
 forte was gradually introduced; which by its 
 accompaniments sustained the voice and lent 
 expression to the song. Music books were 
 multiplied, the children in our schools were 
 taught, and ever should be taught, to sing. 
 
 Among the popular songs of this period which 
 may be said to have sunk deeply into the affec- 
 tions of the people, none is more widely known 
 than Home, Sweet Home, by John Howard Payne,-^ 
 
 1 Born in New York, June 9, 1792, and died in Tunis, 
 where he was consul, in 1852. As an actor and author of 
 several dramas he met with considerable success; but his 
 fame will rest upon the inimitable song of Sweet Home, 
 which he wrote in Loudon for his Claris or the Maid of 
 Milan, in 1823. In giving a history of his wanderings and 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. ' 51 
 
 who through reverse of fortune never came to 
 taste himself the joys of that dear spot of which 
 he sang so sweetly. It was estimated in 1832 
 that more than one hundred thousand copies of 
 this favorite song had been sold by the original 
 publisher. The music was composed by Sir 
 
 his trials, lie once said to a friend : " How often I have been 
 in the heart of Paris, Berlin, and London, -or some other 
 city, and heard persons singing or hand-organs playing 
 Siveet Home^ without having a shilling to buy myself the 
 next meal, or a place to lay my head. The world has 
 literally sung my song till every heart is familiar with its 
 melody. Yet I have been a wanderer from my boy- 
 hood. My country has turned me ruthlessly from office, 
 and in my old age I have to submit to humiliation for my 
 bread." 
 
 Mr. Payne wrote two additional verses to his immortal 
 song for an American lady in London in 1833 or '4. — Home 
 Journal. 
 
 To us, in despite of the absence of years, 
 How sweet the remembrance of home still appears. 
 From allurements abroad, which but flatter the eye, 
 The unsatisfied heart turns, and says, with a sigh, 
 Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 
 
 There's no place like home ! 
 
 There's no place like home ! 
 
 Your exile is blest with all fate can bestow, 
 But mine has been checkered with many a woe ! 
 Yet though diiferent our fortunes, our thoughts are the same, 
 And both, as we think of Columbia, exclaim. 
 Home, home, sweet, sweet home ! 
 
 There's no place like home ! 
 
 There's no place like home ! 
 
52 A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 Henry R. Bishop [1782-1856], for the opera 
 of Glari, which was brought out in 1823. 
 
 The Old Oaken Bucket, by Samuel Wood- 
 worth j^ Woodman Spare that Tree, and Near 
 the Lake there Drooped a Willow, by George P. 
 Morris ; Ood Bl^s our Native Land, translated 
 from the German by John S. Dwight, the 
 accomplished editor of the Journal of Music ; 
 the Old Arm Chair, by Eliza Cook ; the Land- 
 ing of the Pilgrims, by George Lunt, for which 
 Mr. T. B. White wrote the music ; A Life on the 
 Ocean Wave, by Epes Sargent, and 
 
 " Rocked in tlie cradle of the deep 
 I lay me down in peace to sleep," 
 
 are all beautiful and well known national lyrics, 
 which have magically touched the chords of 
 
 1 Born in Scituate, Mass., Jan. 13, 1785, and died Dec. 9, 
 1842. He wrote also The Hunters of Kentucky, SMdL otlier 
 songs, for whicli see his Melodies^ published in New York, 
 1831. The Old Oahen Bucket "was written in the spring 
 or summer of 1817. The family were living at the time in 
 Duane street. The poet came home to dinner one very 
 warm day, having walked from his office, somewhere near 
 the foot of Wall street. Being much heated with the 
 exercise, he poured himself out a glass of water — New York 
 pump water — and drank it at a draught, exclaiming, as he 
 replaced the tumbler on the table, ' that is very refreshing, 
 but how much more refreshing would it be to take a good 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 53 
 
 feeling, and which the people will not willingly 
 let die. The last mentioned song is from the 
 fertile pen of Mrs. Emma Willard/ one of the 
 most celebrated female educators in America, 
 whose fair and honored name among its gifted 
 ones this city ^ numbers. It was written on the 
 deep, whose mysterious spirit it so beautifully 
 breathes, during the author's passage home from 
 Europe in 1832. The Duke de Choiseul who 
 
 long draught, this warm day, from the old oaken bucket I 
 left hanging in my father's well, at home ! ' Hearing this, 
 the poet's wife, who was always a suggestive body, said, 
 ' Selim, why wouldn't that be a pretty subject for a poem ? ' 
 The poet took the hint, and under the inspiration of the 
 moment, sat down and poured out from his very soul those 
 beautiful lines which have immortalized the name of Wood- 
 worth." — Home Journal. 
 
 1 This estimable lady is the daughter of Samuel Hart, and 
 was born in New Berlin, Conn., in February, 1787. She 
 commenced the Troy Seminary for Young Ladies in 1821, 
 and is the author of several valuable educational works. 
 She published a volume of poems in 1830. Lafayette visited 
 her when last in America, and made her a present of a 
 valuable diamond ring. She still resides in Troy, N. Y. 
 As Dr. Delany said of Mrs. Gibber on her rendering of 
 Handel's He ivas despised and rejected of Men — so may we 
 not almost say of her who wrote : 
 
 Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 
 
 " Woman, for this, be all thy sins forgiven ! " 
 
 2 Troy, N. Y. 
 
5J: A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 was on board the same vessel, hearing Mrs. 
 Willard repeat the first two lines of the lyric, 
 encouraged her to complete it, and then himself 
 composed the music for it. The air, however, 
 to which it is now sung was written by Mr. 
 J. P. Knight. When hearing some sweet voice 
 murmuring this ocean-song at eventide, whis- 
 pering as it does of the immensity of the sea, 
 of the might of Him who holds it in his hand, 
 
 " Grod of stillness and of motion, 
 Of tlie rainbow and the ocean ; " 
 
 the illustrious dawn of the grand coming destiny 
 seems near ; the soul is filled with the sublimest 
 aspirations, and we feel that such a song we 
 would be glad to have breathed over us while 
 the last lingering ray of life is breaking into 
 the immortal splendor. 
 
 YIII. Our Songs in the late War. 
 
 In the marshaling to arms for the suppression 
 of the late rebellion, our music came in, as you 
 may well suppose, to exert a most potent influ- 
 ence. To the stirring strains of Yankee Doodle; 
 
Omi NATIONAL SONG. 55 
 
 Columbia tlie Gem of the Ocean, by David T. 
 Shaw, and set to the English tune of The Red, 
 White and Blue; Star Spangled Banner ; Hail 
 Columbia; and Our Country 'tis of Thee,^ by 
 Dr. S. F. Smith, the national heart thrilled 
 anew, and as these old melodies arose from 
 well trained bands, the braves came forth from 
 peaceful homes to do battle in the sacred cause 
 of liberty. Eloquence, money, did their part — 
 but music more. 
 
 The mustering drum beat out the stories of 
 the olden times, and stirred the hearts of men 
 to rally round the flag; and by its enlivening 
 roll the ranks were filled. 
 
 New songs came in to swell the tide of feeling 
 and to throw fresh glory over the tented field. 
 
 - ' One of the most deservedly popular of our sacred na- 
 tional hymns, sung to the tune of God save the King, here 
 called America. In a letter to me, dated Newton Centre, 
 Mass., June 11, 1861, the accomplished and estimable author 
 says : " The song was written at Andover during my student 
 life there, I think in the winter of 1831-2. It was first 
 used publicly at a Sunday School celebration of July 4th, in 
 Park street church, Boston. I had in my possession a 
 quantity of German song books from which I was selecting 
 such music as pleased me, and finding God save tlie King, 
 I proceeded to give it the ring of American republican 
 patriotism." 
 
56 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 John Brown's Body lies mouldering in the grave 
 is perhaps the most remarkable. From its quaint 
 expressions, mingling the mundane with the 
 spiritual; from the point in the highly poetical 
 line, "His soul's marching on" — fighting the 
 battles of his country still ; from the simplicity 
 of the martial air, said to be by Philip Simonds, 
 which every one could sing so easily, it caught 
 the public ear at once ; became a rallying song 
 of power, and called men more mightily than 
 the tongue of eloquence to the war. 
 
 You heard its " Hallelujah chorus " rise from 
 the lips of the mustering squadrons, as the song 
 of the cross in the times of the old crusaders. 
 
 Jefferson and Liberty, also under the name of 
 Raw Recruits, or Old Glory, had a resurrection 
 in the commencement of the war, and sent its 
 electrifying inspirations through the hearts of 
 millions. 
 
 In a vast assembly for obtaining men, I 
 heard for an hour, or more, the immortal 
 Everett speak in tones of most commanding 
 eloquence; and as he closed his soul-entrancing 
 periods — it was the dying music of the swan — 
 the bands struck up Old Glory, bringing the 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 57 
 
 audience in an instant to their feet, firing 
 every heart with such enthusiasm as moved 
 the immortal bands at Leuctra and at Ma- 
 rathon ; calling forth deafening thunders of 
 acclamation, and phalanx after phalanx of men 
 for war. 
 
 As the great drama opened and untried 
 soldiers moved on toward the field of deadly 
 conflict, music came in to inspire them for the 
 bold emprise, and nerve them for the terrific 
 onset. 
 
 On Friday evening, July 19, 1861, before the 
 disastrous battle of Bull Run, I was lying with 
 the Michigan 4th Regiment in front of the 
 enemy at Fairfax Court House. The stillness 
 of the nightfall was broken only by the report 
 of an occasional rifle from the surrounding 
 forest. The lights of the camp were gradually 
 extinguished and the weary soldiers were about 
 to spread themselves upon the broad and ver- 
 dant campus of the Court House for repose. The 
 colonel (Woodberry) said : " Come, boys, let's 
 have a song ! " The singers came around him ; 
 stretched themselves along the greensward, and 
 the oak branches bending over them, in front 
 
58 ^ MONOOBAM OF 
 
 of that old building where the voice of Patrick 
 Henry had been heard in golden tones for 
 liberty, broke forth into the glorious strains of 
 Hail Columbia, Star Spangled Banner, and Old 
 Hundred, making the very welkin ring with 
 their manly voices, rising higher, and stronger, 
 and mightier — the whole regiment now joining 
 in — and pouring forth such a tide of music as 
 old ocean rolls along in praise to its eternal Ruler. 
 
 I had heard something of the great masters — 
 the glorious choruses of Bach, of Handel, 
 Haydn, Mendelssohn — I had admired them; 
 but not till then did I realize the sublime power 
 of music, or so thank God for its heart-cheering 
 strains. I then felt that the men would fight 
 till glory came, and I was not mistaken. 
 
 These great songs sung, the weary men, 
 though in the front of death, sank into slumbers 
 so profound, that the rain which soon came 
 pattering down through the foliage of the oak 
 trees (I remember the first drop that struck 
 my cheek) did not awaken them. 
 
 As the tide of war rolled on, music came in 
 as some sweet heavenly visitant, to cheer and 
 refresh the heart of the imperiled troops. 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 59 
 
 It is not customary, as of old, for bands to 
 play in the midst of battle. The music then is 
 the rattling volley of musketry — the booming 
 of the rifle cannon and the whizzing of the shot 
 and shell ; — the bands are detailed to bear away 
 the dead and wounded ; but in some instances, 
 when the very turning point of the day has 
 come, as at Williamsburg — in the terrific charge 
 at Shiloh, and in the grand advance at Gettys- 
 burg, which turned the tide of this whole na- 
 tion's destiny. Hail Columbia and Yankee Doodle 
 quickened the step of the serried columns, 
 hastening the eventful issue.^ 
 
 It is hard, it is tearing, smashing work to fight 
 a battle ; — to say nothing of the intense agony, 
 the wild phrenzy of the soul; it knx)cks 
 the beauty out of the whole frame ; it shakes, 
 unhinges, doubles up the whole organization. 
 To charge across dead men, close up and grap- 
 ple in the mortal strife, is a tremendous draft 
 on human energy. To meet the crashing 
 
 ' " It was near noon, when the Zouaves, in their crimson 
 garments, led by Colonel Duryea, charged the batteries 
 [at Bethel] after singing The Star Spangled Banner in 
 chorus." — Atlantic 3Iontlily^ Sept., 1862, pp. 346. 
 
60 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 shot and shell; to fight it out with such invin- 
 cible pluck as our men showed at Fredericks- 
 burg, Antietam, in the WildernesSj at Coal 
 Harbor^ Petersburg, consumes the bone and 
 marrow of the whole constitution ; but when 
 the hurricane is over, music comes in refresh- 
 ingly and most benign and comforting are its 
 sweet soothing tones. The spirit of the war- 
 worn soldier is at once revived by it; the 
 wounded men forget their pains beneath its 
 magic sway, the dead appear to sleep more 
 sweetly as the notes of Hail Columbia roll out 
 over them/ 
 
 On the bloody battle field of Shiloh, when the 
 fray was over, lay a captain, struck down mor- 
 tally by a minie ball. In his agony he strove 
 to reach a bloody pool of water to allay his 
 burning thirst. He had not strength for it. 
 The stars of night came out. He looked up to 
 the shining vault and thought of God. He 
 broke into a song. 
 
 1 When our regimental bands played Hail Columbia, the 
 Star Spangled Banner, and other national airs after the 
 battle of Mill Spring, tears started to the eyes of many of 
 the rebel prisoners at the well remembered strains. 
 
OUB NATIONAL SONG. 61 
 
 " When I can read my title clear, 
 To mansions in the skies," 
 
 another dying soldier heard him and repeated 
 it — another joined the chorus, then another — 
 then another, until from every part of that en- 
 sanguined field, the music of the mansions rose 
 from lips of dying men to soothe the mortal 
 agony and antedate the empyrean harmonies/ 
 
 Our bands used to play in the army the beau- 
 tiful airs of Mozart's Don Giovanni, or of Lucretia 
 Borgia, and/Z Traoatore, with marches and quick- 
 steps from Chopin ; from Flotow's Martha and 
 from Gonoud's Faust ; interblended, perhaps, 
 with the universal favorites of the soldier; 
 Annie Laurie ; Her hrigJit Eyes haunt me still ; 
 Rosa Lee ; Lilly Dale ; Marching along ; Sweet 
 Home; and The Girl Lief t behind me. 
 
 The rebel bands which I have heard played 
 nearly the same tunes, always substituting, 
 however, the merry strains of Dixie for Yanhee 
 Doodle, and the beautiful air. My Maryland 
 or the Marseillaise for the Star Spangled Banner. 
 
 Mighty as music is to stir the heart at home, it 
 has a far more potent spell upon the tented field. 
 
 1 Hackett's Memor^ials of the Wa7\ 
 9 
 
62 ^ MONOGBAM OF 
 
 You rise, for instance, on some beautiful, clear, 
 morning; walk along the lines of our brave 
 army lying at rest in front of Petersburg ; you 
 hear the various bugle calls of the artillery 
 brigades, echoing sweetly through the forest; 
 the fife and drum of the infantry in the early 
 drill ; you catch faint sounds of Dixie from the 
 intrenchments of the enemy; you hear some 
 squad of soldiers singing rapturously " Well all 
 feel gay lolien Jolmny comes marching home ; " 
 or Rally round the flag, hoys ; you hear another 
 section singing the chorus of When this cruel 
 loar is over ; We are tenting to-night on the old 
 camp ground ; or you listen of a sabbath morn- 
 ing in the deep wilderness, to men's voices 
 uniting in some well known sabbath school 
 melody, as, / have a father in the promised land ; 
 or to some poor wounded soldier in the hospital, 
 murmuring in low tones, 
 
 " 0, sing to me of heaven when I am called to die, 
 Sing songs of heavenly ecstacy to waft my soul on high ;" 
 
 or hold your ear to catch the slow and distant 
 dirge, Peace, troubled sotd, ivhose plaintive moan, 
 played with mufiied drums when some brave 
 
OUR NATIONAL 80NG. 63 
 
 warrior is consigned by tearful comrades to his 
 silent home, and you then begin to comprehend 
 the power of music ; the worth of music and its 
 incalculable service in softening the horrors of 
 war; you feel some chords thrilling in your breast 
 that nothing on earth had ever touched before. 
 But there were sorrows at home as well as at 
 the seat of war. " Partings such as crush the 
 blood from out young hearts," — wives and 
 mothers weeping for the loved and stricken ones. 
 Yet the -stealing tear was often assuaged ; the 
 bitter grief consoled by the inspiring notes of 
 national song. We are marching to the music of 
 the Union; Who will care for mother ; and 
 other beautiful songs which the war called forth 
 broke up the sad monotony of many a suffer- 
 ing heart, and beguiled it of the loneliness of 
 its sorrow and bereavement. 
 
 IX. The Distinctive Character and Future 
 Mission of Our National Song. 
 
 In the formation of this union, in the re- 
 establishment of this union, our music did effec- 
 tive service, but especially in the last tremendous 
 
64 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 ordeal was its ministry most helping. It roused 
 the hearts of the people to undertake great 
 things for the salvation of the country ; it called 
 the soldiers to the camping ground ; it inspired 
 them on the weary march ; it nerved them for 
 the battle shock ; it consoled them in their suf- 
 ferings ; it rose clear and sweet above the ser- 
 ried hosts of our invincible army on the last 
 great day of victory; it welcomed the noble 
 warriors home ; it now rings, as the flag flies, 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore, from 
 Maine to Mexico. Is its mighty mission over ? 
 
 Be pleased to look at it. The leading cha- 
 racteristic of our country's song is determined 
 energy and exulting hope. 
 
 The Russian national hymn excites in us the 
 idea of mournful grandeur in accordance with 
 the gigantic power of that vast hyperborean 
 region ; the Marseillaise, La Parisienne, Mourir 
 pour la patrie^ and Queen Hortensia's Partant 
 pour la Syrie of France, awaken tender and 
 affectionate memories of the past; England's 
 national anthem, simple,^ unaffected, passionless, 
 
 ' Music by F. Alphonse Varney. 
 
 - God save the King appeared originally in the Gentle- 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 65 
 
 seems to be in perfect keeping with the calm 
 and placid dignity of that people ; the Scottish 
 patriotic airs, as the Land of the leal, jScots wJia 
 Jiae wi Wallace hied, etc., wanting the 7th or 
 leading note and abounding in minor chords 
 and cadences, breathe forth the spirit of an 
 Alpine region full of gloomy caverns which has 
 lost its king ; but the national songs of America, 
 ringing from the buoyant and elastic spirit of a 
 people in pursuit of a great destiny, speak out in 
 every note, in every line, and enkindle in every 
 
 man's Magazine, Oct., 1745, on tlie occasion of the landing 
 of the pretender. Dr. Thomas A. Arne, author of Arta- 
 xerxes, arranged it in parts. The air has been ascribed to 
 Handel ; to Henry Carey who composed the celebrated song 
 of Sally in our Alley, and to others. Dr. Burney maintains 
 that it was composed for the chapel of James II. The mar- 
 quise de Crequy in her memoirs published in 1844, says the 
 music was composed by the celebrated duke of Sully (1560- 
 1641), and was sung when Louis XIV entered the chapel 
 of St. Cyr, to the following words written by Madame de 
 Brinon : 
 
 " G-rand Dieu, sauvez le Roi ! 
 Grand Dieu, venez le Roi ! 
 
 Vive le Roi ! 
 Qui toujours glorieux 
 • Louis victorieux 
 Voyez vos enemis 
 Toujours soumis." 
 
 The air is sung in Germany and there called Bundes Lied. 
 
66 -A MONOGRAM OF 
 
 heart the blessed sentiment of hope. Hardly 
 a single minor strain is found in them. Even 
 
 " Tramp, tramp, tramp, tlie boys are marcliing, 
 Cheer up comrades tliey will come,"^ 
 
 the song of the imprisoned soldier is beaming 
 in every line with the celestial radiance of hope. 
 Our songs look away to the brilliant future, 
 glowing all over as the rainbow with the pro- 
 phetic inspiration of hope ; hope in human 
 progress, hope in the sweet ministrations of 
 humanity ; hope in the light of woman's love 
 and beauty ; hope in the power of free institu.- 
 tions to sustain themselves; hope in the ulti- 
 mate triumph of the right; hope in the rising 
 grandeur of American liberty ; hope in the God 
 of liberty. 
 
 Now by the valor of our men ; by the wisdom 
 of our chieftain ; by the ministration of woman ; 
 by the enlivening power of music; by the inex- 
 pressible goodness of God, we are saved as a 
 nation ; four millions of bondmen have been set 
 free ; labor has been vindicated ; and the name 
 of Yankee rendered everlastingly honorable. 
 
 1 Words and music by Greorge F. Root. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 61 
 
 The walls opposing our success have been 
 demolished ; a land of promise, where mines of 
 gold lie packed in between the ribs of the 
 mountains ; where rivers of oil flow out of the 
 valleys ; a land locked together by the most 
 wonderful net-work of railways and telegraphs ; 
 a land broad, fertile, rich, varied, beautiful above 
 all other lands is our inheritance. The golden 
 gates are thrown wide open, and voices call us 
 onward to possess it. 
 
 Has national music any part to play ? Yes, 
 the grand old songs must still roll on; new 
 songs must be composed ; but they must be 
 glowing bright with hope, to stir the blood of 
 the faint-hearted; to cheer up those that fall 
 and falter by the way ; to draw the eye to the 
 dear old flag ; to repeat the story of the men of 
 1776 ; to rehearse the glory of the braves who 
 placed the flag upon the domes of Richmond ; 
 to proclaim the illustrious day of freedom ; to 
 make the tyrant tremble ; to consolidate us 
 into one vast free people; harmonious, high- 
 minded, friendly, hopeful, grateful and aspiring. 
 New times demand new music ; let it come in 
 form above the negro melodies from the inspira- 
 
68 ^ MONOGRAM OF 
 
 tion of our own warm hearts. Our grand 
 national hymns we write ; our national airs we 
 borrow ; and we take the best ; but the genius 
 of our country now begins to shine brightly forth 
 in music, even as in her sister arts ; let us then 
 have fresh strains for fresh developments, for 
 liberty is maintained but by unslumbering vigi- 
 lance. Strike then from the lyre of freedom 
 louder, loftier strains, but let the old peal on, for 
 there is an avenging note in that rollicksome 
 tune of Yanhee Doodle ; there is solid shot and 
 shell, as well as hope, in Hail Columbia; there 
 is the invincible pluck of Young America in 
 the Star Spangled Banner, and soldiers march- 
 ing to these hymns of liberty, lay wide and 
 clear the track in front of them, unclasping 
 every bond as they move proudly on to fling 
 the starry flag of freedom, flaming over the 
 beloved land. 
 
 When the Union flag had come to float once 
 more above the domes of Richmond, and but a 
 few nights previous to the assassination of the 
 illustrious patriot, Abraham Lincoln, he was 
 called on by the surging crowd around the 
 White House for a speech. 
 
OUR NATIONAL SONG. 69 
 
 Rising in the balcony and bowing to the 
 sea of heads in front, he spoke to this effect : 
 
 "Gentlemen, I cannot make a speech to-night. 
 I rather feel like hearing music. I want to 
 hear my favorite old tune, Dixie. I always did 
 love Dixie j and the attorney-general says that 
 we may have it ; for Dixie, gentlemen, is now 
 our own by right of conquest." 
 
 The bands then struck up rapturously the 
 stirring notes of Z^ix^e, Yankee Doodle, My. Mary- 
 land, and the /Star Spangled Banner, amid the 
 acclamations of the people ; — and so comming- 
 ling may these strains forever peal in unison, 
 and thus serve to bind this vast birthland of 
 the free into one perfect and harmonious con- 
 federation, which under the hero of the nine- 
 teenth century and his successors shall ascend 
 to unimagined heights of political, moral, intel- 
 lectual grandeur, and move this whole world 
 into order by the light of its wisdom, the smile 
 of its beauty, and the song of its love. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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LEMy'l2 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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