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Old "Chester," both words and tune the work of William Billings, is another of the provincial freedom songs of the Revolutionary period, and of the days when the Republic was young. Billings was a zealous patriot, and (says a writer in Moore's Cyclopedia of Music) "one secret, no doubt, of the vast popularity his works obtained was the patriotic ardor they breathed. The words above quoted are an example, and 'Chester,' it is said, was frequently heard from every fife in the New England ranks. The spirit of the Revolution was also manifest in his 'Lamentation over Boston,' his 'Retrospect,' his 'Independence,' his 'Columbia,' and many other pieces."

William Billings was born, in Boston, Oct. 7, 1746. He was a man of little education, but his genius for music spurred him to study the tuneful art, and enabled him to learn all that could be learned without a master. He began to make tunes and publish them, and his first book, the New England Psalm-singer was a curiosity of youthful crudity and confidence, but in considerable numbers it was sold, and sung and laughed at. He went on studying and composing, and compiled another work, which was so much of an improvement that it got the name of Billings' Best. A third singing-book followed, and finally a fourth entitled the Psalm Singer's Amusement, both of which were popular in their day. His "Majesty" has tremendous capabilities of sound, and its movement is fully up to the requirements of Nahum Tate's verses,

And on the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad.

William Billings died in 1800, and his remains lie in an unmarked grave in the old "Granary" Burying Ground in the city of his birth.

National feeling has taken maturer speech and finer melody, but it was these ruder voices that set the pitch. They were sung with native pride and affection at fireside vespers and rural feasts with the adopted songs of Burns and Moore and Mrs. Hemans, and, like the lays of Scotland and Provence, they breathed the flavor of the country air and soil, and taught the generation of home-born minstrelsy that gave us the Hutchinson family, Ossian E. Dodge, Covert with his "Sword of Bunker Hill," and Philip Phillips, the "Singing Pilgrim."

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER.

Near the close of the last war with England, Francis Scott Key, of Baltimore, the author of this splendid national hymn, was detained under guard on the British flag-ship at the mouth of the Petapsco, where he had gone under a flag of truce to procure the release of a captured friend, Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, Md.

The enemy's fleet was preparing to bombard Fort McHenry, and Mr. Key's return with his friend was forbidden lest their plans should be disclosed. Forced to stay and witness the attack on his country's flag, he walked the deck through

the whole night of the bombardment until the break of day showed the brave standard still flying at full mast over the fort. Relieved of his patriotic anxiety, he pencilled the exultant lines and chorus of his song on the back of a letter, and, as soon as he was released, carried it to the city, where within twenty-four hours it was printed on flyers, circulated and sung in the streets to the air of“ Anacreon in Heaven"-which has been the "Star Spangled Banner" tune ever since.

O 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 rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that the flag was still there:
O say, does the star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation; Blessed with victory and peace, may the heavenrescued 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 God 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.

The original star-spangled banner that waved over Fort McHenry in sight of the poet when he wrote the famous hymn was made and presented to the garrison by a girl of fifteen, afterwards Mrs.

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