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FAMOUS SONGS |
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Then conquer we must, when our cause is so 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 song was first sung in a tavern near the Holiday Street Theatre, Baltimore, by Fer-dinand Durang. The tune, "Anacreon in Heaven," was composed by John Stafford Smith betweeen 1770 and 1775 to words by Ralph Tomlinson president of the Anacreontic So-ciety, which held its meetings at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, Strand, London.
There is no romance whatever attached to the origin of " Hail, Columbia," the words of which are very tame and little better than doggerel. We know of no other lyric by Francis Key than the one quoted above, and we know of no other than the " Hail, Columbia" of Judge Joseph Hopkinson. The judge wrote this song in 1798 to oblige an actor named Fox, who sang it with great success at one of the theatres in Wilkesbarre, Penusylvania. The music was taken from a piece called "The President's March," which had seen the light ten years previously. It was composed by a German named Fyles on some special visit of Washington's to the John Street Theatre, New
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