Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1870-05-06
aMiscellanp.
National Songs,

/
OF the nation, and / care not who makes
Its laws, whose origin is ascribed to
Andrew Fletcher-refers to national
songs, and if the implied proposition is
true, it is an awful satire on mankind.
Saying nothing OF the romantic absurdi-
ty of the supposed substitution of the
enthusiasm of rhyme for the obliga-
ton Of a statue, the best known national
songs are about The poorest of all the
lyrics that maintain any continued pop
ularity. The words Of " God Save the
King" are but bit of machine work.
which any one with little practice
might have ground out. Our national
songs are still worse, The words of
Yankee Doodle" are but the yellowest
doggerel, and the Star Spangled Ban
ner' is heavy, dull and inartistic. Hail
Columbia" is not mach better and as
for Red, White and Blue" which was
sung so much few years ago, it is as
bad as any Sunday-school hymn. 1t
would surely puzzle country school
master to parse much of it. If there is
an exception to this general inanity in
the words of national sougs, it is the
Marseillaise.
The probability is that these songs
have been kept alive by their music,
which in most cases is meritorious, in a
popular sense.
Various attempts have been made to
bring into existence a national lyric
which should be at once artistic, power
full and popular; but they have uniform
ly failed. The most noted, perhaps, was
the offer of prize Of six hundred dol
lars tx 1861 for song whose words and
music should be adapted to take the
place of our clumsy Fourth of July an
thems and become par excellence the ma
toms hymn. Overtwelve hundred COM
petitors, some of them poets of high rep
utation, failed to satisfy the committee
and no award was made. A tune may
be properly nationalized, because its ad-
aptation is to great extent, if not en-
tirely arbitrary. For instance, there is
no reason why the tune of Hail CO.
lumbia" should not have been the ma
tional air of Great Britain, and "God
Save the King" of the United States. 1t
is only the accident of their origin and
the words attached to them that have
made them the reverse. But in regard
to words, it is almost demonstrable that
no really meritorious national song can
ever exist. For, if it is to be adapted to
every occasion and to all time, its senti-
ment, from the necessity of the case, can
amount to no more than this :-Hurrah
for-America, or England, or Spain, or
CANADIANS the case may be. As a
rhetorician would put it, the extension is
so great that the intension approximates
zero.
A receIt number of All the Year
Round gives some interesting statements
concerning the origin of national airs.
"God Save the King" was originally a
Jacobite song, and was first heard in
1746, after Culloden. The king origi-
nally referred to was Charles Edward,
the pretender; but the inherents of the
house of Hanover adopted the song as
their own. In similar way, Yankee
Doodle" is said to have been of English
origin, and sung in derision Of the Am
ericans, but adopted by the latter in dou-
BILE derision when CORVALLIS with his
surrendered army passed through the
American lines. The word Yankee -
in the song is said to have been original
ly Nunkie," or uncle; and one account
ascribes its origin to an unknown Irish
rhymester writing in derision of Oliver
Cromwell.