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FAMOUS SONGS
April 23rd, 1897, in honour of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
I may state here that I am fully supported in my contention that Carey wrote the words and music of the national anthem by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould in his " English Minstrelsie;" at the same time I wish to add that Canon Harford, who has devoted much attention to the subject, has published a booklet in which his belief that the same was written as a Latin chorus for the Roman Catholic Chapel at St. James's, in 1687-88, presumably by a Roman Catholic, is fully set forth; but the arguments, though plausible, are not sufficiently convincing to convert me from my own views.
As far as I have been able to ascertain," God Save the Queen" has escaped the parodist— except the unconscious humorist who will write continuations—but not the satirist. In his happiest vein Mr. W. S. Gilbert wrote in " His Excellency," with music by Dr. Osmond Can* (Lyric Theatre, October 27th, 1894), for the self-exiled Regent to sing:
" Like the Banbury Lady, whom everyone knows, He's cursed with its music wherever he goes ! Though its words but imperfectly rhyme, And the devil himself couldn' t scan them, With composure polite, he endures day and night That illiterate National Anthem." 217 |
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