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192 The National Music of America.
delphia as " Jefferson and Liberty," ' and on . the twenty-fifth of March, in the same year, it was sung at a festival in Boston, "in honour of the Russian achievements over their French invaders," to new words set by Alexander H. Everett.
The above examples may be sufficient to prove that Francis Scott Key must have been absolutely familiar with the melody when he wrote the " Star-spangled Banner." We now approach the creation of the song which, above all others, may claim to be the national hymn of America. In the summer of 1814 the war which was waging between the United States and Great Britain seemed to run almost entirely in favour of the latter nation ; Washington had been captured and burned, the shores of Chesapeake Bay were ravaged by the British fleet
1 Jefferson and Liberty " was set in two ways, first to the tune now used as " The Star-spangled Banner," and, second, to an old Irish air, in 1801. |
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