A PREJUDICE.

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!Sail on, O Union, strong and great!Humanity with all its fears,With all the hopes of future years,Is hanging breathless on thy fate!We know what Master laid thy keel,What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,What anvils rang, what hammers beat,In what a forge and what a heatWere shaped the anchors of thy hope!Fear not each sudden sound and shock,'Tis of the wave and not the rock;'Tis but the flapping of the sail,And not a rent made by the gale!In spite of rock and tempest's roar,In spite of false lights on the shore.Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,Are all with thee—are all with thee!

They say that we're short on a national song;They're calling on genius to hustleAn' make up a piece that'll startle the throngAn' give the old-timers a tussle.I reckon our folks must be clean out o' date—That is, if we're jedged by the mannerIn which we're accustomed to all congregateA-singin' "The Star-Spangled Banner.""Oh, long may it wave!" When we git to that partThere's somethin' more to it than singin'.It's a prayer that devoutly goes forth from each heartAs the chorus is risin' and ringin'.So mother an' me an' the gals an' the boysGathers 'round our old-fashioned pianner,And whatever of talent each has he employsA-singin' "The Star-Spangled Banner."The source of the tune doesn't worry me none.I never ask, "Where did they git it?"It was destiny if, when the writin' got done,The music was waitin' to fit it.An' I feel that it echoes from sea unto seaWhenever our youngest—that's Hanner—Strikes a chord deep and full so's to give us the key,An' we jine in "The Star-Spangled Banner."Washington Star.

"Oh, long may it wave!" When we git to that partThere's somethin' more to it than singin'.It's a prayer that devoutly goes forth from each heartAs the chorus is risin' and ringin'.So mother an' me an' the gals an' the boysGathers 'round our old-fashioned pianner,And whatever of talent each has he employsA-singin' "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The source of the tune doesn't worry me none.I never ask, "Where did they git it?"It was destiny if, when the writin' got done,The music was waitin' to fit it.An' I feel that it echoes from sea unto seaWhenever our youngest—that's Hanner—Strikes a chord deep and full so's to give us the key,An' we jine in "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Washington Star.

By JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE.[B]

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knewThee from report divine, and heard thy name,Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,This glorious canopy of light and blue?Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,Hesperus with the host of heaven came,And lo! Creation widened in man's view.Who could have thought such darkness lay concealedWithin thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,Whilst flow'r and leaf and insect stood revealed,That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealedWithin thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,Whilst flow'r and leaf and insect stood revealed,That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind!Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

[B]Joseph Blanco White became a lasting name in literature by virtue of fourteen lines. His sonnet to Night, sometimes known as "Night and Death," was spoken of by Coleridge as "the finest and most grandly conceived sonnet in our language." Leigh Hunt said of it that in point of thought it "stands supreme, perhaps, above all in any language; nor can we ponder it too deeply, or with too hopeful a reverence."Yet White wrote nothing else that long outlived him. His genius was golden, but it seems to have been a pocket, not a vein; or shall we say that he compressed into a single sonnet the resources which another would have spread over many? At least we may thank him for this that he has left us.A few words as to the man himself: He was born at Seville, Spain, July 11, 1775; was educated for the priesthood; went to England, where he entered the Established Church and gained the friendship of such men as Newman, Arnold, and Whately; became a Unitarian; and died at Liverpool, May 20, 1841. He wrote several books on religious questions. "To Death" appeared first in theBijou, in 1828, and next inThe Gentleman's Magazinefor May, 1835.

Yet White wrote nothing else that long outlived him. His genius was golden, but it seems to have been a pocket, not a vein; or shall we say that he compressed into a single sonnet the resources which another would have spread over many? At least we may thank him for this that he has left us.

A few words as to the man himself: He was born at Seville, Spain, July 11, 1775; was educated for the priesthood; went to England, where he entered the Established Church and gained the friendship of such men as Newman, Arnold, and Whately; became a Unitarian; and died at Liverpool, May 20, 1841. He wrote several books on religious questions. "To Death" appeared first in theBijou, in 1828, and next inThe Gentleman's Magazinefor May, 1835.

By MATTHEW WHITE, Jr.

A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued From Month to Monthand Include All the Most Prominent Players

Irritated by the Complaints of a Comedian,Her Thespian Mother Offered Her asa Substitute for a Property Baby.

The man who is responsible for Maude Adams's first appearance on the stage is now the prosperous proprietor of a wholesale liquor store in Salt Lake City. A jolly Englishman, his name is Phil Margetts, and at that time he was an actor, the popular comedian of the Salt Lake Theater, the biggest playhouse west of the Rockies, under the favored patronage of Brigham Young.

It was back in 1873, and Annie Adams was leading woman in the stock company maintained there. The daughter of one of the Utah pioneers, she had gone on the stage some eight years previous, and had not allowed her marriage to a business man, one James Kiskadden, to interfere with her career.

Maude was born on November 11, 1872, and as the family lived very close to the theater the child was practically brought up in the very odor of Thespianism.

On one occasion, according to John S. Lindsay in "The Mormons and the Theater," the regular bill of the evening was followed by the usual farce intended to send the people home in good humor. It was called "The Lost Child," and in it Margetts was cast for the father of the strayed or stolen infant. At the eleventh hour the comedian discovered to his disgust that he was expected to carry on the stage and fondle a rag doll instead of the real thing.

"But I thought you were going to provide me with a flesh-and-blood baby," he indignantly demanded of Millard, the property man.

"I tried to, Phil," replied this long-suffering individual, "but, honest, I couldn't get one. Nobody wanted to let her baby out of her arms, even for a minute."

"Ye gods!" exclaimed Margetts. "Not a baby to be had in the Mormon capital!"

Time was pressing, and he appealed to Mr. Caine, the stage manager. The two were still wrangling over the matter when Mrs. Kiskadden almost literally threw nine-months-old Maude into the breach.

It was in San Francisco, some five years later, that the little girl "walked" on for the first time. This was with J.K. Emmet, in the old Bush Street Theater, asLittle Schneiderin one of his "Fritz" plays. Her mother was a member of the company, but her father did not altogether approve of Maude's histrionic attempts. They were speaking of the matter at the dinner-table one day, and Mr. Kiskadden remarked to his wife:

"I won't have the child making a fool of herself."

Whereupon Maude, whom they had both supposed to be too busy with her knife and fork to be paying any attention to the talk, broke in with:

"I'll not make a fool of myself, papa."

She had her way, and continued to act at intervals in companies where her mother was employed, until she was sent to school, which she left to take up her career again around 1888, when she was in her middle 'teens.

One of her child engagements in San Francisco found her in a play called "Chums," at the Baldwin. This was the work of David Belasco, who had risen at the theater from call-boy to stage manager and dramatist. The piece, which afterward became famous under the name "Hearts of Oak," had in its cast at the time James O'Neill, Lewis Morrison, and James A. Herne. Belasco called the heroineChrystal(a name used later by Herne for his own daughter, now leading woman with Arnold Daly), and Maude Adams was littleChrystal.

Miss Adams passed from schoolgirl to school mistress in a play, Hoyt's "A Midnight Bell," which was a great success atthe Bijou Theater in New York. Here Charles Frohman saw her work, and liked it so much that he engaged her for the ingénue in his first stock company, then lodged at Proctor's Twenty-Third Street Theater.

This was in the autumn of 1890, and Miss Adams's first appearance under the Frohman régime was made in William Gillette's comedy-farce, "All the Comforts of Home," in which she was cast asEvangeline Bender, daughter of a retired produce dealer. Henry Miller led the list of players, which was facetiously headed "Who's In It?"

The same jocose spirit prompted the further elucidations of the details in the evening's entertainment on the house bill in this wise:

WHERE IS IT?Drawing-room of a private house in London.WHEN IS IT?Now.WHAT TIME IS IT?Act 1. A morning.Act 2. A few mornings later.Act 3. Another morning.Act 4. The same morning.(Good morning.)

In the same year, 1890, Miss Adams appeared at the same theater, in what was styled its regular season, opening on October 21 asDora Prescott, another ingénue rôle, in De Mille and Belasco's "Men and Women." This was followed in the fall of 1891, also at Proctor's, by De Mille's play from the German, "The Lost Paradise," in which Miss Adams was cast for the lame mill-girl,Nell.

This Henry C. De Mille, it may be remarked in passing, was the father of the W.C. De Mille who wrote "Strongheart" for Robert Edeson, and who is an instructor in the Empire School of Acting, sometimes known as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

In the spring of 1892 John Drew left Daly's, whereupon Charles Frohman decided to make him his first star, and he chose Maude Adams to be his leading woman. It is now an old story—the hit she instantly made as the wife who assumes intoxication in a crisis of the Clyde Fitch comedy from the French, "The Masked Ball."

That it was the actress and not the part that triumphed was proved by the falling down of the piece when it was tried some few years since, under supposedly favorable auspices in London.

Miss Adams was at once established as a metropolitan favorite of the first water. The play ran as long as time could be secured for it at Wallack's (then known as Palmer's), and was removed to the Manhattan (then the Standard), where it finished out the season.

She continued with Drew for five years, and became a star in "The Little Minister" in the fall of 1897, with Robert Edeson for her first leading man.

It Came True When He Saw HisName in Letters of Fire in Frontof a Broadway Theater.

The line now appearing on the programs at Fields's Theater, "Mr. Hackett, Sole Lessee and Manager," practically inaugurates in New York the policy that has so long been current in London—that of actor-managership. To be sure, it is not James K. Hackett's present intention to appear himself on the stage at Fields's, but it is not unlikely that before snow flies again he may have another house nearer the Broadway line and which will bear his name, as it is his plan to reserve Fields's for farces like "Mr. Hopkinson" and light musical offerings.

Speaking of his name over a theater recalls a remark he made to me something like half a score of years ago. We had been dining together at the Players and were riding up-town on a Broadway car in the direction of the Broadway Theater, where Hackett was then doingDe Neippergwith Kathryn Kidder in "Madame Sans Gêne." The electric sign had recently come into existence, and as we were passing what is now the Princess's, but was then known as "Herrman's," the car was flooded with a glow from the brilliant lettering proclaiming that So-and-So (some star whose name now slips my memory) was appearing there.

Hackett clutched my arm.

"See that!" he exclaimed. "One day you will read my name in similar letters of fire!"

Then he aspired only to stardom, little recking that he was to become a manager as well. But he has a foundation, broad and deep, behind him. His father was the J.H. Hackett whoseFalstaffwas so inimitable that it came to be associated with him almost in the guise of a Christian name. His mother—and a more devoted parent never lived—was also once on the boards.

James K. was born amid the swirlingwaters of the St. Lawrence, on Wolfe Island, Ontario, his father being almost seventy at the time.

The late Recorder Hackett, of New York, was a half-brother of the present actor-manager. James has no recollection of his father, as he was scarcely two years old when he died. His mother has been his guardian angel since birth. She brought him up in New York City, with the idea that law should be his life vocation; but from the age of seven, when he recited Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" in public, amateur theatricals played a big part in his aspirations. He was in the class of '91 of the College of the City of New York, and when he was about nineteen I remember seeing him at the Berkeley Lyceum, in a representation by the college dramatic club, as "Joseph Pickle, inclined to mischief," in "The Pink Mask."

It was his experience in performances like this that helped him to make his start when he finally decided—as such a throng have done before him—to abandon law in favor of the footlights. He began on March 28, 1892, in Philadelphia, with A.M. Palmer's company, then presenting "The Broken Seal." He had only six lines to speak, but the very next week J.H. Stoddart gave him an opening for something better, as he once gave Mansfield, though under altogether different circumstances.

Mrs. Stoddart died suddenly, and during his absence from the company his part ofJean Torqueriewas entrusted to young Hackett, who acquitted himself so well therein that he was enabled to obtain a post with Lotta as her leading man. Lotta's retirement threw him on the market, from which he was removed by no less distinguished a manager than Augustin Daly.

At Daly's then he appeared asMaster Wilfordin "The Hunchback," with Ada Rehan asJulia, Isabel Irving (whom Hackett has since starred in "The Crisis") asHelen, and Arthur Bourchier (now a leading actor-manager of London, and who created the part Hackett played here in "The Walls of Jericho") asSir Thomas Clifford.

From Daly's he passed to the road under the management of Arthur Rehan as leading man in successes from Daly's, which led to his becoming a star in the same modest orbit in a repertoire of old-timers such as "Mixed Pickles" (on which his amateur venture, "The Pink Mask," had been based), "The Arabian Nights," and "The Private Secretary."

He was lifted into the prominence imparted by a Broadway run through the agency of "Madame Sans Gêne," in which Dan Frohman saw him, with the result that in November, 1895, he appeared with the old Lyceum stock company as a character next in importance to Herbert Kelcey, then leading man of the troupe. The play was a serious one, "The Home Secretary," by R.C. Carton, who had not then taken such wild farcical flights as "Mr. Hopkinson."

It was just at this time that Mr. Frohman decided to try rather an odd experiment. As had been his custom, E.H. Sothern had opened the autumn season at the Lyceum, and this year with even more than his wonted success, for he had appeared in the first transfer to the stage of "The Prisoner of Zenda." Previous bookings compelled his relegation to the road in the very height of the New York hit, and in mid-winter, after sizing up his new acquisition to the stock forces, Mr. Frohman decided to duplicate the outfittings of "The Prisoner of Zenda" and put it on at the Lyceum with Hackett in the dual part ofRassendylland the king.

What Kelcey thought of this arrangement has never been made public. But he was temperamentally unsuited to romantic rôles, and did admirable work in the heavier part ofBlack Michael, with the explanatory line "by special arrangement" beneath his name on the program.

This was Hackett's opportunity, and he availed himself of it to the full, winning the Lyceum clientage for his firm adherents, so that when Kelcey went starring the next autumn with Effie Shannon he stepped into the shoes of the leading man of the house. In the opening bill, "The Courtship of Leonie," he met for the first time the new leading woman, Mary Mannering, who in due course became his wife.

It was two years later that Mr. Frohman launched Hackett as a star in the "Prisoner of Zenda's" sequel, "Rupert of Hentzau," which had no Broadway showing. Its successor, "The Pride of Jennico," made up for this by setting Hackett on a pedestal so firmly rooted in public favor that in a year or so he became his own manager, and his youthful dream was fulfilled.

After Becoming Stage-Struck, MargueriteClark Began Her Professional Careeras a Singer in a Baltimore Park.

"Stage-struck" is the cause that sent to the boards Marguerite Clark, the little leading woman of the big comedian, De Wolf Hopper. A native of Boston, she studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, but had no stage acquaintances and no means of securing an opening.

One evening, however, she was singing at a friend's house, when there chanced to be among the guests the manager of an open-air resort in the neighborhood of Baltimore. It was, in brief, one of those parks at the end of a trolley line, which the street railway company promotes in order to boom traffic. Struck by Miss Clark's capabilities, and learning of her histrionic ambitions, he offered her an engagement for the summer, which she was only too glad to accept. In this rather humble way, then, she made her start, singing before such heterogeneous crowds as the trolley emptied into the park from all quarters of the Monumental City.

When frost set in there was, of course, an end to the engagement, but little Miss Clark had no thought of quitting the game. She came on to New York, and began a systematic tour of the agencies and the managers' offices, and finally she landed an engagement with the chorus of Sousa's opera, "The Bride-Elect." From this she passed to the Casino, when Irene Bentley was appearing there in "The Belle of Bohemia." She was now entrusted with her first part, which secured her an opening with Hopper in "Mr. Pickwick." In this she was Sam Weller's sweetheartPolly. One of the critics said of her:

"Marguerite Clark is a most cunning and comely little girl—pretty enough to rave about—and many amusing miles away from the Dickens picture."

"Mr. Pickwick," by the way, will probably turn out to be the last musical play that Charles Klein will write. Since the abounding success of "The Music Master" and "The Lion and the Mouse," the so-called legitimate field will doubtless claim all his time.

To return to Miss Clark, when Hopper revived "Wang," she was cast forMatayaon account of her size, but was so afraid to come into New York with it that for that period she went to Boston and appeared in "The Babes in the Wood."

The Prosy Addresses of Fourth-of-JulySpeakers Goaded Him On to theStudy of Declamation.

"It wasnotbecause I happened to have long legs that I decided to put myself as Abraham Lincoln into a play."

So said Benjamin Chapin when I approached him with a request to talk a bit for the benefit ofThe Scrap Bookreaders.

And when I saw the man out of character I could not blame him for being a little ruffled at the persistent press talk about his doing the Lincoln play because he looked like the famous President. I had gone so far into this belief myself that I was distinctly amazed when the door opened to admit a young man, one not much more than thirty, I should say. The face is long, to be sure, and the frame loose-jointed, but Mr. Chapin's features blend into rather an attractive composite, and Mr. Lincoln, as everybody knows, never laid any claims to good looks.

"Why did I elect to do Lincoln, then?" Mr. Chapin went on. "Because it was the hardest thing of any to do. Any man with the proper amount of ambition in him likes to tackle and overcome difficulties, and in placing our first martyred President on the stage I realized to the full how carefully I must work to keep from falling into pits that would open up on every side of me. But you want to know how I came to go into this line of work at the very beginning, don't you?

"Let me see! I should say the foundations were laid when I was a small boy of ten—out in my native State of Ohio. I used to listen to the Fourth-of-July orators talk on in their prosy way, in a dull monotone, and on Sundays the preachers would speak in the same dismal manner.

"'Why don't they convince the people that they are in earnest?' I would say to myself"—and Mr. Chapin let out his voice in a fashion that made the rafters of the small room ring. "That's the way I felt about the power of the voice even at that early era.

"One summer we were having a picnic—I think it was a Sunday-school affair. Anyhow, there were to be speeches by the boys and girls out in the woods. I wouldn't rehearse mine. You see, I had made up my mine[** mind] to surprise folks. Nobody had ever heard me speak before, and here was the chance to live up to my own theories.

"What my selection was I cannot just recall. I think it was one of Will Carleton's descriptive ballads. Anyway, I let myself out on it in a fashion that made everybody gasp with wonder. And so the thing began. I knew then that my life-work must be something in which I could appeal to the public through the medium of the voice.

"I thought of law for a while, then had a hankering after politics. Finally I drifted into the line of impersonations through monologues.

"I have been working on the drama of 'Lincoln' for years. The version I amdoing is by no means the only one I have written around the war-time President, but it seemed to be the one, all things considered, best adapted for the stage."

For the past half-dozen years Mr. Chapin has been all over the country on the lecture platform, but he has by no means confined himself to Lincoln. He has impersonated, among others, Rip Van Winkle and Cyrano de Bergerac. He has great ambitions in the direction of playwriting.

"I have discovered," he told me in this connection, "that if a play does not elicit from its audience over two hundred distinct expressions of approval, in the shape either of laughs, applause, or that almost imperceptible stir of expectancy, it is a failure."

If the English Actor Had Been LessCareless as a Law Clerk, He WouldNot Have Been "Mr. Hopkinson."

When the year 1906 began, American playgoers had never heard of an actor by the name of Dallas Welford. Before Easter all New York was applauding his work as the unconscionable little bounder in the title rôle of R.C. Carton's English farce, "Mr. Hopkinson."

In order to obtain forThe Scrap Booksome facts, at first hand, concerning his early life, I interviewed him in his dressing-room one afternoon after a matinée. And dressing, with him, is a very simple process, as he uses no make-up at all, and consequently does not have to give his face a bath of cold cream after the play in order to take the grease-paint off.

In fact, so simple are his preparations for the street that he once went out to dinner with a friend forgetting to remove the tiny false mustache which is all the concession to the mummer's mask he makes in fitting himself to the character of the Cockney tradesman who has come into money.

"How did I start?" he said, in answer to my query. "Well, you see, in one sense I did not need an introduction to the stage, or what you call 'pull,' because my mother was an actress, and as a kid I went on in the inevitable way as theDuke of Yorkin 'Richard III,' besides being the perennialLittle Williein 'East Lynne.'

"I remember, too, that I was the child in your 'Danites' when it was done over on our side. But my mother did not want me to stick to the boards. She thought I wasn't adapted to make a success of it, and when I had had my bit of schooling she put me in a solicitor's office, or 'lawyer's,' as you call 'em over here.

"Well"—and he laughed at the recollection called up—"I lasted there just a week. You see, when I was sent out with writs to deliver, I used to serve the originals and keep the copies. You can believe there was some lively goings-on in that office when the boss found this out.

"He didn't enter any objections at all to my taking up a stage career—oh, no, not in the least! But my mother did, so I just went out and hunted up a job—any old thing, as a starter, so long as I once got my foot inside the stage door again.

"Where I landed finally was in a melodrama of 'The Glazier's Bride' type. I believe I was a luggage carrier, or some such modest adjunct to the proceedings. You see, it's easier to get your start in melodrama, because there are more people in a play like that, and there are sure to be parts for 'freshies' such as I was then. In comedy, the line I wanted, the least you can be is a butler or footman, and you know in some farces the butler comes pretty near being as important as the leading man.

"So while I was learning the ropes I stayed in the'penny dreadful'kind of play, gradually working my way up. This lasted for about five years [Mr. Welford has been on the stage seventeen, being in the neighborhood of thirty], when finally I got my chance in comedy in a play from your side, 'My Friend the Prince,' done over here—some of the time by Willie Collier—as 'My Friend from India.' Yes, I was the chap disguised as the East Indian who does the trick with the mirror. I have stayed in comedy ever since."

In London, James Welch, the creator ofMr. Hopkinson, has been in quite hard luck since the long run ceased, two new ventures having turned out failures.

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.—Thomas Paine.

A Curious Poetic Creation That Has Puzzled Many Readers, and aSolution of the Mystery.

In the earlier history of man the riddle was an important intellectual test. To be able to guess hard riddles was supposed to indicate wisdom, and often a great deal was made to depend upon the issue of a guessing contest. The most famous riddle of antiquity was the one which the Sphinx is said to have proposed to Oedipus: "What is that which has four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" And it has been asserted that Homer died of vexation because he could not find an answer to the riddle: "What we caught we threw away, what we could not catch we kept."

The riddle is the result of the perception of analogies. Note your analogy and put it in the form of a question, and you have your riddle. The conundrum, which has largely replaced the riddle, is a pun concerning which a question is asked. The conundrum may be witty; the riddle may be broadly humorous—and, indeed, it is probably the earliest form of humor.

Among modern riddles, this of Lord Byron's once puzzled many people. The appended "solution" appeared years ago in the Essex (Massachusetts)Register.

I'm not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,But in infancy ever am known;I'm a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,And though I'm distinguished in history's page,I always am greatest alone.I'm not in the earth, nor the sun, nor the moon,You may search all the sky—I'm not there;In the morning and evening—tho' not in the noon,You may plainly perceive me, for like a balloon,I am midway suspended in air.I am always in riches and yet I am told,Wealth did ne'er my presence desire;I dwell with the miser, but not with his gold,And sometimes I stand in the chimney so cold,Though I serve as a part of the fire.I often am met in political life—In my absence no kingdom can be;And they say there can neither be friendship nor strife,No one can live single, no one take a wife,Without interfering with me.My brethren are many, and of my whole race,No one is more slender and tall;And though not the eldest, I hold the first place,And even in dishonor, despair, and disgrace,I boldly appear 'mong them all.Though disease may possess me, and sickness and pain,I am never in sorrow or gloom;Though in wit and wisdom I equally reign,I'm the heart of sin, and have long lived in vain,And I ne'er shall be found in the tomb!

I'm not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,But in infancy ever am known;I'm a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,And though I'm distinguished in history's page,I always am greatest alone.

I'm not in the earth, nor the sun, nor the moon,You may search all the sky—I'm not there;In the morning and evening—tho' not in the noon,You may plainly perceive me, for like a balloon,I am midway suspended in air.

I am always in riches and yet I am told,Wealth did ne'er my presence desire;I dwell with the miser, but not with his gold,And sometimes I stand in the chimney so cold,Though I serve as a part of the fire.

I often am met in political life—In my absence no kingdom can be;And they say there can neither be friendship nor strife,No one can live single, no one take a wife,Without interfering with me.

My brethren are many, and of my whole race,No one is more slender and tall;And though not the eldest, I hold the first place,And even in dishonor, despair, and disgrace,I boldly appear 'mong them all.

Though disease may possess me, and sickness and pain,I am never in sorrow or gloom;Though in wit and wisdom I equally reign,I'm the heart of sin, and have long lived in vain,And I ne'er shall be found in the tomb!

From the Essex (Massachusetts) "Register."

Lord Byron, your riddle is dark, I confess,But dark as it is, I will venture to guess.Though 'tis found not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,Though a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,Though earth don't contain it, the sun nor the moon.Though in darkness 'tis absent, and also in noon;Though 'tis not found in searching the heavens sublime;Yet by guessing, I think I shall guess it in time.If disease must possess it, and sickness and pain,If suspended in air and has long lived in vain,If in sin you can find it, I will not deny,As you are freed from it, it must then beI.

Lord Byron, your riddle is dark, I confess,But dark as it is, I will venture to guess.

Though 'tis found not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age,Though a stranger alike to the fool and the sage,Though earth don't contain it, the sun nor the moon.Though in darkness 'tis absent, and also in noon;Though 'tis not found in searching the heavens sublime;Yet by guessing, I think I shall guess it in time.

If disease must possess it, and sickness and pain,If suspended in air and has long lived in vain,If in sin you can find it, I will not deny,As you are freed from it, it must then beI.

The Famous Air Had a Checkered Career and Hobnobbed With SomeQueer Lyrics Before a British Surgeon Unwittingly Gave tothe American Patriots a Battle Song.

An original article written forThe Scrap Book.

Our oldest national nickname is "Yankee." In the early Colonial days, the Indians stumbling over the pronunciation of the language of the pale-face, called the English "Yenghies." By corruption, "Yenghies" became "Yanghies" and "Yankees." The settlers took the word "Yankees" back again from their copper-skinned neighbors, and they seem to have used it in a slangy way.

As early as 1713 Jonathan Hastings, a farmer of Cambridge, in New England, used the word as a synonym for excellence, saying of anything which he especially admired:

"It is Yankee good"—that is, probably: "It is as good as if English made."

However, it is worthy of note that Jamieson's "Scottish Dictionary" gives a Scottish word, "Yankie," with the definition: "A sharp, clever woman, at the same time including an idea of forwardness."

The modern notion of Yankee shrewdness might seem to justify the derivation from the Scottish, but, as it happens, the Yankee was not generally considered shrewd and clever until a much later period than the pre-Revolutionary days.

Perhaps, as the occasional explanation has it, the people of the other colonies got to calling New Englanders "Jonathan Yankees," after Jonathan Hastings. Also it may be true that the word has more than one derivation—a possibility which will become apparent when we consider the origin of the song "Yankee Doodle."

Everybody knows the tune of "Yankee Doodle," but few people know the words. The air has been ascribed to several different countries. Kossuth, during his visit to the United States, recognized it as Hungarian, and it has also been identified with an ancient Biscayan sword-dance. In the Netherlands there is, or used to be, a harvesting song, sung by laborers, who were paid with a tenth of the grain and all the buttermilk they could drink:

Yankerdidel doodel down,Didel, dudel lanter,Yanke viver, voover, vown,Botermilk und tanther.

In other words, "buttermilk and a tenth." Old Hollanders in the United States may recall the stanza.

In the days of Cromwell, one of the nicknames which the Cavaliers bestowed upon the Puritans was "Nankee Doodle." When Cromwell entered Oxford this stanza was written:

Nankee Doodle came to townUpon a little pony,With a feather in his hatUpon a macaroni.

Another and more common version was as follows:

Yankee Doodle came to townUpon a Kentish pony;He stuck a feather in his hatAnd called him Macaroni.

In the reign of Charles II we first hear beyond any doubt the air to which "Yankee Doodle" is now sung. To it were set the following lines, which remain as a nursery rhyme:

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,Kitty Fisher found it;Nothing in it, nothing in it,But the binding 'round it.

The air came to be known as "Kitty Fisher," or "Kitty Fisher's Jig."

In 1755, when the Colonial troops were joining the British regulars in the invasion of Canada, by way of Albany, Dr. Schuckburgh, a surgeon attached to Lord Amherst's forces, is said to have derisively adopted the tune for the use of the Colonials, who apparently accepted it in good faith as an established martial air.

To attribute to Dr. Schuckburgh the words which were afterward sung to the air is to disregard the internal evidence of the words themselves—unless, as is possible, though not probable, the stanzas referring to Washington were added later.

The full set of stanzas, entitled "The Yankee's Return from Camp," appear to date from the latter part of 1775, after the battle of Bunker Hill, when the Continental army, under General Washington's command, was encamped in the vicinity of Boston.

The Tories were then singing to the old tune of "Kitty Fisher" these lines:

Yankee Doodle came to townFor to buy a firelock;We will tar and feather him,And so we will John Hancock.

The original Tory quatrain referred to the smuggling of muskets into the country by the patriots. The stanzas substituted by some unknown Colonial rimester run as follows:

Father and I went down to camp,Along with Captain Gooding,And there we seed the men and boysAs thick as hasty pudding.Yankee Doodle, keep it up,Yankee Doodle Dandy;Mind the music and the step,And with the girls be handy.And there we seed a thousand men,As rich as 'Squire David;And what they wasted ev'ry day,I wish'd it could be savéd.Yankee Doodle, etc.The 'lasses they eat ev'ry dayWould keep a house in winter;They have so much that I be bound,They eat it when they're amind ter.Yankee Doodle, etc.And there we see a swamping gun,Large as a log of maple,Upon a deuced little cart,A load for father's cattle.Yankee Doodle, etc.And ev'ry time they shoot it offIt takes a horn of powder;It makes a noise like father's gun,Only a nation louder.Yankee Doodle, etc.I went as nigh to one myselfAs 'Siah's underpinning;And father went as nigh again—I thought the deuce was in him.Yankee Doodle, etc.Cousin Simon was so 'tarnal bold,I thought he would have cocked it;It scar'd me so, I streak'd it off,And hung by father's pocket.Yankee Doodle, etc.And Captain Davis had a gun,He kind of clapp'd his hand on't.And stuck a crooked stabbing ironUpon the little end on't.Yankee Doodle, etc.And there I see a pumpkin shellAs big as mother's basin,And ev'ry time they touched it offThey scamper'd like the nation.Yankee Doodle, etc.I see a little barrel, too,The heads were made of leather;They knock'd upon't with little clubs,And call'd the folks together.Yankee Doodle, etc.And there was Captain Washington,And gentlefolks about him;They say he's grown so 'tarnal proudHe will not ride without 'em.Yankee Doodle, etc.He got him on his meeting-clothes,Upon a slapping stallion;He set the world along in rows,In hundreds or a million.Yankee Doodle, etc.I see another snarl of menA-digging graves, that told me,So 'tarnal long, so 'tarnal deep,They 'tended they should hold me.Yankee Doodle, etc.It scar'd me so I hooked it off,Nor stopped, as I remember,Nor turned about till I got home,Clear up in mother's chamber.Yankee Doodle, etc.

And there we seed a thousand men,As rich as 'Squire David;And what they wasted ev'ry day,I wish'd it could be savéd.Yankee Doodle, etc.

The 'lasses they eat ev'ry dayWould keep a house in winter;They have so much that I be bound,They eat it when they're amind ter.Yankee Doodle, etc.

And there we see a swamping gun,Large as a log of maple,Upon a deuced little cart,A load for father's cattle.Yankee Doodle, etc.

And ev'ry time they shoot it offIt takes a horn of powder;It makes a noise like father's gun,Only a nation louder.Yankee Doodle, etc.

I went as nigh to one myselfAs 'Siah's underpinning;And father went as nigh again—I thought the deuce was in him.Yankee Doodle, etc.

Cousin Simon was so 'tarnal bold,I thought he would have cocked it;It scar'd me so, I streak'd it off,And hung by father's pocket.Yankee Doodle, etc.

And Captain Davis had a gun,He kind of clapp'd his hand on't.And stuck a crooked stabbing ironUpon the little end on't.Yankee Doodle, etc.

And there I see a pumpkin shellAs big as mother's basin,And ev'ry time they touched it offThey scamper'd like the nation.Yankee Doodle, etc.

I see a little barrel, too,The heads were made of leather;They knock'd upon't with little clubs,And call'd the folks together.Yankee Doodle, etc.

And there was Captain Washington,And gentlefolks about him;They say he's grown so 'tarnal proudHe will not ride without 'em.Yankee Doodle, etc.

He got him on his meeting-clothes,Upon a slapping stallion;He set the world along in rows,In hundreds or a million.Yankee Doodle, etc.

I see another snarl of menA-digging graves, that told me,So 'tarnal long, so 'tarnal deep,They 'tended they should hold me.Yankee Doodle, etc.

It scar'd me so I hooked it off,Nor stopped, as I remember,Nor turned about till I got home,Clear up in mother's chamber.Yankee Doodle, etc.

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) wrote "The American Flag" as a mere fugitive contribution to theEvening Postwhen he was little more than twenty-one. It belonged to a series of hastily written verses to which the author attached no value. Long afterward a friend of his—a Dr. DeKay—carefully gathered together these stray poems, and showed them to Drake, who said:

"Oh, burn them up! They are worthless."

Fortunately, his friend refused to burn them; and thus one of the finest gems of our national poetry was rescued. Tradition tells us that the last eight lines of "The American Flag" were added to the original draft by Drake's friend and fellow poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck.

By JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

Back to Index Next