st of music in
defiance of the storm. The Trenton's band was playing "The
Star-Spangled Banner." The feelings of the Americans on the beach were
indescribable. Men who on that awful day had exhausted every means of
rendering some assistance to their comrades now seemed inspired to
greater efforts. They dashed at the surf like wild creatures; but they
were powerless.

No; it is too late to divorce words and music.

The song is generally accorded its deserved honor; the man who wrote it
has been allowed to remain in unmerited obscurity. The Pacific coast
alone, in one of the most beautiful of personal monuments,* has
acknowledged his service to his country--a service which will terminate
only with that country's life; for he who gives a nation its popular
air, enfeoffs posterity with an inalienable gift. Yet Key was the
close personal friend of Jackson, Taney,--who was his
brother-in-law--John Randolph of Roanoke, and William Wilberforce. He
it was, in all probability, who first thought out the scheme of the
African Colonization Society; the first, on his estate in Frederick
County, to open, in 1806, a Sunday-school for slaves; who set free his
own slaves; and who was, throughout his whole career, the highest
contemporary type of a modest Christian gentleman. This religious side
of Key's character found expression in that fine hymn found in the
hymnals of all Protestant denominations,

Lord, with glowing heart I'd praise thee.

*In Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Foote, in his "Reminiscences," leads us to think highly also of Key's
personal appearance, and of his powers as a public speaker.

Francis Scott Key was the son of John Ross Key, a Revolutionary
officer. He was born in Frederick County, Maryland, August, 1780. He
studied law, was admitted to the bar at Frederick, subsequently moved
to Georgetown, and was district attorney for three terms. He was
frequently intrusted with delicate missions by President Jackson. A
volume of his poems was published in 1856. He died in 1843, and is
buried in the little cemetery at Frederick, Maryland. Efforts have
been made in his native State to erect a monument over his grave, but
unsuccessfully. In justice such a memorial shaft should be the gift of
the whole American people.

As it is, his grave is not without tributes which are curious and
honorable. During the war Frederick was quietly a "rebel town," but it
contained one good patriot besides Barbar