God bless the Prince of Wales, Grant us one favor more, As thou hast done before, Is this the original of Carey's song, or a reminiscence of it? The absence of the name of the king introduced by Carey in the first lines, and the allusion in the latter to the birth of the son of James II., which was regarded by the Jacobites as a special interposition of Providence, and by the Whigs as too nearly miraculous to be believed in, seem to point it out as of the very earliest Jacobite origin, and written probably in the first years of the reign of William and Mary, as the king mentioned is plainly James himself, who lost the battle of the Boyne in 1690, and died in 1701. As Carey died by his own hand three years before the Jacobite insurrection of 1745, he probably composed what Mr. George Hogarth calls "this noble strain of patriotic loyalty," in 1714 or 1715, when the landing of the Pretender was anxiously expected by all parties, and the writ of habeas corpus was suspended. Many additional stanzas have been written to "God Save the King," but none of them have established themselves as a part of the hymn. One of them is sufficiently comical to be worth noticing. It was written during the second British civil war of the * From Clarke's "Dissertation on God Save the King." last century, and after the first victories of the young Pretender, against whom was sent, among other commanders, General Wade, an officer from whom much was expected. So the lieges added a stanza to their loyal song, and sang it at both the playhouses, beginning : "Lord, grant that Marshal Wade May, by thy mighty aid, A petition that brings to mind some of those put-up now-a-days in New England, in which the petitioners, not content to ask for daily bread, or other benefits in general terms, send up with their prayers special intimations of the mode in which they might most conveniently, or at least agreeably, be granted. For manifestly Wade is the individual mainly looked to; and the mighty aid plainly has its chief value in rhyming with the Marshal's name, and in furnishing also a parenthetical conscience-saver, or assurance of distinguished consideration in the other quarter. Not Marshal Wade, but the Duke of Cumberland brought victory. And, apropos of victories and defeats in the "unholy civil war" of the times when the British national hymn was coming into vogue, fought about a mere matter of government by "fratricidal” hands, and not malapropos of certain defeats about these times, and what has been said of them, it is worth while to read over those brief pas sages of British history. Sept. 1745. "With this reinforcement, his troops [Sir John Cope's, commander of the royal forces] amounted to near three thousand men; and he began his march to Edinburgh in order to give battle to the enemy. *** Early next morning he was attacked by the young Pretender at the head of about two thousand four hundred highlanders, half armed, who charged him sword in hand with such impetuosity that in less than ten minutes after the battle began the King's troops were broken and totally routed. The dragoons fled in the utmost confusion at the first onset: the general officers having made some unsuccessful efforts to rally them thought proper to consult their own safety by an expeditious retreat towards Coldstream on the Tweed. All the infantry were either killed or taken; and their colors, artillery, tents, baggage and military chest fell into the hands of the victor, who returned in triumph to Edinburgh. * ** Not above fifty of the rebels lost their lives in the engagement. Five hundred of the King's troops were killed on the field of battle." -Smollet's "History of England," vol. iii. p. 143. ed. 1827. Jan. 1746. "By this time a considerable body of forces were assembled at Edinburgh under conduct of General Hawley, who determined to relieve Stirling Castle. *** Such was his obstinacy, self-conceit, or contempt of the enemy, that he slighted the repeated intelligence he had received of their motions and design, firmly believing they durst not hazard an engagement. * * * The highlanders kept up their fire, and took aim so well that the assailants were broke by the first volley; they retreated with precipitation. * * * The rebels followed their first blow, and the great part of the royal army, after one irregular discharge, turned their backs and fled in the utmost consternation." -Idem. Ibid. p. 153. After the battle of Manassas it would be very presuming in an American to say anything about panics, or to discuss the question whether the regular troops of any other than a pusillanimous people could flee panic-stricken from less than their own number of half-armed volunteers; and so these passages present a difficulty which must be passed over in silence. But the historian helps us a little by telling us that in April following, these very thrice-victorious rebel volunteers, "having been under arms during the whole preceding night," and being "faint with hunger and fatigue, and many of them overpowered with sleep," were routed at the battle of Culloden, in the famous slaughter at which, by the way, Hawley and his troops did distinguished service. "In less than thirty minutes they were totally defeated, and the field covered with the slain. The road as far as Inverness, was strewed with dead bodies; and a great number of people who, from motives of curiosity, had come to see the battle, were sacrificed to the undistinguishing vengeance of the victors."Ib. Id., p. 159.. Events never repeat themselves exactly; but there is sometimes a striking similarity between them; so striking that it is hardly safe, whatever happens, for a people to say, "We never did," or "we never would do so. Look at us; be humiliated, and take example." Americans should remember this, and lay the lesson well to heart. But to return to the new song which some Englishmen were singing at both the playhouses about the time of these battles for the success of King George, while some others these, too, the "real original Jacob-ites"were singing it at their own houses for the success of King James.-A time, Mr. Punch when, O grinning puppet, jerked into antics with strings mostly of a three-penny value, and with a single eye upon the crowd through which the hat is passing,— British Jacobites were pot, And loyal British, kettle, Men of equal mettle.* * See the following stanza in Punch upon "The Run from Manassas Junction." The majestic beauty of the music of "God Save the King" has won it a singular distinction which is quite inconsistent with one of the functions of a national air. It has been adopted for the national hymns of Prussia, Hanover, Weimar, Brunswick, and Saxony; so that its distinctive nationality is no longer in its music, but only in its poor, perverted, rebel-born words. "We for North and South alike Entertain affection. These for Negro slavery strike, Those for forced protection. Yankee Doodle is the pot, Southerner the kettle, Equal morally, if not Men of equal mettle. And so slavery and a high tariff are now equal morally in John Bull's eyes! The admission of what the whole world more than suspected has come at last. Its candor, not to say effrontery, gives it some claim upon admiration. And is it thus that Britain stands confessed before us! Britain indeed; but, alas, how much changed from that Britain that decked herself in the spoils of slavery, and hurled the fires of consuming vengeance upon the inhuman fleets! |