FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

1780-1843 FRANCIS Scott Key was born in Frederick county, Maryland, and was educated at St. John's College, Annapolis. He became a lawyer, was appointed District Attorney of the District of Columbia, and spent his life in Washington City.

A very handsome monument has been erected to his memory in San Francisco by Mr. James Lick: his song, the “Star-Spangled Banner," will be his enduring monument throughout our country. It was composed during the attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor, 1814. Key had gone to the British vessel to get a friend released from imprisonment, in which he succeeded, but he was kept on board the enemy's vessel until after the attack on the fort; and the song commemorates his evening and morning watch for the star-spangled banner on Fort McHenry, and the appearance of the flag in “the morning's first beam” showed that the attack had been successfully resisted. The words were written on an old envelope. (See illustrations in the Century Magazine, July, 1894.)

WORKS.

Poems, with a sketch by Chief-Justice Tanėy.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

Oh! say can you see by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the clouds of the fight

O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O, say, does that Star-Spangled banner yet wave
C'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses ?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
Tis the Star-Spangled banner; 0, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave !

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more ?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of Alight, or the gloom of the grave;
And the Star-Spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation !
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation !
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto-" In God is our trust”-
And the Star-Spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.

1780-1851. John JAMES AUDUBON was born near New Orleans and educated in France where he studied painting under David. While still a young man, his father put him in charge of a country estate in Pennsylvania. Afterwards he engaged in mercantile persuits in Philadelphia, Louisville, New Orleans, and Henderson, Kentucky, but unsuccessfully; for he knew and cared much more about the birds, flowers, and beasts

was

around him than about the kinds and prices of goods that his neighbors needed.

His great literary and artistic work is “The Birds of America," consisting of five volumes of Ornithological Biographies and four volumes of exquisite portraits of birds, life-size, in natural colors, and surrounded by the plants which each one most likes. “ Quadrupeds of America prepared mainly by his sons and Rev. John Bachman of South Carolina. These works gave him a European reputation. He died at Minniesland, now Audubon Park, New York City.

His style in writing is pure, vivid, and so clear as to place before us the very thing or event described. The accounts of his travels and of the adventures he met with in his search for his birds and animals are very natural and picturesque; and they show also his own fine nature and attractive character.

A biography arranged from his diary by Mrs. Audubon was published in New York, 1868. See also Samuel Smiles' “Brief Biographies.” The State Library of North Carolina possesses a set of Audubon's invaluable works, of which there are only eight sets in America.

THE MOCKING-BIRD.

It is where the great magnolia shoots up its majestic trunk, crowned with evergreen leaves, and decorated with a thousand beautiful flowers, that perfume the air around; where the forests and the fields are adorned with blossoms of

every hue; where the golden orange ornaments the gardens and groves; where bignonias of various kinds interlace their climbing stems around the white-flowered Stuartia, and, mounting still higher, cover the summits of the lofty trees around, accompanied with innumerable vines, that