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.) 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 rampartɛ 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; On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 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. From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation! And this be our motto-" In God is our trust". And the Star-Spangled banner in triumph shall wave JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 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 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" was prepared mainly by his sons and Rev. John Bachman of South Carolina. These works gave him a European repuHe died at Minniesland, now Audubon Park, New tation. 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 |