The Evening Star SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1940. THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.

Evening Star, Issue 23651, 10 August 1940, Page 10

The Evening Star SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1940. THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.

A week ago the Empire was celebrating—or forgetting to celebrate—the two hundredth anniversary of ‘ Rule, Britannia.’ Everyone agrees that this is a fine piece of poetical declamation and fine music, but it is hardly an exaggeration to say that no Englishman ever sings it. That is because the ordinary Englishman suffers from a bashfuluess which makes him afraid to betray himself, even in speech, where his deepest emotions are concerned. Understatement is his refuge; he has a morbid horror of boasting; however much he may believe that “ Britons never will be slaves,” nothing would persuade him to shout it. To that extent the Englishman is a hypocrite; ‘ Rule, Britannia ’ was written by a Scotsman. The figurative, again, is not in the Englishman’s way. It is easy to believe that he would like Thomson’s (or Mallet’s) hymn more if it were less poetical. The foreigner has reason to be amazed.

Some Englishmen no doubt will have praised ‘ Rule, Britannia ’ on the occasion of its bicentenary. ’ Our music writer has done so, defending the words —which ought not to need defence—and extolling the music, but we suspect him to be an Irishman. What we should like to see—and it would be peculiarly fitting at this time—is a eulogy of the British National Anthem. In a real sense that has had a worse fate than its companion song. It is sung by everyone, as an obligation and the expression of a deeply-felt sentiment, but always with the implication, when comment is made on the matter, that it is a pity the sentiment could not have been better expressed. ‘ Rule, Britannia ’ was too poetical; the National Anthem is not poetical enough. And it says so little, as we are accustomed to sing it. A prayer for the Sovereign which is not much more than th© Prayer Book’s “ grant him in health gad wealth long to live,” which Emerson thought typically English in its materialism; a commendation of the Sovereign which for a hundred years has been deserved, but must before that have appeared a sorry mockery; and a petition that he may always deserve our praise, which is the sole reference to anyone except the Ruler—so the two stanzas might be summarised. No wonder they are thought of as a form which owes its value—past all question and not to be diminished—solely to the purpose it fulfils and not to any merits of the verses themselves, as the “ crooked figure ” may “ attest in little place a milion.” But here come in the Englishman’s idiosyncrasies again, with more contradictions. Scores of “ best hands ” have tried to write alternative National Anthems, which would include reference to the people, to the Empire—provide all those appeals which are thought to be missing from the official one. And the efforts, unassailable' as poetry, have by common consent been ignored. No audience that we have heard of has ever been asked to sing one of them; they might as well not have existed. More strange still, there was never th© need for them which their makers, and it might have been thought the multitude, had imagined. The official National Anthem has a third verse—strictly the second—which « poetry, without being too much so, does include the people in its prayer, and so redeems it from the charges brought against it. And this stanza, sung to the magnificent air of the Anthem, which has never been, and can never be decried, should have power to stir the heart like a trumpet.

O Lord our God arise, Scatter his enemies, And make them fall 1 Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks; On Thee our hopes we fix, God save us all!

Here is something which, for its own merits, is worth singing. The key words, “ Scatter,” “ Confound,” “ Frustrate ” —even “ Knavish ” —are superbly chosen. And this verse almost invariably is omitted. It was cut out of church hymn books, and, after the last war, discarded generally, one can only suppose, from a strange English squeamishnese akin to that dread of boasting that has operated against * Rule, Britannia.’ Is it right to pray that enemies may be scattered? Is it right to call German tricks of war time —lying, and the bombardment of helpless civilians and the breaking of pledgee, which were the same in the last war as in this one—knavish, or to ask that “ power ” politics may be confounded? Those who do not believe that the acts of their enemies are such as this verse would imply have no right to be fighting them, and all Englishmen know well that such are the acte of the Nazis. Why, then, should there be any shrinking from mentioning them? When the Great Armada was dispersed Queen Elizabeth struck a medal whose motto read: “God blew with His winds and they were scattered ” ; and most Englishmen believed it. Would they have sinned if they had prayed for such a scattering, as doubtless they did? One church in Dunedin has restored the best verse of the National Anthem in its congregational singing, and it should be restored generally. In the form in which we have it, the Anthem is slightly younger than ‘ Rule, Britannia,’ which was first sung in public on August 1, 1740. The Anthem may or may not have been first printed in 1742. It became widely known in 1745, during the Jacobite Rebellion, versions of it being sung nightly at Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatres, at both of which Dr Arne, the composer of 1 Rule, Britannia,’ was a frequent conductor. Its author and composer may or may not have been Henry Carey, who composed and wrote ' Sally in Our Alley,’ sung now to another tune. Almost certainly the Anthem’s music was adapted from an earlier air by Dr John Bull (1562-1628), whoso name was without doubt appro-

priate. Again, the claim to authorship has been made for a Scotsman, James Oswald; but Scotsmen cannot have everything. The tune was appropriated by Germany for its national anthem until that was superseded by ‘ Deutschland über Alles,’ and for the American patriotic hymn, ‘ My Country, ’Tis of Thee.’ It was admired by both Beethoven and Haydn, and moved the latter to compose the Austrian National Hymn. Let us enjoy it.