STORY BEHIND THE SONG.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16656, 28 November 1925, Page 9

STORY BEHIND THE SONG.

HOME, SWEET HOME. THE COMPOSER. The House of Representatives in Washington on© December night some seventy-five years ago was included in the itinerary of tiie famous Jenny Lind during her triumphant American tour under P. T. Bsrrnum’s management. That canny showman ingeniously succeeded in having Capitol Hill selected for the songbird’s debut in Washington, writes J. J. Ciller, in the >New York Herald-Tribune. For once our sawmakers and statesmen buried their political differenies and turned out on masse to honour the foreign songstress. Bel ore an assemblage consisting of President Fillmore, the Cabinet, the Vive-President, justiies. ministers of State, ambassadors, Congressmen and other dignitaries, the matchless singer that night had held her distinguished audience spellbound. When she arrived at the final number on her programme she launched softly into the tender strains of the greatest hearth song, “Home, Sweet Home!” The songstress's face was turned toward the lonely author of that never-to-be-forgotten song—John Howard Payne, who was present m the audience. She sang this tender melody with much pathos and eino tion. “ Perhaps there hashed througn her mind her own home across the sea. At the conclusion it found many of her listeners choked with emotion.

After these many years “Home, Sweet Home!” with its world appeal, still melts the heart of any audience, anywhere. It is the universality of the poem that makes this ballad impressive of the melancholy left by a man, friendless in a distant country. Only a wanderer within foreign gates, feeling the pangs of lonesomeness stealing o’er him, is able to express a yearning for his fireside, he it where it may. Was it any wonder that the gifted author, John Howard Payne, unknown and poor, from his garret gave to the world the greatest “home” song of them all after living in France for a score of years? While eking out a precarious existence as an adapter of French drama into English, Payne interpolated his own original poem, “Home, Sweet Home!” into a translation of “Ciari, or the Maid of Milan,” an opera. When sung in London for the world premiere in 1823 at the famous Covent Garden Theatre it elicited the same affectionate regard that followed it later in Washington. The opera was enormously prosperous and made fortunes for all concerned except the always unfortunate and dependent writer. With all of Payne’s remarkable talents as actor, journalist, song-writer and dramatist, he was constantly in want. In 1841 he forsook the shores of England for a journey to Washington, where he filed application for the consular' service. He .was promptly appointed United States Consul to faroff Tunis, in northern Africa, where he remained a few years. A change of administration forced him to return to Washington, which, by a strange coincidence, was timed with the noted Jenny Lind’s appearance in .the- same city. However, Payne’s consulship was restored to him by President Fillmore in 1851. His tenure of office this time was brief, for he died the following-' year.

in 1883, through the beneficence of a Washington philanthropist, Payne’s remains were borne across the sea to the capital of his country. A chorus of one thousand voices, blended withan orchestra, sang his unforgettable lyric as his body was lowered into its final resting place—a eulogy to the wandering American who carved in song a monument to one’s home, be it ever so humble.