he public force. . . . . . .
Beware how you give a fatal sanction, in this infant period of our
republic, scarcely yet two score years old, to military
insubordination. Remember that Greece had her Alexander, Rome her
Caesar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte, and that, if we
would escape the rock on which they split, we must avoid their errors.

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 Taney.

[Illustration: ~Star-Spangled Banner.~]

[Illustration: Obverse
Reverse
~Seal of the United States.~]

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
O'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