Music as a Bond of Union.
Our familiar tune "America," for which the late Dr. Smith wrote the patriotic words, is a very old one, and is the national air of Great Britain and of Germany, as well as of the United States—if we may be said to have any one national tune. Some time since the King of Italy and the Emperor of Germany met in an Italian city. The Emperor of Germany is, you know, a grandson of Queen Victoria of England. The Italian band, out of compliment to the visiting sovereign, played the German national air. An English woman in the crowd, ignorant of the fact that her "God save the Queen," like our "God bless our native land," is not exclusive property, but borrowed, remarked, with characteristic English assurance, "How sweet of them at such a time to remember Emperor William's grandmother!"