The “Marseillaise Hymn” so long supposed to be the musical as well as verbal composition of Roget de Lisle, an army engineer, was proved to be only his words set to an air in the “Credo” of a German mass, which was the work of one Holzman in 1726. De Lisle was known to be a poet and musician as well as a soldier, and, as he is said to have played or sung at times in the churches and convents, it is probable that he found and copied the manuscript of Holzman's melody. His haste to rush his fiery “Hymn” before the public in the fever of the Revolution allowed him no time to make his own music, and he adapted the German's notes to his words and launched the song in the streets of Strasburg. It was first sung in Paris by a band of chanters from Marseilles, and, like the trumpets blown around Jericho, it shattered the walls of the French monarchy to their foundations.
The “Marseillaise Hymn” is mentioned here for its patriotic birth and associations. An attempt to 380 / 330 make a religious use of it is recorded in the [Fourth Chapter].
ODE ON SCIENCE.
This is a “patriotic hymn,” though a queer production with a queer name, considering its contents; and its author was no intimate of the Muses. Liberty is supposed to be somehow the corollary of learning, or vice versa—whichever the reader thinks.
The morning sun shines from the East
And spreads his glories to the West.
* * * * * *
So Science spreads her lucid ray
O'er lands that long in darkness lay;
She visits fair Columbia,