Our national anthem is frequently referred to. In the description of the public dinner (S.B.S. 19)—
‘God Save the Queen’ is sung by the professional gentlemen, the unprofessional gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as ‘perfectly electrical.’
On another occasion we are told the company, sang the national anthem with national independence, each one singing it according to his own ideas of time and tune. This is the usual way of singing it at the present day.
In addition to those above mentioned we find references to ‘The Marseillaise’ and ‘Ça ira,’ both of which Dickens says he heard in Paris. In Little Dorrit Mr. Meagles says:
As to Marseilles, we know what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed.
Without disputing the decided opinion expressed by the speaker, there is no doubt that some would give the palm to ‘Ça ira,’ which the novelist refers to in one of his letters. The words of this song were adapted in 1790 to the tune of ‘Carillon National.’ This was a favourite air of Marie Antoinette, and she frequently played it on the harpsichord. After her downfall she heard it as a cry of hatred against herself—it followed her from Versailles to the capital, and she would hear it from her prison and even when going to her death.
When Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley were on their way to America, one of their fellow travellers was
an English gentleman who was strongly suspected of having run away from a bank, with something in his possession belonging to its strong-box besides the key [and who] grew eloquent upon the subject of the rights of man, and hummed the Marseillaise Hymn constantly.
In an article on this tune in the Choir (Nov., 1911) it is stated that it was composed in 1792 at Strasburg, but received its name from the fact that a band of soldiers going from Marseilles to Paris made the new melody their marching tune. A casual note about it appears to be the only musical reference in A Tale of Two Cities.
From America we have ‘Hail Columbia’ and ‘Yankee Doodle.’ In Martin Chuzzlewit we meet the musical coach-driver who played snatches of tunes on the key bugle. A friend of his went to America, and wrote home saying he was always singing ‘Ale Columbia.’ In his American Notes Dickens tells about a Cleveland newspaper which announced that America had ‘whipped England twice, and that soon they would sing “Yankee Doodle” in Hyde Park and “Hail Columbia” in the scarlet courts of Westminster.’