Yet, though different our fortunes, our thoughts are the same
And both, as we think of Columbia, exclaim,
Home, home, sweet, sweet home, &c.
Whilst the words are thus clearly of American origin, the melody was introduced by Sir Henry Bishop as a national Sicilian air, in his National Melodies. Sir Henry afterwards adapted it to the words “Home, Sweet Home,” in Howard Payne’s opera of Clari, 1823, from which time its popularity dates. It has subsequently been called a National Swiss air; but Sir Henry Bishop seems to have the right to it. Donizetti introduced it, with some alterations, in his Anna Bolena, not as his own, but as a representative English melody.
On the Duke of Wellington.
“The melody of Home, sweet home, must be impressed on the memory of all. The only sphere in which poor Wellington can feel himself at home is in ‘place, sweet place,’ and having once tasted of its pleasures it continues to haunt his memory. To him the splendour of palaces and the favour of his sovereign offer no longer a charm, ‘It is all very well,’ he sometimes frantically exclaims, but:—
The court of my sovereign, though I may grace,
Be it ever so stormy there’s nothing like place,
A vapour from hell seems to shield us when there,