One beautiful morning, as I was strolling alone amid some delightful scenery, my attention was arrested by the sweet voice of a peasant girl who was carrying a basket laden with flowers and vegetables. This plaintive air she trilled out with so much sweetness and simplicity that the melody at once caught my fancy. I accosted her, and after a few moments' conversation, I asked for the name of the song, which she could not give me, but having a slight knowledge of music myself, barely enough for the purpose, I requested her to repeat the air, which she did, while I dotted down the notes as best I could. It was this air that suggested the words of ' Home, Sweet Home,' both of which I sent to Bishop at the time I was preparing the opera of ' Clari ' for Mr. Kemble. Bishop happened to know the air perfectly well, and adapted the music to the words." The poem was written while Mr. Payne was staying in Paris, not in London. Upon Payne's monument in Tunis, where he was American con- HOME MEMORIES. 335 sul, and where he died at six in the morning of the 9th of April, 1852, it is stated that he died on April ist, and that he was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was born in New York, and, in touch- ing terms, thus spoke at a banquet given him, December i, 1832. when he had just returned to America, viz. : " I beheld again the fair city of my birth enthroned upon her beautiful waters, and I rejoiced in belonging to such a mother, and that my weary pilgrimage had closed at such a home ! But this succession of emotions wao but symbolical of deeper ones to which I yet was destined ; for, when my steps sought the spots to which in earlier life they were accus- tomed, I found a severer darkness (than the storm he had encoun- tered) frowning over them in the pestilence, and houses untenanted, or most of those which had inhabitants in tears and mourning. When I asked for many a friend of years gone by, I was pointed to the tomb. But presently the streets began to brighten into what they were; many a warm hand renewed the earnest grasp so long ago remembered ; the welcome of many a departed parent smiled on me in their children : until at length I beheld the memories of a former day gathering the lovely and the gallant, and the intellectual, and the affluent, in one splendid circle, where I could almost fancy the spirits of some of the long-buried dead — who would have united at that moment with the living — hovering o'er a scene which made me forget the humbleness of my own desert in exultation for the glorious privilege of once again exclaiming, as I gazed before me : ' The wan- derer has a home, and it is here ! ' " From the age of thirteen, when his mother died, John Howard Payne was without a settled home. He spent some early days at Boston, and some years at an humble cottage in East Hampton, Long Island, the regretful memory of whose attractions of sea and land and simple pastimes, without the later care and conflict, may have touched his thoughts when he wrote " Home, Sweet Home." These corrections seemed proper to the mention of his name, and the simple verses which touched millions of hearts and were printed and sold by the hundred thousand in a year. 336 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

One beautiful morning, as I was strolling alone amid some delightful scenery, my attention was arrested by the sweet voice of a peasant girl who was carrying a basket laden with flowers and vegetables. This plaintive air she trilled out with so much sweetness and simplicity that the melody at once caught my fancy. I accosted her, and after a few moments' conversation, I asked for the name of the song, which she could not give me, but having a slight knowledge of music myself, barely enough for the purpose, I requested her to repeat the air, which she did, while I dotted down the notes as best I could. It was this air that suggested the words of ' Home, Sweet Home,' both of which I sent to Bishop at the time I was preparing the opera of ' Clari ' for Mr. Kemble. Bishop happened to know the air perfectly well, and adapted the music to the words." The poem was written while Mr. Payne was staying in Paris, not in London. Upon Payne's monument in Tunis, where he was American con- sul, and where he died at six in the morning of the 9th of April, 1852, it is stated that he died on April ist, and that he was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was born in New York, and, in touching terms, thus spoke at a banquet given him, December i, 1832. when he had just returned to America, viz. : " I beheld again the fair city of my birth enthroned upon her beautiful waters, and I rejoiced in belonging to such a mother, and that my weary pilgrimage had closed at such a home ! But this succession of emotions was but symbolical of deeper ones to which I yet was destined ; for, when my steps sought the spots to which in earlier life they were accustomed, I found a severer darkness (than the storm he had encountered) frowning over them in the pestilence, and houses untenanted, or most of those which had inhabitants in tears and mourning. When I asked for many a friend of years gone by, I was pointed to the tomb. But presently the streets began to brighten into what they were; many a warm hand renewed the earnest grasp so long ago remembered ; the welcome of many a departed parent smiled on me in their children : until at length I beheld the memories of a former day gathering the lovely and the gallant, and the intellectual, and the affluent, in one splendid circle, where I could almost fancy the spirits of some of the long-buried dead — who would have united at that moment with the living — hovering o'er a scene which made me forget the humbleness of my own desert in exultation for the glorious privilege of once again exclaiming, as I gazed before me : ' The wanderer has a home, and it is here ! ' " From the age of thirteen, when his mother died, John Howard Payne was without a settled home. He spent some early days at Boston, and some years at an humble cottage in East Hampton, Long Island, the regretful memory of whose attractions of sea and land and simple pastimes, without the later care and conflict, may have touched his thoughts when he wrote " Home, Sweet Home." These corrections seemed proper to the mention of his name, and the simple verses which touched millions of hearts and were printed and sold by the hundred thousand in a year. 336 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.

The hearthstone; or, Life at home