"Yanker, didel, doodle down, Diddle, dudel, lanther, Yanke viver, voover vown, Botermilk und tanther." [Illustration: _BOSTON COMMON (Beacon Street Mall)_] From Spain, also, comes a claim. The American Secretary of Legation, Mr. Buckingham Smith, wrote from Madrid under date of June 3, 1858: "The tune of _Yankee Doodle_, from the first of my showing it here, has been acknowledged, by persons acquainted with music, to bear a strong resemblance to the popular airs of Biscay; and yesterday, a professor from the north recognized it as being much like the ancient sword-dance played on solemn occasions by the people of San Sebastian. He says the tune varies in those provinces. The first strains are identically those of the heroic Danza Esparta of brave old Biscay." France puts in a claim, and declares that _Yankee Doodle_ is an old vintage song from the southern part of that land of grapes; while Italy, too, claims _Yankee Doodle_ for her own. The probabilities are that it was introduced into England from Holland. _Yankee Doodle_ became an American institution in June, 1755. General Braddock, of melancholy fate, was gathering the colonists to an encampment near Albany for an attack on the French and Indians at Niagara. The countrymen came into camp in a medley of costumes, from the buckskins and furs of the American Indian to some quaint old-fashioned military heirloom of a century past. The British soldiers made great sport of their ragged clothes and the quaint music to which they marched. There was among these regular troops from England a certain Dr. Richard Shuckburg, who could not only patch up human bodies, but had a great facility in patching up tunes as well. As these grotesque countrymen marched into camp, this quick-witted doctor recalled the old air which was sung by the cavaliers in ridicule of Cromwell, who was said to have ridden into Oxford on a small horse with his single plume fastened into a sort of knot which was derisively called a "macaroni." The words were,-- "Yankee Doodle came to town, Upon a Kentish pony; He stuck a feather in his cap, Upon a macaroni." Doctor Shuckburg at once began to plan a joke upon the uncouth newcomers. He set down the notes of _Yankee Doodle_, wrote along with them the lively travesty upon Cromwell, and gave them to the militia musicians as the latest martial music of England. The band quickly caught the simple and contagious air which would play itself, and in a few hours it was sounding through the camp amid the laughter of the British soldiers. It was a very prophetic piece of fun, however, which became significant a few years later. When the battles of Concord and Lexington began the Revolutionary War, the English, when proudly advancing, played along the road _God save the King_; but after they had been routed, and were making their disastrous retreat, the Americans followed them with the taunting _Yankee Doodle_.