His most famous song, _Adams and Liberty_,--which is sung to the same tune as Key's _Star-Spangled Banner_, or _Anacreon in Heaven_,--was written four years later at the request of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society. Its sale yielded him a profit of more than seven hundred and fifty dollars. These receipts show an immediate popularity which has seldom been achieved by patriotic songs. In 1799 he delivered an oration on the first anniversary of the dissolution of the alliance with France which was a great oratorical triumph. The author sent a copy, after its publication, to Washington, and received a reply in which the General says: "You will be assured that I am never more gratified than when I see the effusions of genius from some of the rising generation, which promises to secure our national rank in the literary world; as I trust their firm, manly, and patriotic conduct will ever maintain it with dignity in the political." The next to the last stanza of _Adams and Liberty_ was not in the song as originally written. Paine was dining with Major Benjamin Russell, when he was reminded that his song had made no mention of Washington. The host said he could not fill his glass until the error had been corrected, whereupon the author, after a moment's thinking, scratched off the lines which pay such a graceful tribute to the First American:-- "Should the tempest of war overshadow our land, Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; For, unmov'd, at its portal would Washington stand, And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder! His sword from the sleep Of its scabbard would leap, And conduct, with its point, every flash to the deep; For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves." Instead of being added to the hymn it was inserted as it here appears. The second, fourth, and fifth stanzas have been usually omitted in recent publications of the hymn. The brilliant genius of Paine was sadly eclipsed by strong drink, that dire foe of many men of bright literary promise. His sun, which had risen so proudly, found an untimely setting about the beginning of the war of 1812. [Illustration: _Liberty Bell_] [Illustration: _GEORGE WASHINGTON_] _YANKEE DOODLE._ Father and I went down to camp Along with Captain Gooding, And there we saw the men and boys, As thick as hasty pudding. Yankee Doodle, keep it up, Yankee Doodle Dandy! Mind the music and the step, And with the gals be handy! And there we see a thousand men As rich as Squire David, And what they wasted every day,-- I wish it had been savèd. The 'lasses they eat up every day Would keep our house all winter,-- They have so much that I'll be bound They eat whene'er they've a mind to.