’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home! A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere. Home! home, sweet home! There’s no place like home! An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain! Oh! give me my lowly thatch’d cottage again! The birds singing gaily that came at my call:―― Give me these and the peace of mind, dearer than all! Home! home, &c. In the winter of 1833. John Howard Payne called upon an American lady, living in London, and presented to her a copy of “Home, Sweet Home,” set to music, with the two following additional verses addressed to her:―― To us, in despite of the absence of years, How sweet the remembrance of _home_ still appears From allurements abroad, which but flatter the eye, The unsatisfied heart _turns_, and says with a sigh Home, home, sweet, sweet home! There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home! Your exile is blest with all fate can bestow, But mine has been checkered with many a woe! 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, Which seek through the world you’ll ne’er meet with elsewhere. Place! place! sweet, sweet, place. There’s nothing like place, No! there’s nothing like place.