incidents of the long war, enjoyed a wide circulation in the newspapers
or were hawked about in printed broadsides. Most of these have no
literary merit, and are now mere antiquarian curiosities. A favorite
piece on the tory side was the _Cow Chase_, a cleverish parody on
_Chevy Chase_, written by the gallant and unfortunate Major Andre, at
the expense of "Mad" Anthony Wayne. The national song _Yankee Doodle_
was evolved during the Revolution, and, as is the case with _John
Brown's Body_ and many other popular melodies, some obscurity hangs
about its origin. The air was an old one, and the words of the chorus
seem to have been adapted or corrupted from a Dutch song, and applied
in derision to the provincials by the soldiers of the British army as
early as 1755. Like many another nickname, the term Yankee Doodle was
taken up by the nicknamed and proudly made their own. The stanza,

"Yankee Doodle came to town," etc.,

antedates the war; but the first complete set of words to the tune was
the _Yankee's Return from Camp_, which is apparently of the year 1775.
The most popular humorous ballad on the whig side was the _Battle of
the Kegs_, founded on a laughable incident of the campaign at
Philadelphia. This was written by Francis Hopkinson, a Philadelphian,
and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Hopkinson
has some title to rank as one of the earliest American humorists.
Without the keen wit of _McFingal_, some of his _Miscellaneous Essays
and Occasional Writings_, published in 1792, have more geniality and
heartiness than Trumbull's satire. His _Letter on Whitewashing_ is a
bit of domestic humor that foretokens the _Danbury News_ man; and his
_Modern Learning_, 1784, a burlesque on college examinations, in which
a salt-box is described from the point of view of metaphysics, logic,
natural philosophy, mathematics, anatomy, surgery, and chemistry, long