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FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.
was Francis Scott Key, who was born in the upper part of the county in 1780, but who spent some years of his early manhood practising at the Frederick Bar. Of his quiet, lovely life, but little is known, comparatively, although a few persons yet linger who remember him. A good citizen, a good master, a good lawyer, a poet of very sweet and true, if limited, powers, the deep spirituality of whose few hymns can never sound elsewhere as in the old church, he would probably have passed through and out of life as many other good men do, but for the strain of one September night in 1814, when his eager eyes watched for the first ray of dawn, if haply they might yet see the Star Spangled Banner
