different participants in this scene: John Hancock's commentary on his own bold handwriting, "There, John Bull may read my name without spectacles;" Franklin's, "We must hang together, or else, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately;" and the heavy Harrison's remark to the slender Elbridge Gerry, that in that event Gerry would be kicking in the air long after his own fate would be settled. These things may or may not have been said, but it gives a more human interest to the event when we know that they were even rumored. What we long to know is, that the great acts of history were done by men like ourselves, and not by dignified machines.

This is the story of the signing. Of the members who took part in that silent drama of 1776, some came to greatness in consequence, becoming presidents, vice-presidents, governors, chief-justices, or judges; others came, in equally direct consequence, to poverty, flight, or imprisonment. "Hunted like a fox by the enemy;" "a prisoner twenty-four hours without food," "not daring to remain two successive nights beneath one shelter"-these are the records we may find in the annals of the Revolution in regard to many a man who stood by John Hancock on that summer day to sign his name. It is a pleasure to think that not one of them ever disgraced, publicly or conspicuously, the name he had written. Of the rejoicings which, everywhere throughout the colonies, followed the signing, the tale has been often told. It has been told so often, if the truth must be confessed, that it is not now easy to distinguish the romance from the simple fact. The local antiquarians of Philadelphia bid us dismiss forever from the record the picturesque old bell-ringer and his eager boy, waiting breathlessly to announce to the assembled thousands the final vote of Congress on the Declaration. The tale is declared to be a pure fiction, of which there exists not even a local tradition. The sessions of Congress were then secret, and there was no expectant crowd outside. It was not till the fifth of

then a member, and by McKean, who was then temporarily absent.

Jefferson used to relate, "with much merriment," says Parton, that the final signing of the Declaration was hastened by a very trivial circumstance. Near the hall was a large stable, whence the flies issued in legions. Gentlemen were in those days peculiarly sensitive to such discomforts by reason of silk

stockings; and when this annoyance, superadded to the summer heat of Philadelphia, had become intolerable, they hastened to bring the business to a conclusion. This may equally well refer, however, to the original vote; flies are flies, whether in July or August.

American tradition has clung to the phrases assigned to the

different participants in this scene: John Hancock's commentary on his own bold handwriting, "There, John Bull may read my name without spectacles;" Franklin's, "We must hang together, or else, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately;" and the heavy Harrison's remark to the slender Elbridge Gerry, that in that event Gerry would be kicking in the air long after his own fate would be settled. These things may or may not have been said, but it gives a more human interest to the event when we know that they were even rumored. What we long to know is, that the great acts of history were done by men like ourselves, and not by dignified machines.

It is a

This is the story of the signing. Of the members who took part in that silent drama of 1776, some came to greatness in consequence, becoming presidents, vice-presidents, governors, chief-justices, or judges; others came, in equally direct consequence, to poverty, flight, or imprisonment. "Hunted like a fox by the enemy;" "a prisoner twenty-four hours without food," "not daring to remain two successive nights beneath one shelter"-these are the records we may find in the annals of the Revolution in regard to many a man who stood by John Hancock on that summer day to sign his name. pleasure to think that not one of them ever disgraced, publicly or conspicuously, the name he had written. Of the rejoicings. which, everywhere throughout the colonies, followed the signing, the tale has been often told. It has been told so often, if the truth must be confessed, that it is not now easy to distinguish the romance from the simple fact. The local antiquarians of Philadelphia bid us dismiss forever from the record the picturesque old bell-ringer and his eager boy, waiting breathlessly to announce to the assembled thousands the final vote of Congress on the Declaration. The tale is declared to be a pure fiction, of which there exists not even a local tradition. The sessions of Congress were then secret, and there was no expectant crowd outside. It was not till the fifth of

July that Congress sent out circulars announcing the Declaration; not till the sixth that it appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper; and not till the eighth that it was read by John Nixon in the yard of Independence Hall. It was read from an an observatory there erected by the American Philosophical Society, seven years before, to observe the transit of Venus. The

king's arms over the door of the Supreme Court room in Independence Hall were torn down by a committee of the Volunteer force called "associators;" these trophies were burned in the evening, in the presence of a great crowd of citizens, and no doubt amid the joyful pealing of the old "Independence" bell. There is also a tradition that on the afternoon of that day, or possibly a day or two earlier, there was a joyful private

celebration of the great event, by Jefferson and others, at the garden-house of a country-seat in Frankford (near Philadelphia), then occupied by Dr. Enoch Edwards, a leading patriot of that time.

It is certain that a portion of the signers of the Declaration met two years after, for a cheery commemoration of their great achievement, in the Philadelphia City Tavern. The enjoyment of the occasion was enhanced by the recent deliverance of the city from the presence of General Howe, and by the contrast between this festival and that lately given by the