Having been driven from the American stage by the jealousy of his fellow actors, John Howard Payne later led an itinerant and indigent existence in Europe.

Ironically, on many of the nights which he spent in the streets, he would hear a song -- sung by unseen revelers and played on barrel organs -- to which he himself had written the lyrics. The song? "Home, Sweet Home."

["There's no housing shortage in England today," G. I. Murfin once joked. "That's just a rumor put about by people who have nowhere to live."]