Catherine Parthenay, niece of the celebrated Anna Parthenay, returned this spirited reply to the importunities of Henry IV.--"Your majesty must know, that although I am too humble to become your wife, I am at the same time descended from too illustrious a family ever to become your mistress."
The circumlocution and diffuseness of law papers--the apparent redundancy of terms, and multiplicity of synonymes, which may be found on all judicial proceedings, are happily hit off in the following, which we copy from _Jenk's New York Evening Journal_:--
"A LAWYER'S STORY.--Tom strikes Dick over the shoulders with a rattan as big as your little finger. A lawyer would tell you the story something in this way:--And that, whereas the said Thomas, at the said Providence, in the year and day aforesaid, in and upon the body of the said Richard, in the peace of God and the State, then and there being, did make a most violent assault and inflicted a great many and divers blows, kicks, cuffs, thumps, bumps, contusions, gashes, wounds, hurts, damages, and injuries, in and upon the head, neck, breast, stomach, lips, knees, shins, and heels of the said Richard, with divers sticks, staves, canes, poles, clubs, logs of wood, stones, guns, dirks, swords, daggers, pistols, cutlasses, bludgeons, blunderbusses, and boarding pikes, then and there held in the hands, fists, claws, and clutches of him the said Thomas."
"On one of these graves I observed the little wild blue flower, known by the name of 'Forget me not'."--_Visit to the Field of Waterloo._
No marble tells, nor columns rise, To bid the passing stranger mourn, Where valour fought, and bled, and died, From friends and life abruptly torn.
Yet on the earth that veils[10] their heads, Where bravest hearts are doom'd to rot, This simple flower, with meek appeal, Prefers the prayer "Forget me not."
Forget! forbid my heart responds While bending o'er the hero's grave-- Forbid that e'er oblivion's gloom Should shade the spot where rest the brave.
Fond kindred at this awful shrine Will oft, with footsteps faltering, Approach and drop the pious tear-- Sad Memory's purest offering.
And well their country marks those deeds-- The land that gave each bosom fire: Deeds that her proudest triumph won, But gaining, saw her sons expire.