In vain the poor librarian, while tears ran down his cheek, Strove to bend them from their purpose――not a word they’d hear him speak. And the venerable Chief Justice, like Lord Mansfield at the fire, Not caring to remonstrate, thought it prudent to retire. So they rifled all the library of every book they saw, Yet the gulf but yawned the wider for all that dose of law. Then from that mixed assembly a seedy-looking gent (He pays not much for mending who cannot pay his _rent_), With an old coat all in tatters, and a hat without a brim, Stalked proudly from the multitude, who, curious, gazed on him. “My name is Marcus Curtius! a Roman knight am I,―― And eke a learned counsellor, but, alas! I cannot lie! I’ve gone upon the Circuit,――there came no briefs to me; I ne’er addressed a jury, ne’er pocketed a fee. Alas! mistaken parents, to bind me to the law! I have no natural cunning to make or find a flaw. He who’d sit upon a woolsack must be ne’er with conscience cursed, And, for _wool_ to fill the cushion, he must take to _fleecing_ first. Then behold in me, O Romans! what the oracle demands, The thing in Rome that’s rarest, a lawyer with clean hands. A truly honest lawyer, with a feeling, tender soul, Which, witness this nay garment――a tongue’s in ev’ry hole. For the good of thee, my country, I die a true-blue Tory, For _Dulce et decorum, est pro patria mori_!” He said, and on the lawyers he turned a kindling eye, As away on all sides slinking, no one dared make reply. Then smiling sad but calmly, he cried “Good Charon, hark! I’m too poor to pay the obolus for crossing in your bark, But I know that you will trust me; so now, my friends, good bye, I’ll trouble not the coroner, a natural death I die: A natural death for Curtius, who might have been so rich, But he was an _honest_ lawyer, so he perished in a ditch.” He said, and threw a summersault into that dreary vat―― Head foremost, like a thunder-bolt down went the brimless hat; Down went the brimless beaver, fall many a fathom deep, And the women took hysterics, and the men began to weep. When they dashed away the tear drops, and looked ahead again, Where that gulf had late been yawning, there lay a level plain. And they reared a marble tombstone on the spot where he had died, And in letters carved and gilded, was inscribed on either side Here Marcus Curtius lyes, Ye onlye honeste lawyere, hee Who neverre pocketedde a fee. Anno aetatis XXXIII. Hee felle withe muche philosophie, Forre Rome a sacrifice. And with weeping and lamenting still is the story told, How Curtius kicked the bucket in the brave old days of old. EDGAR ALLEN. This parody originally appeared in a United States newspaper, the _Salem Herald_, about forty years ago. ――――:o:――――