Chapter Forget-me-nots of the Angels to Foscari of F by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Forget-me-nots of the Angels to Foscari

Forget-me-nots of the Angels. So Longfellow calls the stars; but “forget-me-nots” won’t scan.

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the “forget-me-nots” of the angels.
   —Longfellow: Evangeline (1849).

Forgive, Blest Shade … This celebrated epitaph in Brading Churchyard, Isle of Wight, is an altered version, by the Rev. John Gill (curate of New-church), of one originally composed by Mrs. Anne Steele, daughter of a Baptist minister at Bristol, on the death of Mr. Hervey.

Forks, the gallows. (Latin, furca.) Cicero (De Div., i. 26) says, “Ferens furcam ductus est” (“he was led forth, bearing his gallows”). “Furcifer” was a slave made to carry a furca for punishment.

Forked Cap, a bishop’s mitre. John Skelton, speaking of the clergy, says—

They graspe and they gape,
Al to haue promocion; There’s their whole deuocion,
With money, if it will hap, To catch the forked cap.
   —Colyn Clout (time, Henry VIII.).

Formosa. The island said by Psalmanazar to be subject to the emperor of Japan. (See Forgers and Forgeries.)

Fornarina (La), the baker’s daughter, of whom Raphael was devotedly fond, and whose likeness appears in several of his pictures. Her name was Margherita.

Forrest (George), Esq., M.A., the assumed name of the Rev. J. G. Wood, author of Every Boy’s Book (1855), etc.

Fortinbras, prince of Norway.—Shakespeare: Hamlet (1596).

Fortunatus, a man on the brink of starvation, on whom Fortune offers to bestow either wisdom, strength, riches, health, beauty, or long life. He chooses riches, and she gives him an inexhaustible purse. (See the next two articles.) His gifts prove the ruin of himself and his sons.

This is one of the Italian tales called Nights, by Straparola. There is a German version, and a French one, as far back as 1535. The story was dramatized in 1553 by Hans Sachs (Sax); and in 1600 by Thomas Dekker, under the title of The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus. Ludwig Tieck, in 1816, poetized the tale under the title of Phantasus.

The purse of Fortunatus could not supply you.—Holcroft: The Road to Ruin, i. 3 (1792).

Fortunatus’s Purse, a purse which was inexhaustible. It was given to Fortunatus by Fortune herself. (See Serpent Stone.)

Fortunatus’s Wishing-cap, a cap given by the sultan to Fortunatus. He had only to put it on his head and wish, when he would find himself transported to any spot he liked.

Dekker wrote a comedy so called, based on the old romance (1600).

Fortune of Love, in ten books, by Antonio Lofrasco, a Sardinian poet.

“By my holy office,” cried the curé, “since Apollo was Apollo, and the Muses were the offspring of Jove, there never was a better or more delightful volume. He who has never read it has missed a fund of entertainment. Give it me, Mr. Nicholas; I would rather have that book than a cassock of the very best Florence silk.”—Cervantes: Dox Quixote, 1. i. 6 (1605).

Fortune’s Frolic, a farce by Allingham (1800). Lord Lackwit died suddenly, and the heir of his title and estates was Robin Roughhead, a poor labourer, engaged to Dolly, a cottager’s daughter. The object of