1794.

"Behold, then, the recompense reserved for the first apostle of liberty." Said while standing before the guillotine, and looking at the axe. When at the bar of Tinville he was asked his age, name, and residence, he said: "My age is that of the sansculotte Jesu-I am thirty-three; an age fatal to revolutionists."

DE SOTO (Hernando, Spanish explorer, discoverer of the Mississippi River), about 1496-1542. "Luis de Moscoso-the name of his successor. He must have spoken later, for he lived twenty-four hours after appointing his successor, but what he said the compiler has been unable to discover.

Believing his death near at hand, on the twentieth of May he held a last interview with his followers and, yielding to the wishes of his companions, who obeyed him to the end, he named a successor. On the next day he died. Thus perished Ferdinand de Soto, the governor of Cuba, the successful associate of Pizarro. His miserable end was the more observed from the greatness of his former prosperity. His soldiers pronounced his eulogy by grieving for their loss; the priests chanted over his body the first requiems that were ever heard on the waters of the Mississippi. To conceal his death, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and in the stillness of midnight was sunk in the middle of the stream.-Bancroft.

DE WITT (Cornelius, Dutch naval officer and statesman), 1625-1672.

One Tichelaer, a barber, a man noted for infamy, accused Cornelius de Witt of endeavoring by bribes to en

gage him in the design of poisoning the Prince of Orange. The accusation, though attended with the most improbable, and even absurd circumstances, was greedily received by the credulous multitude; and Cornelius was cited before a court of judicature. The judges, either blinded by the same prejudices, or not daring to oppose the popular torrent, condemned him to suffer the question. This man, who had bravely served his country in war, and who had been invested with the highest dignities, was delivered into the hands of the executioner, and torn in pieces by the most inhuman torments. Amidst the severe agonies which he endured, he still made protestations of his innocence, and frequently repeated an ode of Horace, which contained sentiments suited to his deplorable condition: "Justum et tenacem propositi virum," etc.1

1 The man whose mind, on virtue bent,
Pursues some greatly good intent,

With undiverted aim,

Serene beholds the angry crowd;

Nor can their clamors, fierce and loud,

His stubborn honor tame.

Not the proud tyrant's fiercest threat,

Nor storms, that from their dark retreat
The lawless surges wake;

Not Jove's dread bolt, that shakes the pole,

The firmer purpose of his soul

With all its power can shake.

Should nature's frame in ruins fall,
And chaos o'er the sinking ball
Resume the primeval sway,

His courage chance and fate defies,

Nor feels the wreck of earth and skies
Obstruct its destined way.

Blacklocke.

The judges, however, condemned him to lose his offices, and to be banished the commonwealth. The pensionary, who had not been terrified from performing the part of a kind brother and faithful friend during this prosecution, resolved not to desert him on account of the unmerited infamy which was endeavored to be thrown upon him. He came to his brother's prison, determined to accompany him to the place of exile. The signal was given to the populace. They rose in arms; they broke open the doors of the prison; they pulled out the two brothers, and a thousand hands vied who should first be imbrued in their blood. Even their death did not satiate the brutal rage of the multitude. They exercised on the dead bodies of those virtuous citizens indignities too shocking to be recited; and till tired with their own fury, they permitted not the friends of the deceased to approach or to bestow on them the honors of a funeral, silent and unattended. Hume's History of England.

DICKENS (Charles), 1812-1870. "On the ground." He was losing his balance and feared that he would fall to the floor.

DIDEROT (Denis, French philosopher, atheist and chief among the Encyclopedists), 1712-1784. On the evening of the 30th of July, 1784, he sat down to table, and at the end of the meal took an apricot. His wife, with kindly solicitude, remonstrated. "Mais quel diable de mal veux-te que cela me fosse?" he said, and ate the apricot. Then he rested his elbow on the table, trifling with some sweetmeats. His wife asked him a question;

on receiving no answer, she looked up and saw that he was dead. He had died as the Greek poet says that men died in the golden age, "They passed away as if mastered by sleep."-John Morley.

DILLON (Wentworth, Earl of Roscommon, English poet and translator), about 1633-1684. His last words. were from his own translation of the "Dies Irae":

"My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in the end."

DODD (Rev. Dr. William, author of numerous religious and other works. He was the founder of "The Magdalen" for reclaiming young women fallen from virtue, the "Poor Debtors' Society" and the "Humane Society." He was executed for forgery), 1729-1777. Just before his death he said to the executioner, "Come to me," and when the executioner obeyed, the doctor whispered to him. What he said is not known, but it was observed that the man had no sooner driven away than he took the place where the cart had been, under the gibbet, and held the doctor's legs, as if to steady the body, and the unhappy man appeared to die without pain.

DOMINIC (St., founder of the order of Dominicans and of the order of Preaching Friars. He was one of the instigators of the cruel and inhuman crusade against the Albigenses about 1212. Many strange stories are told of him, and among these that he offered himself for sale

to the highest bidder, in order to raise money for charitable purposes), 1170-1221. "Under the feet of my friars," when asked where he would like to be buried.

DONNE (John, D. D., English poet and theologian), 1573-1631. "I were miserable, if I might not die." Some his last words were: say I repent of my life except that part of it which I spent in communion with God, and in doing good."

Dr. Donne was formerly Dean of St. Paul's. Among other preparations for his death, he ordered an urn to be cut in wood, on which was to be placed a board of the exact height of his body. He then caused himself to be tied up in a winding-sheet. Thus shrouded, and standing with his eyes shut, and with just so much of the sheet put aside as might discover his death-like face, he caused his portrait to be taken, which, when finished, was placed near his bedside, and there remained to the hour of his death. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, where a monument was erected over him, composed of white marble, and carved from the above-mentioned picture, by order of his dearest friend and executor, Dr, King, Bishop of Chichester.1

1 Charles V., of Spain, seems to have entertained the same morbid desire for a personal acquaintance with his own post-mortem appearance and condition. In Robertson's History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V. we have this account of the monarch's attendance upon his own funeral: "He resolved to celebrate his own obsequies before his death. He ordered his tomb to be erected in the chapel of the monastery. His domestics marched thither in funeral procession, with black tapers in their hands. He himself followed in his shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity.