"The mural tablet is not weather-stained, and his grave is not utterly neglected, but well cared for by some loving hand or other. When in Edinburgh I almost always visit his grave, and only on Thursday, May 23 last, I was there, and as the birds sang about in the grounds, the trees rustled, and the sun shone, I could hardly think of him sleeping in a more lovely spot, save it might be along with Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge in the churchyard at Grasmere." * * * * * A bright, ready and melodious talker, but in the end inconclusive and long-winded. One of the smallest man-figures I ever saw; shaped like a pair of tongs, and hardly above five feet in all. When he sat, you would have taken him, by candle-light, for the beautifulest little child, blue-eyed, sparkling face, had there not been a something too which said, "Eccovi--this child has been in hell."--_Carlyle._ DESMOULINS (Benedict Camille, prominent French democrat and pamphleteer, called the "Attorney-general of the Lamp-post," because of his part in the death of those who were hung by the mob in the street), 1762-1794. "_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.