Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1871 — Personal Recolleetions of Distingnished Men. [ARTICLE]

Personal Recolleetions of Distingnished Men.

BY THE “FAT CONTRIBUTOR.” My-only recoollection of" Demosthenes is ltis attempting to speak a piece at a dis-trict-school exhibition when he was a boy, and breaking down. He was reciting the familiar lines: Yon'd scarce expect one of my age. To speak In public, on the stage; If I should chance to fall below Demosthenes or ” At this point lie hesitated, put the corner of his apron to his eye, burst into tears and sat down, totally overcome by the allusion to himself and by the novelty of the situation. Cicero, who was a lad at the same school, made fun df - Demosthenes, asking him, derisively, if he hadn't better go and hire out for an orator! I was with Julius Ciesar when he passed the Rubicon. He held a good hand, and I told'him he had better order it up, but he penned. The result is well known; he lost the game, Alexander the Great and myself were schoolmates. ,We were brought up little f'rls together. lie used to amuse himself, remember, by smashing up all the globes there were In school, and then sit down and cry because there were no more worlds to conquer. I happened to be with him when he cut the Gordian Knot. Many others had tried in vain to do it. It was “knot for Jo.” Smart Aleck came along and cut it the first time trying, w ith a patent corn-cutter. Nero had one of ike most sensitive organizations I ever knew, and keenly sympathized with human woes. I have seen him sit in the ampitheater at Rome and weep bitterly when captives -were tom in pieces by wild beasts. It is a base slander to say he fiddled while Rotne'Was burning. He belonged to a fire-engine company, and I saw him!, working at the breaks mysetftSome one saw him as he helptd to break’er down, and'in the excitement of the moment thought he was fiddliiig, and so reported. I knew Shakspcare as long ago as when he tended store for the Merchant of Venice and sold the Prints of Denmark by the yard. He was an honest lad with the yard-stick, giving Measure for Measure. He always wanted to be an actor and was j

perpetually quoting Bhakspeare to customers. People used to leer at him for it; I have even seen the King Lear. Bhaks pemro only laughed, and said they were making Much Ado About Nothing, adding, “ you can have it As You LlkeJt’’ He was fond of the ladies, and popular scandal associating ids name with certain Merry Wives of Windsor, his employer raised such a Tempest about his ears that he ran away and Joined a variety company. He made his debut as first grave-digger in Otbnilo. Diogenes waa one of the most eccentric, men 1 ever knew. His mother was a washerwoman and he lived lu her tub, except op wash days, when she had to use it to make a living for him. Although he Sts a good deal of credit nowadays for ving lived in a tub, he didn’t at the time of it. The neighbors used to call him a lazy, shiftless fellow, lolling around in a tub, talking philosophy to a lot of other good-for-nothings iustondof working for a living. ' *

A good deal has been said about his going around the streets of Athens with a lantern “to find a man.” *1 saw him at the time. He wanted to find a man that would' stand treat. The greatest remark of his "that has liccn preserved, was when lie said: “If I could live Alexander the Great, I had rather Di-ogenes!" Columbus was a mild, sweet-disposi-tioned, but exceedingly thoughtful boy, as ns I remember him at school. When we boys were out playing, he would sit and weep for hours over the incompleteness of the maps of the period. He felt as though something was wanting. lie wasn't satisfied with three-ijuartess of a globe, such as was employed in the schools at that time. He pined for the other quarter. I recollect liis borrowing a quarter of me on two of three occasions. He used to tell us we were a continent out, somewhere, and that when he got big enough he meant to mil way from home, go on the canal and discover it; but we only laughed at him, little thinking he would yet give his name to the State capital of Ohio. I lost all traces of Christopher until years afterward, when the telegraph brought the announcement of his having discovered America, which, up to that time, bad successfully eluded the most persistent. efforts of our best discoverers.— Cincinnati Times.