The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1877-04-19
Strange Deaths.

Homer, they tell us, died of broken
heart because he could not guess
a riddle The old gentleman had been
warned by an oracle that if he did not
mind what he was about he would be
killed by riddle, and his day came.
Seeing some young fishermen in boat,
he unfortunately asked them what sport
they had had, to which they replied that
GAS many as we caught we left; as
many as we could not catch we carry
away with u.s. This was too much for
the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey
he guessed and guessed till he could
guess no longer, and finally died OF
sheer vexation. Aristotle event Of
in precisely the same way, because he
| could not understand a more interesting
riddle set by nature, viz, the cause OF
the ebbing and flowing of the Euripus.
Others relate that he angrily threw him.
self into the stream. Diodorus, the i'm
mortal inventor of the horned" and
"veiled" sophism, having met with his
match in one Stilpo, who caught him
with another sophism which he was I'M
able to solve, went home, wrote book
about it, and died of despair. Philetas
had reduced himself to such state OF
tenuity by reflection and study that he
was obliged to wear lead soles to his
boots to keep himself from being blown
away, or possibly from rising like a bal
loon into the heavens OF
invention; however, the end OF
Philetas was, as Suidas solemnly in
forms us, evaporation--he positively
evaporated. Anacreonwas choked with
grape-stone. Sophocles is said by
some to have come to the same end,
though according to others he died OF
Joy at being victor in his last tragic con-
test. Euripides was torn into pieces by
dogs, bounded on by some women, in
revenge for his mysOgynism. Eschylus
was killed by an eagle dropping tor
toise on his bald head, the king of birds
mistaking the shining poll for stone,
and applying it to uses other than Mel
pomene would sanction. Ibycus, the
great lyric poet, was murdered by rob
bers; and Sappho flung herself from the
Leucalian rock to cure her love for
Phaon. Honest Hesiod also came to a
melancholy end, but having been flung
into the sea his corpse was solemnly
brought back to shore on the backs OF
some dolphins. Lucretius, as we all
know from Tennyson's fine poem, was
poisoned by a love philter, and finally
finished himself off with his own hand,
as also did his first English editor and
translator, the Rev. Thos Creech. PietrO
Aretino, celebrated Italian MterateuI
of the Renaissance, came to a singular
end. He was drinking and enjoying
himself with certain other eccentricities,
and one of them telling story which
certainly ought not to have amused
| either the narrator or his friends, Are
tho leaned back in his chair to laugh
with full freedom, slipped and dashed
out his brains on the marble floor. Sir
George Ethridge, author of g Sir Topley
/ Flutter, - 90 Lovein Tub, etc, brought
a similar life to similar conclusion
He was lighting some friends, who ha6
been to pay him visit, and as he stood
doing so he tumbled down stairs anC
broke his neck; ''and so," as the note;
to Grammont put it, "fell martyr tc
jollity and civility." Peter Motteaux
the translator of Rabelais, came to {
very mysterious end; and the mystery
which surrounded the death of Edward
H., Richard H., Clarence, and many
Kings and Princes, both in ancient anC
modern history, has never been cleared
up. Demosthenes poisoned himself, bu
no one knows how. Terrible as it may
seem, it is nevertheless true, that if {
complete list were drawn up of men O
mark in the worlds history, reckoning
all nations and all times, it would appear
that at least a quarter of them died no
like other men, and that very nearly
another quarter committed suicide.