ins; is
densely peopled, and contains some of the richest soil in the globe.

DECEMBER, the twelfth month of the year, so called, i. e. tenth,
by the Romans, as their year began with March.

DEC`EMVIRS, the patricians of Rome, with Consular powers, appointed
in 450 B.C. to prepare a code of laws for the Republic, which, after
being agreed upon, were committed first to ten, then to twelve tables,
and set up in the Forum that all might read and know the law they lived
under.

DECIUS, Roman emperor from 249 to 251; was a cruel persecutor of the
Christians; perished in a morass fighting with the Goths, who were a
constant thorn in his side all through his reign.

DECIUS MUS, the name of three Romans, father, son, and grandson, who
on separate critical emergencies (340, 295, 279 B.C.) devoted themselves
in sacrifice to the infernal gods in order to secure victory to the Roman
arms; the name is mostly employed ironically.

DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, the immortal work of Gibbon,
of which the first volume was published in 1776.

DECRETALS, THE, a collection of laws added to the canon law of the
Church of Rome, being judicial replies of the Popes to cases submitted to
them from time to time for adjudication.

DEE, JOHN, an alchemist, born in London; a man of curious learning;
earned the reputation of being a sorcerer; was imprisoned at one time,
and mobbed at another, under this imputation; died in poverty; left 79
works, the majority of which were never printed, though still extant in
MS. in the British Museum and other places of safe-keeping (1527-1608).

DEFAUCONPRET, French litterateur; translator of the novels of Sir
Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper (1767-1843).

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, a title conferred by Pope Leo X. in 1521 upon
Henry VIII. for his defence of the Catholic faith in a treatise against
Luther, and retained ever since by the sovereigns of England, though
revoked by Pope Paul III. in 1535 in consequence of Henry's apostasy.

DEFFAND, MARIE, MARQUISE DU, a woman of society, famed for her wit
and gallantry; corresponded with the eminent philosophes of the time, in
particular Voltaire, as well as with Horace Walpole; her letters are
specially brilliant, and display great shrewdness; she is characterised
by Prof. Saintsbury as "the typical French lady of the eighteenth
century"; she became blind in 1753, but retained her relish for society,
though at length she entered a m