George the Second.—­It was once found an impracticable task to make George the Second acquiesce in a judgment passed by a court-martial on the conduct of two officers high in the army.  One of the officers had made himself amenable to military law, by fighting in opposition to the orders of his commander in chief, instead of retreating; by which act of disobedience, the general’s plans were frustrated.  On these circumstances being detailed to the king, his majesty exclaimed, “Oh! the one fight, the other run away.”  “Your majesty will have the goodness to understand, that General ——­ did not run away; it was necessary for the accomplishment of his schemes, that he should cause the army to retreat at that critical moment; this he would have conducted with his wonted skill, but for the breach of duty in the officer under the sentence of the court-martial.”  “I understand,” impatiently returned the king; “one fight, he was right; the other run away, he was wrong.”  It was in vain that ministers renewed their arguments and explanations; his majesty could not, or would not, understand the difference between a disgraceful flight and a politic retreat; they were therefore obliged to end a discussion which merely drew forth the repetition of the same judgment—­“The one face the enemy and fight, he right; the other turn his back and not fight, he wrong.”

Ximenes.—­At the siege of Oran, in Africa, Cardinal Ximenes led the Spanish troops to the breach, mounted on a charger, dressed in his pontifical robes, and preceded by a monk on horseback, who bore his archiepiscopal cross.  “Go on, go on, my children,” exclaimed he to the soldiers, “I am at your head.  A priest should think it an honour to expose his life for his religion.  I have an example in my predecessors, in the archbishopric of Toledo.  Go on to victory.”  When his victorious troops took possession of the town, he burst into tears on seeing the number of the dead that were lying on the ground; and was heard to say to himself, “They were indeed infidels, but they might have become Christians.  By their death, they have deprived us of the principal advantage of the victory we have gained over them.”

An Odd Grenadier.—­During the famous siege of Gibraltar, in the absence of the fleet, and when an attack was daily expected, one dark night, a sentinel, whose post was near a tower facing the Spanish lines, was standing at the end of his walk, looking towards them, his head filled with nothing but fire and sword, miners, breaching, storming, and bloodshed, while by the side of his box stood a deep narrow-necked earthen jug, in which was the remainder of his supper, consisting of boiled pease.  A large monkey (of which there were plenty at the top of the rock), encouraged by the man’s absence, and allured by the smell of the pease, ventured to the jug; and, in endeavouring to get at its contents, thrust his neck so far into the jug, as to be unable to withdraw it.  At this instant, the soldier approaching, the monkey started