and say instead

    ‘Drink, weary traveller—­drink and pay!’”

Dean Swift’s barber one day told him that he had taken a public-house.  “And what’s your sign?” said the dean.  “Oh, the pole and bason; and if your worship would just write me a few lines to put upon it, by way of motto, I have no doubt but it would draw me plenty of customers.”  The dean took out his pencil, and wrote the following couplet, which long graced the barber’s sign: 

    “Rove not from pole to pole, but step in here,
    Where nought excels the shaving, but the beer.”

SOLDIERS.

Equality in Danger.—­The French General, Cherin, was once conducting a detachment through a very difficult defile.  He exhorted his soldiers to endure patiently the fatigues of the march.  “It is easy for you to talk,” said one of the soldiers near him; “you who are mounted on a fine horse—­but we poor devils!”—­On hearing these words, Cherin dismounted, and quickly proposed to the discontented soldier to take his place.  The latter did so; but scarcely had he mounted, when a shot from the adjoining heights struck and killed him.  “You see,” says Cherin, addressing his troops, “that the most elevated place is not the least dangerous.”  After which he remounted his horse, and continued the march.

Marshal Suwarrow in his march to the attack of Ockzakow, proceeded with such rapidity at the head of his advanced guard, that his men began to murmur at the fatigues they endured.  The Marshal, apprized of this circumstance, after a long day’s march, drew his men up in a hollow square, and addressing them, said, “that his legs had that day discovered some symptoms of mutiny, as they refused to second the impulses of his mind, which urged him forward to the attack of the enemy’s fortress.”  He then ordered his boots to be taken off, and some of the drummers to advance with their cats, and flog his legs, which ceremony was continued till they bled considerably.  He put on his boots again very coolly, expressing a hope that his legs would in future better know how to discharge their duty.  The soldiers after that marched on without a murmur, struck at once with the magnanimity of their commander, and the ingenuity of his device to remind them of their duty.

Brief Explanation.—­A French colonel, in taking a redoubt from the Russians on the Moskwa, lost twelve hundred of his men, more than one half of whom remained dead in the entrenchment which they had so energetically carried.  When Bonaparte the next morning reviewed this regiment, he asked the colonel what he had done with one of his battalions?  “Sire,” replied he, “it is in the redoubt.”

Death of a Hero.—­At the battle of Malplaquet, in 1709, Marshal Villars was dangerously wounded, and desired to receive the Holy Sacrament.  Being advised to receive in private, he said, “No, if the army cannot see me die like a hero, they shall see me die as a Christian.”