DUTY.

General Mackenzie, when commander-in-chief of the Chatham division of marines, during the late war, was very rigid as to duty; and, among other regulations, would suffer no officer to be saluted on guard if out of his uniform. It one day happened that the general observed a lieutenant of marines in a plain dress, and, though he knew the young officer quite intimately, he called to the sentinel to turn him out. The officer appealed to the general, saying who he was; "I know you not," said the general; "turn him out." A short time after, the general had been at a small distance from Chatham, to pay a visit, and returning in the evening in a blue coat, claimed entrance at the yard gate. The sentinel demanded the countersign, which the general not knowing, desired the officer of the guard to be sent for, who proved to be the lieutenant whom the general had treated so cavalierly.—"Who are you?" inquired the officer.—"I am General Mackenzie," was the reply.—"What, without an uniform?" rejoined the lieutenant; "oh, get back, get back, impostor; the general would break your bones if he knew you assumed his name." The general on this made his retreat; and the next day, inviting the young officer to breakfast, told him—"He had done his duty with very commendable exactness."

Morvilliers, keeper of the seals to Charles the Ninth of France, was one day ordered by his sovereign to put the seals to the pardon of a nobleman who had committed murder. He refused. The king then took the seals out of his hands, and having put them himself to the instrument of remission, returned them immediately to Morvilliers, who refused to take them again, saying, "The seals have twice put me in a situation of great honour: once when I received them, and again when I resigned them."

Louis the Fourteenth had granted a pardon to a nobleman who had committed some very great crime. M. Voisin, the chancellor, ran to him in his closet, and exclaimed, "Sire, you cannot pardon a person in the situation of Mr. ——." "I have promised him," replied the king, who was always impatient of contradiction; "go and fetch the great seal." "But sire—." "Pray, sir, do as I order you." The chancellor returned with the seals; Louis applied them himself to the instrument containing the pardon, and gives them again to the chancellor. "They are polluted, now, sire," exclaimed the intrepid and excellent magistrate, pushing them from him on the table, "I cannot take them again." "What an impracticable man!" cried the monarch, and threw the pardon into the fire. "I will now, sire, take them again," said the chancellor; "fire purifies all things."