It is the courageous man who can best afford to be generous; or rather, it is his nature to be so. When Fairfax, at the Battle of Naseby, seized the colours from an ensign whom he had struck down in the fight, he handed them to a common soldier to take care of. The soldier, unable to resist the temptation, boasted to his comrades that he had himself seized the colours, and the boast was repeated to Fairfax. "Let him retain the honour," said the commander; "I have enough beside." So when Douglas, at the Battle of Bannockburn, saw Randolph, his rival, outnumbered and apparently overpowered by the enemy, he prepared to hasten to his assistance; but, seeing that Randolph was already driving them back, he cried out, "Hold and halt! We are come too late to aid them; let us not lessen the victory they have won by affecting to claim a share in it." Quite as chivalrous, though in a very different field of action, was the conduct of Laplace to the young philosopher Biot, when the latter had read to the French Academy his paper, "SUR LES EQUATIONS AUX DIFFERENCE MELEES." The assembled SAVANS, at its close, felicitated the reader of the paper on his originality. Monge was delighted at his success. Laplace also praised him for the clearness of his demonstrations, and invited Biot to accompany him home. Arrived there, Laplace took from a closet in his study a paper, yellow with age, and handed it to the young philosopher. To Biot's surprise, he found that it contained the solutions, all worked out, for which he had just gained so much applause. With rare magnanimity, Laplace withheld all knowledge of the circumstance from Biot until the latter had initiated his reputation before the Academy; moreover, he enjoined him to silence; and the incident would have remained a secret had not Biot himself published it, some fifty years afterwards. An incident is related of a French artisan, exhibiting the same characteristic of self-sacrifice in another form. In front of a lofty house in course of erection at Paris was the usual scaffold, loaded with men and materials. The scaffold, being too weak, suddenly broke down, and the men upon it were precipitated to the ground--all except two, a young man and a middle-aged one, who hung on to a narrow ledge, which trembled under their weight, and was evidently on the point of giving way. "Pierre," cried the elder of the two, "let go; I am the father of a family." "C'EST JUSTE!" said Pierre; and, instantly letting go his hold, he fell and was killed on the spot. The father of the family was saved.