Among the daily inquiries after the health of an aged Bishop of Durham, during his indisposition, no one was more sedulously punctual than the Bishop of ----, and the invalid seemed to think that other motives than those of anxious kindness might contribute to this solicitude. One morning he ordered the messenger to be shewn into his room, and thus addressed him:--“Be so good as present my compliments to my Lord Bishop, and tell him that I am better--much better; but that the Bishop of Winchester has got a sore throat, arising from a bad cold, _if that will do_.” STATE AFFAIRS. A coach containing four members of parliament was overturned in the Strand. A countryman passing inquired who were the unfortunate persons; and being told, “Oh, let them lie,” cried he, “my father advised me not to meddle with state affairs.” CHARLES II. The following anecdote, if it have not much of the wit, has at least a good deal of the character, of “the Merry Monarch.” He had a saying that five made the best company. It happened that a recruiting captain was so remarkably unsuccessful as to raise only five persons. When it was proposed that he should be broken for negligence, the king inquired how many he had raised, and being told, “Oddsfish!” cried his majesty, “he shan’t, for five’s the best company in the world.” FERGUSON THE PLOTTER. When this famous person was taken up for his concern in some of the plots of the reign of Charles II., and brought before Lord Nottingham to be examined, his lordship said, “I intend to be very brief with you, Mr. Ferguson, and only ask one or two questions;” to which the prisoner replied, with his usual acrimony of tone, “And I intend to be as short as your lordship, and not answer one of them.” Whereupon he was committed to Newgate. DELICACY. A courtier of the time of Charles II.--the greatest of his age--used to pay the following pretty compliment to the scruples which are entertained by ladies on the subject of age; he used to say to his lady every New Year’s Day, “Well, madam, how old will your ladyship please to be this year?” EXAMPLE. Examples make a greater impression upon us than precepts. An old counsellor in Holborn used to turn out his clerks every execution-day with this compliment, “Go, ye young rogues--to school and improve.” SIR FRANCIS BACON. When Queen Elizabeth made her famous procession to St. Paul’s to return public thanksgivings for the destruction of the Spanish armada, the citizens were ranged along one side of Fleet Street, and the lawyers on the other. As the Queen passed Temple Bar, Bacon, then a student, said to a lawyer that stood next him, “Do you observe the courtiers; if they bow first to the citizens, they are in debt; if to us, they are in law.” ACQUIESCENCE.