When Richard I. was on his expedition against enemies of the same race, he too was relieved from great straits by a vision of St. George. The army, indeed, did not see the glorious and inspiring sight, but the king affirmed that _he_ did, which, in those credulous times was quite as well. In these later days men are less credulous, or saints are more cautious. Thus the Muscovites assaulted Kars under the idea that St. Sergius was with them; at all events, Pacha Williams, a good cause, and sinewy arms, were stronger than the Muscovite idea and St. Sergius to boot. Such, then, is the hagiography of our martial saint. Gibbon has sketched his life in another point of view--business-like, if not matter-of-fact. The terrible historian sets down our great patron as having been born in a fuller’s shop in Cilicia, educated (perhaps) in Cappadocia, and as having so won promotion, when a young man, from his patrons, by the skilful exercise of his profession as a parasite, as to procure, through their influence, “a lucrative commission or contract to supply the army with bacon!” In this commissariat employment he is said to have exercised fraud and corruption, by which may be meant that he sent to the army bacon as rusty as an old cuirass, and charged a high price for a worthless article. In these times, when the name and character of St. George are established, it is to be hoped that Christian purveyors for Christian armies do not, in reverencing George the Saint, imitate the practices alleged against him as George the Contractor. It would be hard, indeed, if a modern contractor who sent foul hay to the cavalry, uneatable food to the army generally, or poisonous potted-meat to the navy, could shield himself under the name and example of St. George. Charges as heavy _are_ alleged against him by Gibbon, who adds that the malversations of the pious rogue “were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuit of justice.” If he saved his fortune, it is allowed that he made shipwreck of his honor; and he certainly did not improve his reputation if, as is alleged, he turned Arian. The career of our patron saint, as described by Gibbon, is startling. That writer speaks of the splendid library subsequently collected by George, but he hints that the volumes on history, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology, were perhaps as much proof of ostentation as of love for learning. That George was raised by the intrigues of a faction to the pastoral throne of Athanasius, in Alexandria, does not surprise us. Bishops were very irregularly elected in those early days, when men were sometimes summarily made teachers who needed instruction themselves; as is the case in some enlightened districts at present. George displayed an imperial pomp in his archiepiscopal character, “but he still betrayed those vices of his base and servile extraction,” yet was so impartial that he oppressed and plundered all parties alike. “The merchants of Alexandria,” says