George III. is said to have observed to a person who approached him in a moment of personal restraint, indispensable in his situation, "Here you see me _checkmated_." * * * * * OLD GRIMALDI. The first Grimaldi celebrated on the stage, appeared at Paris about the year 1735, when his athletic force and extraordinary agility procured him the sobriquet of "Jambe de Fer," or iron-leg. In 1742, when Mahomet Effendi, ambassador of the Porte, visited Paris, he was received with the highest honour and utmost distinction; and the court having ordered a performance for the Turk's entertainment, Grimaldi was commanded to exert himself to effect that object. In obedience to his directions, in making a surprising leap, his foot actually struck a lustre, placed high from the stage, and one of the glass drops was thrown in the face of the ambassador. It was then customary to demand some reward from the personage for whom the entertainment was prepared, and, at the conclusion of the piece, Grimaldi waited upon the Mussulman for the usual present. If the Turk had concealed the expression of his anger at the accident, it was not however extinct, for on the appearance of the buffoon, he directed him to be seized by his attendants, and transported in his theatrical costume, to his residence, where, after undergoing a severe bastinado, the hapless actor was thrust into the street, with only his pedal honour for his recompense. * * * * * NEGROES' HEIR LOOM. Some years ago, the boiler-men negroes on Huckenfield estate were overheard by the book-keeper discoursing on this subject, (the superiority of the whites,) and various opinions were given, till the question was thus set at rest by an old African:--"When God Almighty make de world, him make two men, a nigger and a buckra; and him give dem two box, and him tell dem for make dem choice. Nigger, (nigger greedy from time,) when him find one box heavy, him take it, and buckra take t'other; when dem open de box, buckra see pen, ink, and paper; nigger box full up with hoe and bill, and hoe and bill for nigger till this day."--_Barclay's Slavery in the West Indies_. * * * * * GRATITUDE. When Suffer, who had been fifty years a servant in the English factory at Abesheber, or Bushire, a Persian sea-port, was on his death-bed, the English doctor ordered him a glass of wine. He at first refused, saying, "I cannot take it; it is forbidden in the Koran." But after a few moments, he begged the doctor to give it him, saying, as he raised himself in his bed, "Give me the wine; for it is written in the same volume, that all you unbelievers will be excluded from Paradise; and the experience of fifty years teaches me to prefer your society in the other world, to any place unto which I can be advanced with my own countrymen." He died a few hours after this sally.--_Sketches of Persia_. * * * * *