2 AUGUST 1940, Page 5

Quotations are prickly things. I referred last week to George

II's remark that his generals frightened him. Now I am told that it was not George II, it was Wellington, and it was not generals but troops: "Well, gentlemen. I don't know what effect your troops will have on the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me." Wellington may, indeed, have said that ; I have no doubt he did. But I still believe George H said something very much the same about generals, though I cannot at the moment track the observation down