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More "Lenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people with his staff rather than chastising them with rods, feeding them as it were with the milk of a mother, and not making use of the scourges of the father, he incurred public scandal for his remissness. So great was his lenity that he put an end to all pastoral rigour; and was a better monk than abbot, a better bishop than archbishop. Hence pope Urban addressed him; "Urban, servant of the servants of God, to the most fervent monk, to the warm abbot, to the luke-warm bishop, ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... If the question related to new measures of oppression, to the introduction of the inquisitional tribunals, etc., the numbers of the Protestants were countless and interminable. If, on the other hand, the question was of lenity towards them, of ordinances to their advantage, they were now reduced to such an insignificant number that it would not repay the trouble of making an innovation for this ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... were heightened by delay, and an indefinite prospect of delay was opened by the reluctance of all persons in authority to incur the odium attendant on any decision. On the one side there was a loud cry that the Republic was in danger, and that lenity to the prisoners would be the signal of attack for all its enemies; on the other, there was a certainty that a sentence of death and confiscation of property passed on five citizens of distinguished name, would entail the rancorous hatred of their ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... been adopted without effect; when the well-disposed in those counties are unable by their influence and example to reclaim the wicked from their fury, and are compelled to associate in their own defence; when the proffered lenity has been perversely misinterpreted into an apprehension that the citizens will march with reluctance; when the opportunity of examining the serious consequences of a treasonable opposition has been employed in propagating ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... of two powerful contending parties, concentrating their terrors, and perfecting their deep designs to crush each other before they entirely annihilate a fallen foe, bears no more resemblance to the wise lenity of a regular government towards the refractory subjects it has subdued, than the fearful stillness which is the precursor of a thunder-storm does to the serene tranquillity of a summer's day. No sooner were the Presbyterian republicans subdued by the fanatics, who had gained the entire command ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... he thinks himself secure in consequence of the lenity of Henley, he hates him as sincerely as if he were pursuing him to the gallows. The loss of the three thousand guineas is one great motive; and another is that he felt he was out-braved by Henley, whom he could not terrify, but who ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... enemies have now lost their hopes, and our friends, I hope, are recovered from their fears. To fancy that our government can be subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels. The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, to have been nothing more than a political phtheiriasis, a disease too ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... full length with Alexander Monypenny, proposed as trustee on the part of the Bank of Scotland, and found him decidedly in favour of the most moderate measures, and taking burthen on himself for the Bank of Scotland proceeding with such lenity as might enable me to have some time and opportunity to clear these affairs out. I repose trust in Mr. M. entirely. His father, old Colonel Monypenny, was my early friend, kind and hospitable to me when I was a mere boy. He ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... however that day seized a galliot laden with cotton, and made inquiry of the men concerning the fleet. They protested that they had not seen a ship since they left Gogo, and earnestly implored their mercy; but, instead of treating them with lenity, they put them to the rack, in order to extort farther confession. The day following, a fresh easterly wind blew hard, and rent the galliot's sails; upon this the pirates put her company into a boat, with nothing but a try-sail, no provisions, and only four gallons of water, and, though they ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... The excessive lenity of all Italian states makes it dangerous to live among them; a seeming paradox, yet certainly most true; and whatever is evil in this way at any other town, is worst at Rome; where those who deserve hanging, enjoy almost a moral certainty of never being hanged; so ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... not intend to confine punishment to those who had been employed only at the end of the last ministry, but proposed to extend it to all who had been engaged in it, and wished that that gentleman would speak with more lenity of an administration, in which he himself had been concerned for so many years. Winnington said, he did not know what Mr. Doddington had meant, by either bending or being broken; that he knew some who had been broken, though ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... from the English Queen containing intercepted treasonable letters from the Popish lords in Scotland to the King of Spain and the Duke of Parma, and accompanied by the following letter in Elizabeth's own hand, in which she rates him for his fatuous lenity towards subjects who had joined hands with the enemies of ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... Bourrienne," rejoined he; "but the blow is struck; the decree is issued. I have given the same explanation to every one; but I cannot so suddenly retrace my steps. To retro-grade is to be lost. I cannot acknowledge myself in the wrong. By and by we shall see what can be done. Time will bring lenity and pardon. At present it would be premature." Such, word for word, was Bonaparte's reply. If with this be compared what he said on the subject at St. Helena it will be found that his ideas continued nearly unchanged; the only difference ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... doth wrong His dignity and safety thus to mourn The deserv'd end of so profest a traitor, And doth, by this his lenity, instruct Others as ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... never eclipse her. When she first came I was at some pains to prevent her seeing much of her aunt; but I have relaxed, as I believe I may depend on her observing the rules I have laid down for their discourse. But do not imagine that with all this lenity I have for a moment given up my plan of her marriage. No; I am unalterably fixed on this point, though I have not yet quite decided on the manner of bringing it about. I should not chuse to have the business brought on here, and canvassed by the wise heads of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon; and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... think his words and gestures ought to wear the appearance of it, so that the action of the orator may excite the anger of his hearer. And they deny that any man has ever been seen who does not know what it is to be angry; and they name what we call lenity by the bad appellation of indolence. Nor do they commend only this lust (for anger is, as I defined it above, the lust of revenge), but they maintain that kind of lust or desire to be given us by nature for very good purposes, saying ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... reflections of her imperfections, which, though not apparent to any one but herself, she verily believed were uncommonly great, as she beheld them with very scrutinizing and rigid eyes, while she looked on those of others with the greatest lenity. But of all the means she used to preserve her humility, she was the most assiduous in praying to him who made her heart, to ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... the time. The result of the mission of Mr. Fiske, is therefore very favorable, and if a similar course is pursued hereafter, there will be no further difficulty with the tribe. They should be treated with all possible lenity and kindness, for ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... consequence?—that we shall have to account for his being wounded, and then, instead of judges, we shall immediately be placed in the position of culprits, and have to defend ourselves without witnesses. We therefore risk our lives from a misplaced lenity towards a wretch ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the discretionary power, which, while the law had no free course in the Highlands, was conceived to belong to the military parties who were called in to support it. He acted, for example, with great and suspicious lenity to those freebooters who made restitution on his summons, and offered personal submission to himself, while he rigorously pursued, apprehended, and sacrificed to justice, all such interlopers as dared ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... kept out of view in the proceedings of the government, which deals with the whole matter as if the tenants were nothing but martyrs to hard bargains, and the landlords their task-masters, of greater or less lenity, they are extensively circulated in the "infected districts," and are held to be very sound doctrines by a large number of the "bone and sinew of the land." Of course the reasoning is varied a little, to suit circumstances, and to ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... George recommends a degree of severity towards deserters which was not consonant with the mild temper of Tullibardine: "Those who have gone home without a special licence on furlough, must be exemplarily punished, either in their persons or effects, or in both; for when our all depends, lenity would be folly." After urging the Marquis to send off the men to Blair by dozens, he adds, "If rewards and punishments do not, I know not what will. By the laws of God and man you have both in your power and your person:" thus alluding to the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... the memory of Laud, first as Bishop of London, and then as Archbishop of Canterbury, whose letters show that the severities in question were to him and Strafford (to use Hallam's expression) "the feebleness of excessive lenity." To the last Charles was not despotic enough to please Laud, who complains petulantly in his Diary of a prince "who knew not how to be, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... same way of thinking as Hogarth. Writing of a speech made at the Oxford Commemoration of 1754 by the Jacobite Dr. King (see post, Feb. 1755), he said:—'There cannot be a greater instance of the lenity of the government he abuses than his pestilent harangues so publicly made with impunity furnishes (sic) all his readers with.'—Rich. Corresp. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... plan of government, moderate, decent, respectable, which left the senate its majesty, and some of its power. He restored vigour and spirit to the laws; he made new and good ones for the reformation of manners; he enforced their execution; he governed the empire with lenity, justice, and glory; he humbled the pride of the Parthians; he broke the fierceness of the barbarous nations; he gave to his country, exhausted and languishing with the great loss of blood which she had sustained in the course ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... "contain facts and statistics about the East; this book gives the East itself in vital actual reality. Its style is conversational; or the soliloquy rather of a man convincing and amusing himself as he proceeds, without reverence for others' faith, or lenity towards others' prejudices. It is a real book, not a sham; it equals Anastasius, rivals 'Vathek;' its terseness, vigour, bold imagery, recall the grand style of Fuller and of South, to which the author adds a spirit, freshness, delicacy, all his own." Kinglake, ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... companions? Yes; and I rejoice at it, hoping it will now be in our power to testify a just abhorrence of the cruel butcheries exercised on our friends in the unfortunate day of General Braddock's defeat; and, moreover, to show our enemies, that we can practise all that lenity of which they only boast, without affording ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... Balfour, and here was a case which came clearly within that code. Then the forms of justice should have been carefully observed; the accused should have been heard in his defence; the spirit of the law should have been the guide of the judges, with a leaning in favour of lenity and mercy; the passions ought not to have been suffered to interfere, where the minds of the court should have been regulated by justice and wisdom; and finally, the judges should have proceeded deliberately, avoiding ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... were in the palace assembled. The new King came forth, and took his place at the head of the board. He commenced his administration, according to usage, by a speech to the Council. He expressed his regret for the loss which he had just sustained, and he promised to imitate the singular lenity which had distinguished the late reign. He was aware, he said, that he had been accused of a fondness for arbitrary power. But that was not the only falsehood which had been told of him. He was resolved to maintain the established government ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... them into Christian bondage. He set them at liberty, and permitted them to repair to Granada—"a proof," says the pious Agapida, "that his conversion was not entirely consummated, but that there were still some lingerings of the infidel in his heart." His lenity was far from procuring him indulgence in the opinions of his countrymen; on the contrary, the inhabitants of Granada, when they learnt from the liberated garrison the stratagem by which Roma had been captured, cursed Cid Hiaya ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... defenceless capital; but they were here arrested by the romantic chivalry of the Marquis of Hastings. The country had been virtually conquered; the prince, by his base treachery towards us and outrages upon others, had justly forfeited his throne; but the Governor- General, by perhaps a misplaced lenity, left it to him without any other guarantee for his future good behaviour than the recollection that he had been soundly beaten. Unfortunately he left him at the same time a sufficient quantity of fertile land below the hills to maintain the same army with which he had fought ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... society, and few people are so cruel as to blame it, though all discuss it. And it is here that the harshness of American and English society toward the erring woman (harshness which is not injustice, but half- justice only) contrasts visibly to our advantage over the bad naivete and lenity of the Italians. The carefully secluded Italian girl is accustomed to hear of things and speak of things which, with us, parents strive in every way to keep from their daughters' knowledge; and while her sense of delicacy is thus early blunted, while she is thus used to know good and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Indian mind, that the chiefs with one consent agreed in grateful commemoration of this treaty, that if any captive should hereafter be taken by them from Maysville, that captive should be treated with every possible degree of lenity. And it is worthy of record that such a captive was subsequently taken, and that the Indians with the most scrupulous fidelity fulfilled their pledge. Indeed, it is difficult for an impartial historian ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... it for a considerable time, often by open force, and often by soliciting to no purpose sometimes the commons, at other times the nobles; agreeing that they should depart with single garments and without arms. Then, as wishing to appear from the beginning to show lenity to all the inhabitants of Italy except the Romans, he proposed rewards and honours to those who might remain with him, and would be willing to serve with him. He retained none, however, by the hopes he held out; they all dispersed in different ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... dreadful attire—principles which exalt human nature, and which have been warmly cherished by the most virtuous and renowned of every age: and surely when we are attacked by the same enemies who once, aided by the mistaken lenity of the mother country and the misconduct of her commanders, were able to drive us from our native homes and possessions to this province—a people whose lands are manured with the blood of our friends and kinsmen, who drove our wives and children from their ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... which was done to show them that we did contemn their sorcery. These people are very simple in all their conversation, but marvellous thievish, especially for iron, which they have in great account. They began through our lenity to show their vile nature; they began to cut our cables; they cut away the Moonlight's boat from her stern; they cut our cloth where it lay to air, though we did carefully look unto it, they stole our oars, a calliver, a boat's ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... certainly a very mild atonement for the grave offence which Shuffles had committed, and the lenity of the principal was generally commented upon by the boys. The starboard watch was piped below to study and recite, while the port watch were to be off and on during the forenoon. The first part now had the deck, while the second was off duty, and the boys belonging to it ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Great Britain than the darkest hours of their misfortunes. This lay in the increased bitterness of the struggle, and in those more strenuous measures which the British commanders felt themselves entitled and compelled to adopt. Nothing could exceed the lenity of Lord Roberts's early proclamations in the Free State. But, as the months went on and the struggle still continued, the war assumed a harsher aspect. Every farmhouse represented a possible fort, and a probable depot for the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... present day at the Inquisition all a fiction? It requires the impudence of an inquisitor, or of the Archbishop of Westminister to deny their existence. I have myself heard these evil-minded persons lament and complain that their victims were treated with too much lenity. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... bail writ, demanding the body of the accused. The officer serving had been kind enough to allow Marston his parole of honour until the next morning. He granted this in accordance with Marston's request, that by the lenity he might see Daddy Bob and Franconia ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... always advocated lenity of measures towards them. He wants to get them into a state in which the moral influence of the North can act upon them beneficially, and to get such a state of things that there will be a party at the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Insolent act of one of his Sonnes, he was driven out of Rome, and the Monarchy it selfe dissolved. But Crimes of Infirmity; such as are those which proceed from great provocation, from great fear, great need, or from ignorance whether the Fact be a great Crime, or not, there is place many times for Lenity, without prejudice to the Common-wealth; and Lenity when there is such place for it, is required by the Law of Nature. The Punishment of the Leaders, and teachers in a Commotion; not the poore seduced People, when they are ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... had marked, with indignation, the atrocious attempt to strip vice of its deformity, to dress crime in the garb of virtue, to decorate slavery with the symbols of freedom, and give to folly the attributes of wisdom. I had seen, with extreme concern, men, whom the lenity, mistaken lenity, I must call it, of our government had rescued from punishment, if not from ruin, busily engaged in this scandalous traffic, and, availing themselves of their extensive connections to diffuse, by an infinite variety of channels, the poison of democracy ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... admitting the clear and undoubted right of Fyzoola Khan to insist on his treaty, the head of instruction immediately succeeding doth afford just reason for a violent presumption that such apparent lenity was but policy, to give a color to his conduct: he, the said Hastings, in the very next paragraph, bringing forth a new ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... athlete, armed for a glorious strife, he had learned to drift where he should have steered, to float with the current instead of nobly breasting the tide. He conducted his plantation with as much lenity as it was possible to infuse into a system darkened with the shadow of ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... writer afforded his contemporaries. In the meantime, among judicious readers on both sides of the Atlantic, Stevenson stands, I think it may safely be said, as a true master of English prose; scarcely surpassed for the union of lenity and lucidity with suggestive pregnancy and poetic animation; for harmony of cadence and the well-knit structure of sentences; and for the art of imparting to words the vital quality of things, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Americans without attempting to crush the fomenters of disturbance; they threatened and retreated, made a demonstration of force and shrank from employing it; their threats made the British government hated, their lenity brought it into contempt.[79] Bernard, of course, wrote as a partisan, but with this allowance his reports ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... sort of temper; they are not entirely his own, but he adopted them and endorsed them with a warmth which we cannot but feel to be unnecessary, not to say more. Yet I am free to confess that whatever editorial licence I could venture to take has been taken in the direction of lenity. ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... "with its two, three, and four parts, hath need of a dose of rhubarb to purge off that mass of bile with which he is inflamed. His Castle of Fame and other impertinences should be totally obliterated. This done, we would show him lenity in proportion as we found him capable of reform. Take don Belianis home with you, and keep him in close confinement."—Cervantes, Don Quixote, I. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... have before noticed as being partial to a drowsy life, now put in his word, and gave his affirmation as to the lenity of the police. His beat as he called it, was between the foot of Ludgate Hill and Blackfriars Bridge, "and neither the man who formerly looked about for the people there, nor his predecessor, ever once interrupted ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... of a drop of blood. Lord Durham even took care that the eight prisoners should not be sent to a convict colony. The only criticism directed against his course in Canada was on the ground of its excessive lenity. Wolfred Nelson and Robert Bouchette had certainly suffered a milder fate {110} than that of Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, who had been hanged in Upper Canada for rebellion. Yet when the news of Durham's action reached England, ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... powers confided to him with caution, but he did exercise them; and by doing so, acquired considerable supplies. Congress appeared as much dissatisfied with the lenity of the Commander-in-chief, as the people were with his rigour, in consequence of which the subject was taken into consideration, his forbearance disapproved, and instructions given for the rigorous exertions in future ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... my inquiries, which were made with frankness and fervour, respecting his own and his sister's condition, he said that the situation of both was deplorable till the recovery of this property. They had been saved from utter ruin, from beggary and a jail, only by the generosity and lenity of his creditors, who did not suffer the suspicious circumstances attending Watson's disappearance to outweigh former proofs of his probity. They had never relinquished the hopes of receiving ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... slight instalment of lenity; but it was an indication of the turning tide. Limited as it was, the act operated as an effective check upon persecution till the passing of the Six ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... shot him if they could have come at him, and in making a collection for their refreshment, of wine, linen, money, etc., in the town where he lived. * * * The capture of the privateer was, solely owing to the ill-judged lenity and brotherly kindness of Captain Johnson, who not considering his English prisoners in the same light that he would French or Spanish, put them under no sort of confinement, but permitted them to walk the decks as freely as his own people at all times. Taking advantage of this ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... apprehensions, that they would proceed to retaliation, which, if once commenced, might be carried to extremities; to prevent which, the Congress issued an address exhorting to forbearance and a further trial by examples of generosity and lenity, to recall their enemies to the practice of humanity amidst the calamities of war. In consequence of which, neither the Congress, nor any of the States apart, have ever exercised or authorised the exercise of the right of retaliation. But now, that Commissioners vested with ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... glad that I knew to whom I might apply. Having thus dismissed these honest fellows from their fears, I was infinitely gratified by the murmur of satisfaction which instantly ran through the ship's company; and was afterwards amply rewarded for my lenity, there being no service during all the toils and dangers of the voyage which they did not perform with a zeal and alacrity that were much to their honour and my advantage, as an ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... exercises over those journals. In the latter, one or two of her works have been criticised with overwhelming power, and in a tone and spirit superlatively bitter. In the former, on the contrary, she is spoken of with studied lenity, although the Reviewer is obliged to confess that he is not one of her particular admirers, and seems to be perpetually restraining himself from indulging in the language of raillery and sarcasm. We need hardly add ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... had been convicted of treason for armed resistance to the levy of certain direct taxes in Pennsylvania, was regarded by many at that time as a piece of misplaced lenity on the part of Adams, dictated, it was said, by a mean desire of popularity in a case where the severest example was needed. But Adams can hardly suffer with posterity from his unwillingness to be ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... upon this impeachment, it must be confessed that his majesty gave many marks of his great lenity; often urging the services you had done him, and endeavouring to extenuate your crimes. The treasurer and admiral insisted that you should be put to the most painful and ignominious death, by setting fire to your house at night, and the general was to attend with twenty thousand men, armed with poisoned ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... great importance to the public, that the country is greatly obliged to any worthy magistrate, that without sinister views of his own will engage in this troublesome service. And therefore, if a well meaning justice makes any undesigned slip in his practice, great lenity and indulgence is shewn to him in the courts of law; and there are many statutes made to protect him in the upright discharge of his office[t]: which, among other privileges, prohibit such justices from being sued for any oversights ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... that place, being of French descent, was disposed at first to sympathize with the Acadians and treat them with a lenity that to the members of his council seemed neither fitting nor prudent. He wrote to Shirley: "The French inhabitants are certainly in a very perilous situation, those who pretend to be their friends and old masters having let loose a parcel of banditti to plunder them; whilst, on the other ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... was recalled and reprimanded, it was not because of his barbarities many of which transcend the possibilities of decent print—but because of a lenity which this venal gentleman began to display when he discovered that many of his victims were willing to ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... my own man, I hope. I think thou shouldst be glad to have the justification of her memory left to one, who, at the same time, thou mayest be assured, will treat thee, and thy actions, with all the lenity the case will admit. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... her heart moved with pity toward the poor, untutored savage who had thus really been grateful, and no doubt had done all in his power for her good. She recalled many instances where she believed that he was the cause of the lenity upon the part of the captors, and where it seemed that some one had shown an interest in her welfare. She informed him that she believed he had done her all the good that was in his power, and expressed her heartfelt thanks for it. The Indian seemed gratified ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... neighbors, believing the penalty unjust, remonstrated in his favor, and Franklin complied with their request. This Mr. Montagu severely condemned, as fatal to the dignity of government, and ascribed the lenity of Sir John to the influence of Lady Franklin. He then announced to the governor, in a formal manner, that thenceforth he should confine his own services to the routine of his office, and that a cordial co-operation might be expected no longer. The details of business, formerly prepared ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... he was, I gave fair grace, however, and plenty of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and he thought scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weakness longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered for ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... pure hands upon the ark of so magnificent a prize. Every friend to Augustus must have wished that the twelve years of his struggle might for ever be blotted out from human remembrance. During the forty-two years of his prosperity and his triumph, being above fear, he showed the natural lenity of his temper. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... is interesting to note that as late as 1889 General Weyler, then Governor-General of the Archipelago, in establishing various comandancias, drew up regulations for the treatment of the natives, etc., as remarkable for lenity and good sense as his later measures in Cuba were, whether justly or not, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... men, and the poor and weak were obliged to submit themselves to the control of the rich and powerful; but although the authority exercised was at first mild, and ensured to the bondsmen almost the same privileges with their masters, yet the idea of power soon crept in upon the mind, and at length lenity was converted into rigidity, and the gall of servitude became insupportable; the oppressed, soon found that that liberty, which they had just given up, was an inalienable privilege of man, and sought ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... arguments to their own case. It is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus apply those general arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest in these ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... impartial Justice ought to be administer'd, and that even for the Welfare of worldly-minded Men, Crimes should be severely punish'd. You would inform him likewise, that I thought Nothing more cruel, than the Lenity of Juries, and the Frequencies of Pardons, and not forget to tell him, that my Book contained several Essays on Politicks; that the greatest Part of it was a Philosophical Disquisition into the Force of the Passions, and the ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... a Majesty in your Countenance, such Lenity in your Eyes, gravity in your speech, as that for your gracefull presence that may be truly affirm'd of you what was once appli'd to a great Prince resembling you, Jam firmitas, Jam proceritas corporis, jam honor Capitis ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... instead of very human indeed (with an ordinary British middle-class humanity, and an extraordinary vein of genius) if he had done otherwise, few have joined him in thinking Joseph a "lewd and ungenerous engraftment." We have not ourselves been very severe on the faults of Pamela, the reason of lenity being, among other things, that it in a manner produced Fielding, and all the fair herd of his successors down to the present day. But those faults are glaring: and they were of a kind specially likely to ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... on the conduct of others, seeing that we ourselves may stand in much need of lenity of judgment. There might have existed motives for the action of him whom you designate as an assassin, quite as powerful as those which led to YOUR interference, and quite as ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... through these that his memory has survived him. He was domineering, arbitrary, intolerant of opposition, irascible, vehement in prejudice, often wayward, perverse, and jealous: a persecutor of those who crossed him; yet capable, by fits, of moderation, and a magnanimous lenity; and gifted with a rare charm—not always exerted—to win the attachment of men: versed in books, polished in courts and salons; without fear, incapable of repose, keen and broad of sight, clear in judgment, prompt in decision, fruitful in resources, unshaken when others ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... wisdom's cautious lore, That when it bade a Papal tyrant pause And tremble, held the undeviating reins On the fierce neck of headlong Anarchy. Thy Church, (nor here let zealot bigotry, Vaunting, condemn all altars but its own), Thy Church, majestic, but not sumptuous, 520 Sober, but not austere, with lenity Tempering her fair pre-eminence, sustains Her liberal charities, yet decent state. The tempest is abroad; the fearful sounds Of armament, and gathering tumult, fill The ear of anxious Europe. If, O GOD! It is thy ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... 11th January, 1779, says—"You will also hear that General Arnold, commandant in Philadelphia, has behaved with lenity to the tories, and that he is on the eve of marriage to one ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... had only one chance of escaping punishment. There was severe distress at that moment among the working people of the capital. This distress the Jacobins attributed to the reaction of Thermidor, to the lenity with which the aristocrats were now treated, and to the measures which had been adopted against the chiefs of the late administration. Nothing is too absurd to be believed by a populace which has not breakfasted, and which does not know how it is to dine. The rabble ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that, my dear. I promised you I would play a father's part to the boy, and I will; but you must not expect me to be a weak indulgent father, and spoil him with foolish lenity. There, enough for one day. I daresay we shall get all right ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... folly. But as far as appearances went, by the judicious sacrifice of one law, you procured an acquiescence in all that remained. After this experience, nobody shall persuade me, when a whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity are ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... dread now—but which at all times, owing to their miseries, they dread much less than we suppose, and so are more willing than we imagine to take the lives of their masters or governors, not caring for death themselves. A well-timed lenity would now be an act of policy as well as of virtue. Those whom you have reprieved, being pardoned, will be bound to you by a sort of gratitude—those of them at least who put a value upon their lives—and now that Tiro is fairly out of the way, and his scourgings ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... the last eighty years, be it a "finality," or only a phase of progress towards a more perfect state, is the grand historical fact of modern times, and Paine's name is intimately connected with it. One is always ready to look with lenity on the partiality of a biographer,—whether he urge the claims of his hero to a niche in the Valhalla of great men, or act as the Advocatus Diaboli to degrade ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... told his attendants that he was wounded, and returned to his lodgings; it was at first thought the wound was not mortal, but his pain increasing, he began to think of death. Some about him told him, That this was the fruit of his lenity, in sparing so many notorious offenders, and among the rest his own murderer; but he replied, "Your importunity shall not make me repent my clemency." Having settled his private affairs, he committed the care of the young king to the nobles there present, and without ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... mildness, benignity, forbearance, lenience, pardon, blessing, forgiveness, leniency, pity, clemency, gentleness, lenity, tenderness. compassion, grace, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... with the honours of war on condition of not serving against them for a year. A better example of shirking present problems at the cost of enhanced difficulties in the future cannot be imagined. By this improvident lenity the Allies enabled the regicides to hurl fully 25,000 trained troops against the royalists of the West and deal them terrible blows. In September and October the Republicans gained considerable successes, especially at Cholet. Soon the Vendean War became little ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... their hands, that they were not subject to regular inspection, and that it was scarcely possible to bring them to justice for their treatment of those committed to their charge. It was argued, that it is impossible to depend upon the lenity of men who have such powers over their fellow-creatures, and that these officers must be supposed more than human if they did not occasionally abuse their authority. Of their having actually done so, many rumours had from time to time reached parliament. But in making out a case for inquiry, its ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... This impolitic lenity, too frequent in those times, was probably the result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could endure to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it encouraged Fawkes de Breaute, a man whom King John had raised from a low origin, to persevere in the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... was lodged in the hands of these men. Saint- Just, in proposing the establishment of the decemviral power until the restoration of peace, did not conceal the motives nor the object of this dictatorship. "You must no longer show any lenity to the enemies of the new order of things," said he. "Liberty must triumph at any cost. In the present circumstances of the republic, the constitution cannot be established; it would guarantee impunity to attacks on our liberty, because it would be ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... nuns, and were generally not very different in their appearance when in their usual dress, and engaged in their customary occupations. It was evident, that they were treated with much kindness and lenity by the Superior and the old nuns; and this I discovered was done in order to render them as well contented and happy in their situation as possible. I should have attributed the motives for this partiality ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... To requite the lenity of the father they take up arms against the son; conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last put to death the anointed of God, and destroy the very being and nature of government, setting up a sordid impostor, who had neither title to govern nor understanding to manage, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... precipitated themselves with great ardour, as if such ground were the only ground on which they could now agree; and having, with no visible remains of their late soft- heartedness, laid about them without any lenity, and done much execution, resumed ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... revere him as a model of virtue, but of the occasional lapses of his bachelor life from correct moral standards, which seemed to be well known and freely talked about, they spoke with affectionate lenity of judgment. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and went first unto him, both because he was the elder man as also for that he was sickly of body. And men reputed him commonly to be very skilful in wars, but otherwise marvellous choleric and cruel, who sought to rule men by fear rather than with lenity: and on the other side, he was too familiar with his friends and would jest too broadly with them."—Plutarch, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... inevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a mercenary sword. We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering over our countrymen is love to our country, that those who hate civil war abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, moderation, and tenderness of the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a sort ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... and cruel usage. But the lieutenant endeavoured, with great courtesy, to dissipate their terror, assuring them that their fears were altogether groundless, and that they would find a generous enemy in the commodore, who was no less remarkable for his lenity and humanity, than for courage and resolution. The prisoners who were first sent on board the Centurion, informed us, that the prize was called Neustra Lenora del Monte Carmelo, and her commander Don Manuel Zamorra. Her cargo consisted chiefly of sugar, and a great ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... ingratitude; but told the rest, that he considered them as men deluded and misinformed. Hugh was sworn to fidelity, and dismissed with his companions; but he was not generous enough to be reclaimed by lenity; and finding no longer any countenance among the gentlemen, endeavoured to execute the same design by meaner hands. In this practice he was detected, taken to Macdonald's castle, and imprisoned in the dungeon. When ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... In the severe censure of the flight of Justiniani, Phranza expresses his own feelings and those of the public. For some private reasons, he is treated with more lenity and respect by Ducas; but the words of Leonardus Chiensis express his strong and recent indignation, gloriae salutis suique oblitus. In the whole series of their Eastern policy, his countrymen, the Genoese, were always suspected, and often guilty. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Emperor Nero. Here the centurion handed Paul over to the prefect of the praetorian guards, by whom he was subjected to a merely nominal custody, although, according to Roman custom, he was chained to a soldier. But he was treated with great lenity, was allowed to have lodgings, to receive his friends freely, and to hold Christian meetings in his own house; and no one molested him. For two years Paul remained at Rome, a fettered prisoner it is true, but ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... this fur-trader was one Boyer, of Rouen, who had been delivered from prison at Rochelle by Poutrincourt's lenity, where he had been incarcerated probably for the same offence. They did not succeed in capturing him at Canseau.—Vide His. Nou. France, par ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... probability have been the issue of the Indian consultation. Such, however, was not the result of the council. It was decreed that they should be killed with as little noise as possible; their scalps taken as trophies, and that their daughters should remain captives as before. The lenity of this sentence may be traced to two causes. The daring hardihood, the fearless intrepidity of the adventure, inspired them with unqualified admiration for their captives. Innumerable instances have since been recorded, where the most inveterate ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... Allah had united in her every charm: her shape would shame the branch of waving tree and the rose before her cheeks craved lenity; and the honey dew of her lips of wine made jeer, however old and clear, and she gladdened heart and beholder with joyous cheer, even as saith ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... expected from us by our friends, who will, and can, know nothing of our reasons for foregoing the advantage which seems to be in our power, and for treating our opponents with such extraordinary and unaccountable lenity and forbearance. This is asking a great deal.' I owned that it was; but I urged that the paramount importance of winning over the Whig leader, and a part of the Whig party, to a decided opposition to the movement, and the prospect ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... protection. Of the Miamis he would demand an absolute disavowal of all further connection with the Prophet, and a disapprobation of his continued occupancy of their lands. All the tribes were to be reminded of the lenity, justice and continued consideration of the United States, and the efforts of the government to civilize them and promote their happiness, and warned that in case they took up the tomahawk against their fathers, no further ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... to the King himself, because he had been his intimate friend, and also from respect to the military order, they would defer process and execution of every kind against him; promising them that he would labour, with regard to him, to bring him back with all mildness and lenity from the error of his way to the right path of truth. And if he could not succeed in this endeavour, he would deliver him to them according to the canonical obligations to be punished, and would assist them in this with all ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... your father, because I meditate one of mine, or rather of my family. I have no such materials as you, and (our objections already made) your attack fills me with despair; it is direct and elegant, and your style is always admirable to me—lenity, lucidity, usually a high strain of breeding, an elegance that has a pleasant air of the accidental. But beware of purple passages. I wonder if you think as well of your purple passages as I do of mine? I wonder if you think ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way as to show both the teacher's sense of the impropriety of disorder, and also his desire to avoid giving pain to the boy. If it then turns out that the individual is ordinarily a well-disposed boy, all is right, and if he proves to be habitually disobedient and troublesome, the lenity and forbearance exercised at first will facilitate the effect aimed at by subsequent measures. Avoid, then, for the few first days, all open collision with any of your pupils, that you may have opportunity for minute and ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... the "Rehearsal;" Shadwell, with whom our poet now urged open war; and Settle, the insolence of whose rivalry was neither forgotten nor duly avenged. The respect due to Monmouth was probably the only consideration to be overcome: but his character was to be handled with peculiar lenity; and his duchess, who, rather than himself, had patronised Dryden, was so dissatisfied with the politics, as well as the other irregularities, of her husband, that there was no danger of her taking a gentle correction of his ambition as any ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Ministerial measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy and want of system, would be taken as an occasion of charging us with a predetermined discontent, which nothing could satisfy; whilst we accused every measure of vigor as cruel, and every proposal of lenity as weak and irresolute. The public, he said, would not have patience to see us play the game out with our adversaries; we must produce our hand. It would be expected that those who for many years had been active in such affairs should show that they had formed some clear and decided idea of the ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... acquiesced, and returned to their duty on deck. Jackson's conduct towards them was now quite altered; he not only treated them with lenity, but supplied them with extra liquor and other indulgences, which, as captain, he could command. Newton, however, he still detained under an arrest, watching him most carefully each time that he was necessitated to come on deck. The fact was, Jackson, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... some difficulty in treating with perfect seriousness a line of reasoning which, proceeding from the quarter whence it comes, holds up for our admiration the wisdom or lenity of Turkish rule in Crete, and extols the supreme justice of the system upon which rests the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which implies that the arts of government may be learnt from the Russian administration of Finland, and omits all reference to the disastrous results of the attempt to endow Poland ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... were right or wrong in applying your general arguments to their own case. It is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus apply those general arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest in these ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... this is effected the better; and to do it effectually we should have a large force at Labuan, ready to act with decision. Let it be remembered that, with people so crafty and so cruel as the Malays and descendants of the Arabs, lenity is misplaced, and is ascribed to cowardice. No half measures will succeed with them. Indeed, I have my doubts whether it will not be necessary to destroy almost every prahu in the archipelago, and compel the natives to remain on their territory, to cultivate or ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... that they would proceed to retaliation, which, if once commenced, might be carried to extremities; to prevent which, the Congress issued an address exhorting to forbearance and a further trial by examples of generosity and lenity, to recall their enemies to the practice of humanity amidst the calamities of war. In consequence of which, neither the Congress, nor any of the States apart, have ever exercised or authorised the exercise of the right ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... truth Allah had united in her every charm: her shape would shame the branch of waving tree and the rose before her cheeks craved lenity; and the honey dew of her lips of wine made jeer, however old and clear, and she gladdened heart and beholder with joyous cheer, even as saith of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... them, which is, that these men, whom I have displaced, may be pardoned. I will answer for them for the future, and assure you that their conduct shall be such as to give you cause to rejoice at your lenity." ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... negligence. His neighbors, believing the penalty unjust, remonstrated in his favor, and Franklin complied with their request. This Mr. Montagu severely condemned, as fatal to the dignity of government, and ascribed the lenity of Sir John to the influence of Lady Franklin. He then announced to the governor, in a formal manner, that thenceforth he should confine his own services to the routine of his office, and that a cordial co-operation might be expected no longer. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... with a courtly expression of regret, calculated to accompany a positive refusal of the request solicited. This movement brought them so near Edith, that she could distinctly hear Claverhouse say, "It cannot be, Major Bellenden; lenity, in his case, is altogether beyond the bounds of my commission, though in any thing else I am heartily desirous to oblige you.—And here comes Evandale with news, as I think.—What tidings do you bring ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and he himself who is our everlasting high-priest, the Son of God, even Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and in truth and in all meekness and lenity; in patience and long-suffering, in forbearance and chastity. And grant unto you a lot and portion among his saints; and us with you, and to all that are under the heavens, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in his Father who raised him from the dead. Pray for all the saints; pray ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... if we do not get rid of this man, what is the consequence?—that we shall have to account for his being wounded, and then, instead of judges, we shall immediately be placed in the position of culprits, and have to defend ourselves without witnesses. We therefore risk our lives from a misplaced lenity towards a ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... compassion, lenity, mercy, benevolence, love, excellence, virtue; beauty, loveliness, gracefulness, comeliness; refinement, elegance, courtliness, culture, polish; holiness, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... censorial power will not be useless to you, nor a sinecure to me. The sooner you make it both, the better for us both. I can now exercise this employment only upon hearsay, or, at most, written evidence; and therefore shall exercise it with great lenity and some diffidence; but when we meet, and that I can form my judgment upon ocular and auricular evidence, I shall no more let the least impropriety, indecorum, or irregularity pass uncensured, than my predecessor ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... divers nights, and endured very great torment night and day. The statute of 1562 includes 'fond and fantastic prophecies' (a very common sort of political offences in that age) in the category of forbidden arts. With unaccustomed lenity it punished a first conviction with ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... than chastising them with rods, feeding them as it were with the milk of a mother, and not making use of the scourges of the father, he incurred public scandal for his remissness. So great was his lenity that he put an end to all pastoral rigour; and was a better monk than abbot, a better bishop than archbishop. Hence pope Urban addressed him; "Urban, servant of the servants of God, to the most fervent monk, to ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... name, whose captain had brought his ship into action unprepared, and who, when his superior was killed, surrendered the ship when she could no longer be defended, was shot by sentence of a court-martial. This savage punishment was approved by the higher officers of the navy, who showed great lenity to men of their own rank. The contrast had angered the country, and the Articles of War had been amended precisely in order that there might be one ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... sometimes in the sarcastic spirit of a Mephistopheles, this, too, was considered as part of his functions. He was the Ter'roe Fil'ius [Footnote: Terroe Filius, son of the earth; that is, a human being.] of the day; and lenity would have been considered, not as an act of discretion, but as ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... moderation. He upbraided Hugh, both with disloyalty and ingratitude; but told the rest, that he considered them as men deluded and misinformed. Hugh was sworn to fidelity, and dismissed with his companions; but he was not generous enough to be reclaimed by lenity; and finding no longer any countenance among the gentlemen, endeavoured to execute the same design by meaner hands. In this practice he was detected, taken to Macdonald's castle, and imprisoned in the dungeon. When he was hungry, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... from the laws of his country for twelve years, the Court was disposed to show no lenity. He was therefore sentenced to pay a fine of one shilling, and be ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... indeed, revere him as a model of virtue, but of the occasional lapses of his bachelor life from correct moral standards, which seemed to be well known and freely talked about, they spoke with affectionate lenity of judgment. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... inflamed, while he called out, "Up! up, neighbour! No time now to mope in the chimney-corner! Where is your buff-coat and broadsword, man? Take the true side once in your life, and mend past mistakes. The King is all lenity, man—all royal nature and mercy. I will ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... from Syracuse, B.C. 389, with a powerful force, to subdue the Italiot Greeks, and laid siege to Caulonia. He defeated their army, and slew their general. The victor treated the defeated Greeks with lenity, and then laid siege to Rhegium, to which he granted peace on severe terms. Caulonia and Hipponeum, two cities whose territory occupied the breadth of the Calabrian peninsula, fell into his hands. Rhegium surrendered after a desperate defense, and ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... from screening Criminals, and shew him the many Passages, where I insist upon it, that impartial Justice ought to be administer'd, and that even for the Welfare of worldly-minded Men, Crimes should be severely punish'd. You would inform him likewise, that I thought Nothing more cruel, than the Lenity of Juries, and the Frequencies of Pardons, and not forget to tell him, that my Book contained several Essays on Politicks; that the greatest Part of it was a Philosophical Disquisition into the Force of the Passions, and the Nature of ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... better off than in Rome. As a rule, he has perfect liberty to do and say and write what he likes, and almost inevitably he gets to think that a government which is so lenient a one for him cannot be a very bad one for its own subjects. The cause, however, of this exceptional lenity is not hard to discover. Much as we laugh at home about the Civis Romanus doctrine, abroad it is a very powerful reality. Whether rightly or wrongly, foreign governments are afraid of meddling with English subjects, and act accordingly. Then, too, Englishmen as a body care very little ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... a portion of the assailants took possession of the gunroom; seized the arms, and killed all who resisted. This vigorous assault soon carried the ship by a surrender at discretion. She proved to be a rich prize; and the prisoners were treated with lenity, which was not always the course adopted by the buccaneers when they were disappointed in the amount of their expected plunder. Many were the crews compelled to pay with their lives for the poverty ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... thought his tone might have been more unqualified, and marvelled again at the curious lenity of judgment he had always shown of late towards Mr. Wendover. And all his judgments of himself and others were generally so quick, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Gunpowder Plot, which falls this year on Thursday the fifth of November. The whole is under the direction of a delegated committee of O. P.'s whose treasonable exploits at Covent Garden you all recollect, and all of whom would have been hung from the chandeliers at that time, but for the mistaken lenity of Government. At a given signal, a well-known O. P. was to cry out from the gallery, "Nosey! Music!" whereupon all the O. P.'s were to produce from their inside pockets a long pair of shears, edged with felt, to prevent their making any noise, manufactured ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... Colonel Boone over the Indian mind, that the chiefs with one consent agreed in grateful commemoration of this treaty, that if any captive should hereafter be taken by them from Maysville, that captive should be treated with every possible degree of lenity. And it is worthy of record that such a captive was subsequently taken, and that the Indians with the most scrupulous fidelity fulfilled their pledge. Indeed, it is difficult for an impartial historian to deny, that these poor savages, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... conjuncture of his affairs would admit; if he had been of a rougher and more imperious nature, he would have found more respect and duty. And his not applying some severe cures to approaching evils proceeded from the lenity of his nature, and the tenderness of his conscience, which, in all cases of blood, made him choose the softer way, and not hearken to severe counsels, how reasonable soever urged. This only restrained ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... idea that frenzy holds the pen. That any man who insults the common order of society, and denies the being of God, is essentially mad we never doubted. But for the madness, that retains enough of rationality to be wilfully mischievous, we can have no more lenity than for the appetites of a wild beast. The poetry of the work is contemptible—a mere collection of bloated words heaped on each other without order, harmony, or meaning; the refuse of a schoolboy's common-place ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... my riven breast, First against her, whom I esteemed so pure; Then 'gainst myself, whose foolish lenity Hath fashion'd her for treason. Man is soon Inur'd to slavery, and quickly learns Submission, when of freedom quite depriv'd. If she had fallen in the savage hands Of my rude sires, and had their holy rage Forborne to slay her, grateful for her life, She would have recogniz'd her ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... now lost their hopes, and our friends, I hope, are recovered from their fears. To fancy that our government can be subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels. The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... surrendered. The emperor treated it with lenity, but a great treasure in gold, silver, silk, and precious stones fell into his hands, with all the animals and arms. Zenobia being brought into his presence, he sternly asked her how she had dared to take arms against the emperors of Rome. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... that he could have made no sort of doubt of their entering heartily into his ideas, if Lord North, some days before, in opening the budget, had not gone out of his way to make a panegyric on the last Parliament, and in particular to commend as acts of lenity and mercy those very laws which the Remonstrance considers as ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Mark, upon returning to the hall, "you can hardly expect any special lenity from me. The will allowed you an annuity of one thousand dollars while you remained single; since you are married your interest ceases, but you shall receive two hundred a year. The house, however, belongs to my wife. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offenses have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... making laws, I find no less than five about matters of religion; all contrived, and not only contrived, but executed in some respects with a rigour that the persecution which drove the Puritans out of England, might be considered lenity and indulgence in the comparison. For, in the first of these laws, they deprive every man who does not communicate with their Established Church, of the right to his freedom, or a vote in the election of their magistrates. In the second, they sentence to banishment ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... tumult and disorder in the punishment of offenders; and wish to be governed, not by temper but by reason, in the manner of treating them. We are sensible that our cause has suffered by the two following errors: first, by ill-judged lenity to traitorous persons in some cases; and, secondly, by only a passionate treatment of them in others. For the future we disown both, and wish to be steady in our proceedings, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... with which he had been provoked to revenge, magnanimously pardoned him; nay, according to Las Casas, he proceeded with stern justice against the Spaniard whose outrage on his wife had sunk so deeply in his heart. He extended his lenity also to the remaining chieftains of the conspiracy; promising great favors and rewards, if they should continue firm in their loyalty; but terrible punishments should they again be found in rebellion. The heart of Guarionex ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... ambassadors to a man respecting whom you passed a most dignified and severe decision only thirteen days ago, is not an act of lenity, but, if I am to speak my real opinion, of downright madness. In the first place, you praised those generals who, of their own head, had undertaken war against him, in the next place, you praised the veterans who, though they had been settled in those ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... appears that this fur-trader was one Boyer, of Rouen, who had been delivered from prison at Rochelle by Poutrincourt's lenity, where he had been incarcerated probably for the same offence. They did not succeed in capturing him at Canseau.—Vide His. Nou. France, par ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... the forfeit of her life for her ignorance of such a law, or because the modesty and even shame attendant upon her disgraced condition prevented her conforming to it. I appeal to your sense of justice; the wretched girl, concerning whom I write, is a fit object for the exercise of your lenity, and I venture to assure myself that you will at least effect the commutation of her punishment. Your own kind feelings will dictate all I would ask further for her. "I am, etc., etc." I felt very certain that, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... cannot exist without something of the marvellous.' 'None, my lord,' replied Ferdinand, who too well understood the manner of the marquis. ''Tis well,' cried the marquis, 'and this is the last time,' turning to his attendants, 'that your folly shall be treated with so much lenity.' He ceased to urge the subject, and forbore to ask Ferdinand even one question before his servants, concerning the nocturnal sounds described by Peter. He quitted the dungeon with eyes steadily bent in anger and suspicion upon ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... must now do, in the danger of an infamous punishment. By degrees, and at different times, she had gained from him a full acquaintance with the predicament in which he would be placed by failing to appear on the day appointed, and the very small hope he could entertain of being treated with lenity. ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... number of citizens, men began to involve the innocent in condemnation, and other like abuses were practiced; and it was then that the Porcian and other laws were provided, by which condemned citizens were allowed to go into exile. This lenity of our ancestors, Conscript Fathers, I regard as a very strong reason why we should not adopt any new measures of severity. For assuredly there was greater merit and wisdom in those, who raised so mighty an empire ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... unavoidable prelude to the beneficent functions of peace. The conflict was not of our seeking. Be the consequences what they may, the Sikhs will have themselves to blame, should it so happen, for the illustration of the maxim, that "when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... darling of the moment by declaring that some foreign state has insulted England, and that the time has come when the sword must be drawn to defend the nation's honor. Then "away to heaven, respective lenity" indeed! The appeal acts like a charm to call out the passion and to silence the reason of vast masses of the population in all ranks and conditions. Even among the working-classes and the poor—who, one might imagine, have all to lose and nothing to gain by war—it is by no means certain that ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... wealth will in all probability swell her own. Moreover, she is more beautiful than any other young lady of your acquaintance, and, polished by your example, may do honour to your taste as well as your prudence. Under these circumstances, you will, I am quite sure, look with lenity on her girlish errors, and not love her the less because her foolish fancy persuades her that she ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... found amongst the students, whose wild republican schemes have dazzled others and induced the different outbreaks which have occurred since the event of the three days, and having been treated with lenity in the first instance, unprecedented in the annals of every other government, they were emboldened ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... which this case occurs. We are well assured, (for our information comes from quarters judicially conversant with the question,) that in no other channel of human life does there flow one-hundredth part of the forbearance and the lenity which are called into action by the relation between injured masters and their servants. We are informed that, were every third charge pursued effectually, half the courts in Europe would not suffice for the cases of criminality which ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... had to the gibbet, insomuch as gentlemen of great quality were hanged, their wounds bleeding, lest a natural death should prevent the example of justice. But, my lords, the course which we shall take is of far greater lenity, and yet of no less efficacy; which is to punish, in this court, all the middle acts and proceedings which tend to the duel, which I will enumerate to you anon, and so to hew and vex the root in the branches, which, no doubt, in the end will kill the root, and yet ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... desiring to treat the city with lenity, withheld any attack upon public monuments in which the insurgents had taken up positions. This morning they carried the Place de la Concorde. The Ministry of Finances, the Hotel of the Conseil d'Etat, the Palace of the ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... foreign land, far removed from his family and connexions. Pickle d—d him for his pusillanimity; and the exempt hearing a lady bemoan herself so piteously, expressed his mortification at being the instrument of giving her such pain, and endeavoured to console them by representing the lenity of the French government, and the singular generosity of the prince, by whose ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and exercised to the utmost the discretionary power, which, while the law had no free course in the Highlands, was conceived to belong to the military parties who were called in to support it. He acted, for example, with great and suspicious lenity to those freebooters who made restitution on his summons, and offered personal submission to himself, while he rigorously pursued, apprehended, and sacrificed to justice, all such interlopers as dared to despise his admonitions or commands. On the other ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... man, I hope. I think thou shouldst be glad to have the justification of her memory left to one, who, at the same time, thou mayest be assured, will treat thee, and thy actions, with all the lenity the case ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... lives. Thy sons were malevolent, inflamed with passion, avaricious, and of very evil-disposition. Thou art versed in the Sastras, O Bharata, and art intelligent and wise; they never sink under misfortunes whose understandings are guided by the Sastras. Thou art acquainted, O prince, with the lenity and severity of fate; this anxiety therefore for the safety of thy children is unbecoming. Moreover, it behoveth thee not to grieve for that which must happen: for who can avert, by his wisdom, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and harassing their legs. Into the midst of this fray, Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated themselves with great ardour, as if such ground were the only ground on which they could now agree; and having, with no visible remains of their late soft- heartedness, laid about them without any lenity, and done much execution, resumed their ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... than the darkest hours of their misfortunes. This lay in the increased bitterness of the struggle, and in those more strenuous measures which the British commanders felt themselves entitled and compelled to adopt. Nothing could exceed the lenity of Lord Roberts's early proclamations in the Free State. But, as the months went on and the struggle still continued, the war assumed a harsher aspect. Every farmhouse represented a possible fort, and a probable depot for the enemy. The extreme measure of burning them down ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had caught him so musing many a time before; and as to his prolonging his stay, that might arise from the sport—or, indeed, had any thing more material swayed him, who could penetrate whether it was the effect of the lenity, or the severity, he had dealt towards his child? whether his continuance there was to shun her, or to shun the house from whence he ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... have been the issue of the Indian consultation. Such, however, was not the result of the council. It was decreed that they should be killed with as little noise as possible; their scalps taken as trophies, and that their daughters should remain captives as before. The lenity of this sentence may be traced to two causes. The daring hardihood, the fearless intrepidity of the adventure, inspired them with unqualified admiration for their captives. Innumerable instances have since been ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... feeling till it led us to commit this wicked action; but that feeling has all passed away. You never injured us, and I know not what spirit of evil tempted us to injure you as we have done. We feel thankful to our teacher for the lenity he has shown us, and I hope our future conduct will bear witness that we appreciate his kindness, and, if you can forgive us and be friends again, I hope you will find that we ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... none in universe see, * For beauty and graces and softest blee: That fairest of blossoms she blooms on earth * Than gardens the sheeniest sheenier she: And soft is the rose of her cheek to the touch * 'Twixt apple's and Eglantine's lenity, And the forelock-falls on the brow of her * Death-doom to the World and the Faith decree; And she shames the branchlet of Basil when * She paces the Garden so fair and free. An water doubted her soft sweet gait * She had glided with water o'er greenery: ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... that the commons should appoint whomsoever they thought proper to conduct the inquiry. The office is intrusted to the consuls by the commons with the consent of the people at large, who, after having executed the task with the utmost moderation and lenity by punishing only a few, who there are sufficient grounds for believing put a period to their own lives, still could not succeed so as to prevent the people from feeling the utmost displeasure. "That constitutions, which were ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... influence which party spirit exercises over those journals. In the latter, one or two of her works have been criticised with overwhelming power, and in a tone and spirit superlatively bitter. In the former, on the contrary, she is spoken of with studied lenity, although the Reviewer is obliged to confess that he is not one of her particular admirers, and seems to be perpetually restraining himself from indulging in the language of raillery and sarcasm. We need hardly add that the political principles which her Ladyship professes ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... consonant with the mild temper of Tullibardine: "Those who have gone home without a special licence on furlough, must be exemplarily punished, either in their persons or effects, or in both; for when our all depends, lenity would be folly." After urging the Marquis to send off the men to Blair by dozens, he adds, "If rewards and punishments do not, I know not what will. By the laws of God and man you have both in your power and your person:" thus alluding to the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... I disposed to inquire into the reason of the comparative lenity, on the other hand, with which some pieces were treated, which, to indifferent judges, seemed at least as much deserving of condemnation as some of those which met with it. I am willing to put, a favorable construction upon the votes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... reason he has always advocated lenity of measures towards them. He wants to get them into a state in which the moral influence of the North can act upon them beneficially, and to get such a state of things that there will be a party at the South to ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... or moral consistency to the actual or conventional exigences of the stage is rather more startling than usual: a fratricidal ravisher and slanderer could hardly have expected even from theatrical tolerance the monstrous lenity of pardon and dismissal with a prospect of being happy though married. The hand of Heywood is more recognizable in the presentation of a clown who may fairly be called identical with all his others, and in the noble answer of the criminal's ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... themselves be branded with public and perpetual infamy. III. "With regard to the sons of the traitors," (continues the emperor,) "although they ought to share the punishment, since they will probably imitate the guilt, of their parents, yet, by the special effect of our Imperial lenity, we grant them their lives; but, at the same time, we declare them incapable of inheriting, either on the father's or on the mother's side, or of receiving any gift or legacy, from the testament either of kinsmen ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... The democratic movement of the last eighty years, be it a "finality," or only a phase of progress towards a more perfect state, is the grand historical fact of modern times, and Paine's name is intimately connected with it. One is always ready to look with lenity on the partiality of a biographer,—whether he urge the claims of his hero to a niche in the Valhalla of great men, or act as the Advocatus Diaboli to degrade ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... whom I might apply. Having thus dismissed these honest fellows from their fears, I was infinitely gratified by the murmur of satisfaction which instantly ran through the ship's company; and was afterwards amply rewarded for my lenity, there being no service during all the toils and dangers of the voyage which they did not perform with a zeal and alacrity that were much to their honour and my advantage, as an example ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... savages, and forever close the question by the complete conquest and reduction of all the hostile or dangerous tribes. But no assumption could be farther from the facts of the case than that the effect of lenity has been to increase the sum of Indian outrage. There is no scintilla of evidence to show that any savage tribe has been incited by the forbearance of the government to increased depredations. On the contrary, the history of the past three years has shown a steady decline in the ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... severe and cruel usage. But the lieutenant endeavoured, with great courtesy, to dissipate their terror, assuring them that their fears were altogether groundless, and that they would find a generous enemy in the commodore, who was no less remarkable for his lenity and humanity, than for courage and resolution. The prisoners who were first sent on board the Centurion, informed us, that the prize was called Neustra Lenora del Monte Carmelo, and her commander Don Manuel Zamorra. Her cargo consisted chiefly of sugar, and a great quantity of blue ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... King's wounded soldiers, who but an hour before would have shot him if they could have come at him, and in making a collection for their refreshment, of wine, linen, money, etc., in the town where he lived. * * * The capture of the privateer was, solely owing to the ill-judged lenity and brotherly kindness of Captain Johnson, who not considering his English prisoners in the same light that he would French or Spanish, put them under no sort of confinement, but permitted them to walk the decks as freely as his own people at all times. Taking ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Sonnes, he was driven out of Rome, and the Monarchy it selfe dissolved. But Crimes of Infirmity; such as are those which proceed from great provocation, from great fear, great need, or from ignorance whether the Fact be a great Crime, or not, there is place many times for Lenity, without prejudice to the Common-wealth; and Lenity when there is such place for it, is required by the Law of Nature. The Punishment of the Leaders, and teachers in a Commotion; not the poore seduced People, when ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... being of government has been adopted without effect; when the well-disposed in those counties are unable by their influence and example to reclaim the wicked from their fury, and are compelled to associate in their own defence; when the proffered lenity has been perversely misinterpreted into an apprehension that the citizens will march with reluctance; when the opportunity of examining the serious consequences of a treasonable opposition has been employed in propagating principles of anarchy, endeavoring ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... conditions as should seem proper. But others, in agreement with the President, insisted that if no State could lawfully secede, it followed that no State could lawfully be deprived of statehood. These persons reinforced their legal argument with the sentimental one that lenity was the best policy. As General Grant afterward put it: "The people who had been in rebellion must necessarily come back into the Union, and be incorporated as an integral part of the nation. Naturally the nearer they were placed to an equality ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... cellar for them; saucy and impudent, as when we have taken her to task for her wickedness she has gone away to complain of cruell usage. I can truly say we have used this base creature w'th a great deal of kindness and lenity. She w'd frequently take her mistresses capps and stockins, hankerchers etc., to dresse herselfe and away without leave among her companions. I may have said some time or other when she has been in fault that she ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... this impeachment, it must be confessed that his majesty gave many marks of his great lenity; often urging the services you had done him, and endeavouring to extenuate your crimes. The treasurer and admiral insisted that you should be put to the most painful and ignominious death, by setting fire ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... favor the orthodox, he exacted from him an oath, that he would never restore their profession. To evade this, Hilderic, before the death of his predecessor, signed an order for the liberty of the orthodox churches, but never had the courage to declare himself of the same belief; his lenity having quite degenerated into softness and indolence. However, the professors of the true faith called home their pastors. The ship which brought them back, was received at Carthage with the greatest demonstrations of joy: ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... moderation and justice of the said Hastings in admitting the clear and undoubted right of Fyzoola Khan to insist on his treaty, the head of instruction immediately succeeding doth afford just reason for a violent presumption that such apparent lenity was but policy, to give a color to his conduct: he, the said Hastings, in the very next paragraph, bringing forth a new ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... who were in the palace assembled. The new King came forth, and took his place at the head of the board. He commenced his administration, according to usage, by a speech to the Council. He expressed his regret for the loss which he had just sustained, and he promised to imitate the singular lenity which had distinguished the late reign. He was aware, he said, that he had been accused of a fondness for arbitrary power. But that was not the only falsehood which had been told of him. He was resolved to maintain the established government ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "Washington's lenity never extended to the excusing of any palpable neglect of duty. The strict regularity of his own private character was carried into everything connected with his public duties. However much he esteemed any man, it was for ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... though this anger should not be real, still they think his words and gestures ought to wear the appearance of it, so that the action of the orator may excite the anger of his hearer. And they deny that any man has ever been seen who does not know what it is to be angry; and they name what we call lenity by the bad appellation of indolence. Nor do they commend only this lust (for anger is, as I defined it above, the lust of revenge), but they maintain that kind of lust or desire to be given us by nature for very good purposes, saying that no one can execute anything ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... what he is not able to contend with, shrinks from his own operation. He doubts and questions the salutary but critical terrors of the cautery and the knife. He takes a poor credit even from his defeat, and covers impotence under the mask of lenity. He praises the moderation of the laws, as, in his hands, he sees them baffled and despised. Is all this, because in our day the statutes of the kingdom are not engrossed in as firm a character, and imprinted in as black and legible a type ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... entertainment, and better than entertainment, as this writer afforded his contemporaries. In the meantime, among judicious readers on both sides of the Atlantic, Stevenson stands, I think it may safely be said, as a true master of English prose; scarcely surpassed for the union of lenity and lucidity with suggestive pregnancy and poetic animation; for harmony of cadence and the well-knit structure of sentences; and for the art of imparting to words the vital quality of things, and making them convey the precise—sometimes, let it be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his wealth and his fame, and he will tell you that in passing through the shadow which relatives and associates had thrown across his path, his eclipse was so long that society had no patience to await his return to light—no mercy for the obscuration which their ill-timed lenity to others had made ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... matters, is attended with much difficulty and embarrassment. It will, however, be seen upon examination of the facts of the case, that the difficulty which then arose, proceeded solely from the lenity and indulgence shown to the prisoners by the crown. On New-Year's day 1840, John Frost and others, were brought to trial, on a charge of high treason, before a special commission at Monmouth. The proceedings were interrupted by an objection taken by the prisoners' counsel, that the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... behalf were heightened by delay, and an indefinite prospect of delay was opened by the reluctance of all persons in authority to incur the odium attendant on any decision. On the one side there was a loud cry that the Republic was in danger, and that lenity to the prisoners would be the signal of attack for all its enemies; on the other, there was a certainty that a sentence of death and confiscation of property passed on five citizens of distinguished name, would entail the rancorous ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the decree is issued. I have given the same explanation to every one; but I cannot so suddenly retrace my steps. To retro-grade is to be lost. I cannot acknowledge myself in the wrong. By and by we shall see what can be done. Time will bring lenity and pardon. At present it would be premature." Such, word for word, was Bonaparte's reply. If with this be compared what he said on the subject at St. Helena it will be found that his ideas continued nearly unchanged; the only difference is that, instead ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... persuaded to submit to that rite of Christianity. His example had great influence with his subjects; but he employed no force to bring them over to the new doctrine. Augustine thought proper, in the commencement of his mission, to assume the appearance of the greatest lenity. He told Ethelbert that the service of Christ must be entirely voluntary, and that no violence ought ever to be used in propagating so salutary a doctrine [s]. [FN [r] Bede, lib. 1. cap 26. [s] Ibid. lib. 1. cap 26. H. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... observe, that the Americans can no longer anticipate lenity from the English traveller, as latterly they have so deeply committed themselves. Once, indeed, they could say, "We admit and are hospitable to the English, who, as soon as they leave our country, turn round and abuse and revile us. We have our faults, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... judgment against the selfish sinner of the inimitable apologue may be a subtle indication of his troubled conscience, which fancies some atonement for his own sin in stern repression of that of others; for consciousness of evil may sometimes sting into harshness as well as soften to lenity, and sinful man is a sterner judge than the righteous God. The answer of Nathan is a perfect example of the Divine way of convincing of sin. There is first the plain charge pressed home on the individual conscience, "Thou art the man." Then follows, not reproach nor further deepening of the blackness ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... The regent told his attendants that he was wounded, and returned to his lodgings; it was at first thought the wound was not mortal, but his pain increasing, he began to think of death. Some about him told him, That this was the fruit of his lenity, in sparing so many notorious offenders, and among the rest his own murderer; but he replied, "Your importunity shall not make me repent my clemency." Having settled his private affairs, he committed ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Proclamation had been received the day before. With the exception of a few persons who were prepared for such a document by reflection on Mr. Kane's mission, everybody was astonished at its purport. It seemed incredible that a lenity should have been extended to the Mormon rebels which was refused to the Free-State men in Kansas, who were once indicted for treason and sedition,—and equally incredible that all the advantages for the solution ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... a Papal tyrant pause And tremble, held the undeviating reins On the fierce neck of headlong Anarchy. Thy Church, (nor here let zealot bigotry, Vaunting, condemn all altars but its own), Thy Church, majestic, but not sumptuous, 520 Sober, but not austere, with lenity Tempering her fair pre-eminence, sustains Her liberal charities, yet decent state. The tempest is abroad; the fearful sounds Of armament, and gathering tumult, fill The ear of anxious Europe. If, O GOD! It is thy ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... accustomed to write or correct for the press, must crave the indulgence of critics for the many imperfections of this kind which may have escaped his notice. Having endeavoured to render his performance as complete as his circumstances would admit, he hopes the public will treat him with lenity, although it may be far from answering their expectations. In short, if this part of the work shall be deemed useful, and meet with any share of public approbation, the author will be satisfied; and may be induced afterwards to review it, and take some pains to render it ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... sir, no later than last week. A fellow that I caught stealing my turf, instead of sending him to jail, I said to him, with a great deal of lenity, My honest fellow, did you never hear of the eighth commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal?' He confessed he had; but did not know it was the eighth. I showed it to him, and counted it to him myself; and set him, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... men, I ought to be ill, I never was better in my life than in the spring of 1812. To moderation, and temperate use of the article I may ascribe it, I suppose, that as yet, at least, I am unsuspicious of the avenging terrors which opium has in store for those who abuse its lenity. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the power of Rome. This illustrious woman was not only learned, beautiful, and an agreeable writer, but governed the East for five years with discretion and success. Aurelian was amazed at her warlike preparations upon the fall of Palmyra, and treated her beautiful city with lenity; but the Palmyrenians having rebelled, the city was taken by storm, and its people put to death. The ruins of Palmyra are still among the most ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... unconditional surrender, but offered to allow the garrisons to march out with the honours of war on condition of not serving against them for a year. A better example of shirking present problems at the cost of enhanced difficulties in the future cannot be imagined. By this improvident lenity the Allies enabled the regicides to hurl fully 25,000 trained troops against the royalists of the West and deal them terrible blows. In September and October the Republicans gained considerable successes, especially at Cholet. Soon the Vendean War became little more than a guerilla strife, which ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a mercenary sword. We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering over our countrymen is love to our country, that those who hate civil war abet rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, moderation, and tenderness of the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a sort of treason ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... heart moved with pity toward the poor, untutored savage who had thus really been grateful, and no doubt had done all in his power for her good. She recalled many instances where she believed that he was the cause of the lenity upon the part of the captors, and where it seemed that some one had shown an interest in her welfare. She informed him that she believed he had done her all the good that was in his power, and expressed her heartfelt thanks for it. The Indian ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... Watson's destiny. To my inquiries, which were made with frankness and fervour, respecting his own and his sister's condition, he said that the situation of both was deplorable till the recovery of this property. They had been saved from utter ruin, from beggary and a jail, only by the generosity and lenity of his creditors, who did not suffer the suspicious circumstances attending Watson's disappearance to outweigh former proofs of his probity. They had never relinquished the hopes of receiving ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... consider the loss of office, and the public disapprobation, as punishments sufficient for errors in the administration not imputable to personal corruption. Nothing, we believe, has contributed more than this lenity to raise the character of public men. Ambition is of itself a game sufficiently hazardous and sufficiently deep to inflame the passions without adding property, life, and liberty to the stake. Where the play runs so desperately ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... engagement I shall enter into, if I am not further precipitated. Let me not have it to say, now at this important crisis! that I have a sister, but not a friend in that sister. My reputation, dearer to me than life, (whatever you may imagine from the step I have taken,) is suffering. A little lenity will, even yet, in a great measure, restore it, and make that pass for a temporary misunderstanding only, which otherwise will be a stain as durable as life, upon a creature who has already been treated with great unkindness, to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... regulations the arbitrary government—the King of Denmark being the most absolute monarch in Europe—appears, which in other respects seeks to hide itself in a lenity that almost renders the laws nullities. If any alteration of old customs is thought of, the opinion of the old country is required and maturely considered. I have several times had occasion to observe that, fearing to appear tyrannical, laws are allowed to become obsolete which ought to be put in ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... make a summer." "Sensuality is the chief of sins, filial duty the best of acts." "The horse's back is not so safe us the buffalo's"—the former is used by the politician, the latter by the farmer. "Too much lenity multiplies crime." "If you love your son give him plenty of the rod; if you hate him cram him with dainties." "He is my teacher who tells me my faults, he my enemy who speaks my virtues." Having a wholesome dread of litigation, they say of one who goes to law, "He sues a flea to catch a ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... to the society ought to be expelled out of it; but as they were Englishmen, and that it was to the generous kindness of an Englishman that they all owed their preservation and deliverance, he would use them with all possible lenity, and would leave them to the judgment of the other two Englishmen, who were their countrymen. One of the two honest Englishmen stood up, and said they desired it might not be left to them. "For," says he, "I am sure we ought to sentence them ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... rather our wish to prevent evils in future than to enter into a severe retrospection of the past, and, where facts are doubtful, or attended with alleviating circumstances, to proceed with lenity, rather than to prosecute with rigor,—yet some of the cases are so flagrantly corrupt, and others attended with circumstances so oppressive to the inhabitants, that it would be unjust to suffer the delinquents ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... rigor is the only measure adequate to the occasion. It is the weakness of civilization that it hesitates to be cruelly kind. The mistake of the military authorities in regard to the New York riot, was lenity. The prompt and vigorous bombardment, in the beginning of the rising, of a block of the houses in which the rioters were safely ensconced, while covertly firing on the soldiers and policemen, would have done more to quell the mob than all subsequent proceedings, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... persons much above him. All were condemned, absent and unheard, in arbitrary fines and forfeitures, which swept away the greatest part of their substance. Such bold oppression can scarcely be shielded by the omnipotence of parliament. My grandfather could not expect to be treated with more lenity than his companions. His Tory principles and connexions rendered him obnoxious to the ruling powers. His name was reported in a suspicious secret. His well-known abilities could not plead the excuse of ignorance or error. In the first proceedings against the South-Sea directors, Mr. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... hearts, as in their outward profession, an entire loyalty to the royal house of Hanover in the person and posterity of George II. against the Pretender and all his adherents. To which they think themselves bound in gratitude as well as conscience, by the lenity wherewith they have been treated since the death of Queen Anne, so different from what they suffered in the four last years of that Princess, during the administration of that wicked minister, the Earl ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... still. In England the news of Concord had not moved the king to lenity; he saw no lesson in the tragedy, and insisted on pressing his policy. Lord North's feeble endeavor to resign was checked, supplies were sent to Virginia to support the governor in his project of a rising of the slaves, a scheme ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... leniency, mildness, peacefulness, charity, lenity, patience, self-control, forbearance, long-suffering, peace, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... cried I, deeply indeed penetrated by such unexpected condescension. "I have been longing to make a speech to your majesty upon this matter; and it was but yesterday that I entreated Mrs. Delany to make it for me, and to express to your majesty the very deep sense I feel of the lenity with which this Subject has been treated in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Britons by a long course of hereditary reverence had annexed to that island: it became once more a place of consideration by the return of the Druids. Here Agricola observed a conduct very different from that of his predecessor, Paulinus: the island, when he had reduced it, was treated with great lenity. Agricola was a man of humanity and virtue: he pitied the condition and respected the prejudices of the conquered. This behavior facilitated the progress of his arms, insomuch that in less than two campaigns all the British nations comprehended in what we now ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to assert in the fullest and least equivocal terms the unlimited legislative right of this country over its colonies; and, having done this, to propose the repeal, on principles, not of constitutional right, but on those of expediency, of equity, of lenity, and of the true interests present and future of that great object for which alone the colonies were founded, navigation and commerce. This plan I say, required an uncommon degree of firmness, when we consider that some of those persons who might be of the greatest ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the chief criminal court of the kingdom. A prisoner stood at the bar; the offence with which he had been charged was clearly proved against him; his counsel had been heard, not in his defence, but in extenuation, insisting upon his previous good life and character as reasons for the lenity of the court. "And where are your witnesses?" inquired the learned judge who presided. "Please you, my lord, I knows the prisoner at the bar, and a more honester feller never breathed," said a rough voice in the gallery. The officers of the court looked aghast, and the strangers ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... jealousies, however large they spread, Have but one root, the old imprisoned king; Whose lenity first pleased the gaping crowd; But when long tried, and found supinely good, Like AEsop's Log, they leapt upon his back. Your father knew them well; and, when he mounted, He reined them strongly, and he ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... proscribe no set of persons whatever,' says Chesterfield, 'and determined to be governed by none. Had the Papists made any attempt to put themselves above the law, I should have taken good care to have quelled them again. It was said my lenity to the Papists had wrought no alteration either in their religious or their political sentiments. I did not expect that it would: but surely that was no reason ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... public, that the country is greatly obliged to any worthy magistrate, that without sinister views of his own will engage in this troublesome service. And therefore, if a well meaning justice makes any undesigned slip in his practice, great lenity and indulgence is shewn to him in the courts of law; and there are many statutes made to protect him in the upright discharge of his office[t]: which, among other privileges, prohibit such justices from being sued for any oversights without notice ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... great quiet after 1660: Charles II, according to Clarendon, with a wise and humorous lenity, not thinking it 'necessary to inquire after a man so long forgotten.' His letters reveal a man of affectionate and honest disposition; he uses the Puritan phraseology of the day without leaving a sense of nausea in the reader's mind. At Hursley he was buried at ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... wrong His dignity and safety thus to mourn The deserv'd end of so profest a traitor, And doth, by this his lenity, instruct Others as ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... destroyed almost as completely as that of Varus on a former occasion, and in nearly the same country. The distressing tidings filled his soul with rage and a bitter thirst for revenge. He had done his utmost to win over the Saxons by lenity and kindness, but this course now seemed to him useless, if not worse than useless. He determined to adopt opposite measures and try the effect of cruelty and severe retribution. Calling together his forces ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... of justice, even upon such days as were solemnly observed as days of rejoicing in his family, or by his friends; and sometimes upon the public festivals of ancient institution. Nor did he always adhere strictly to the letter of the laws, but overruled the rigour or lenity of many of their enactments, according to his sentiments of justice and equity. For where persons lost their suits by insisting upon more than appeared to be their due, before the judges of private causes, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... your friend the secretary will be directed to come to your house, and read before you the articles of impeachment; and then to signify the great lenity and favor of his majesty and council, whereby you are only condemned to the loss of your eyes, which his majesty doth not question you will gratefully and humbly submit to; and twenty of his majesty's surgeons will attend in order to see the operation well ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... must have wished that the twelve years of his struggle might for ever be blotted out from human remembrance. During the forty-two years of his prosperity and his triumph, being above fear, he showed the natural lenity of his temper. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... sensible of the lenity shown them when their irons were taken off, but some of them appeared capable of the most desperate attempts, and even talked of seizing on the soldiers arms; they were, however, informed, that no mercy ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... him quickly but said nothing, whereat he was secretly annoyed. Why did she not express her wonder and delight at the Pope's lenity, as almost any other woman in her position would have done? Her outward appearance was that of child-like ultra- femininity,—how was it then that he felt as if she were mentally fencing with him, and that her intellectual sword-play threatened to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... the Commons by a vote of three to one; and the third intolerable act by a vote of four to one. The triumph of the ministry was complete. "What passed in Boston," exclaimed the great jurist, Lord Mansfield, "is the overt act of High Treason proceeding from our over lenity and want of foresight." The crown and Parliament were united ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... has troubled your reason. What I offer, was offered because I would not drive an unfortunate and remarkable man, like him we have, to extremities, and—there may be other motives, but do not mistake my lenity. Should force become necessary to put your vessel into our hands, the law may view your offences with a still harsher eye. Deeds which the lenity of our system now considers as venial, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... impassioned gesture, his gaze eagerly seeking the first sign of lenity or favor on her part, but his confession seemed futile. Her eyes, suggestive of tender possibilities, expressed now but coldness and obduracy. In a revulsion of feeling he forgot the distance separating the buskined from the fashionable world; the tragic scatterlings from ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Tories. From the first Sight I had of the Articles, I have been of opinion that no such Construction could fairly be put upon them, but that it would finally lie with the several Legislatures of the States, how far it would be proper to show Lenity to them, and I was happy in being confirmd in this Opinion by an Expression in your joynt Letter to Congress Septr 10th—"it is much to be wishd that the Legislators may not involve all the Tories in Banishment and Ruin, but that such Discrimination may be made ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... which the church has exalted me, never should have swelled my bosom more proudly in the time of the highest prosperity, than it doth at this crisis—I ask nothing of thee, but the assurance that my lenity to thee hath been the means of perverting no soul to Satan, that I have not given to the wolf any of the stray lambs whom the Great Shepherd of souls had ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and plenty of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and he thought scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weakness longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... opinion between us (and the Romanists) relates to certain abuses, which have crept into the (Romish) churches without any good authority; in regard to which, if we do differ, the bishops ought to treat us with lenity, and tolerate us, on account of the confession which ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... use force; the upshot of which was, that my people got nothing but a few arrows fired at them by the lurking villagers, and I was abused for my squeamishness. Moreover, the villagers, emboldened by my lenity, vauntingly declared they would attack the camp by night, as they could only recognise in us such men as plunder their houses and steal their children. This caused a certain amount of alarm among my men, which induced them to run up a stiff bush-fence round the camp, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... domineering, arbitrary, intolerant of opposition, irascible, vehement in prejudice, often wayward, perverse, and jealous: a persecutor of those who crossed him; yet capable, by fits, of moderation, and a magnanimous lenity; and gifted with a rare charm—not always exerted—to win the attachment of men: versed in books, polished in courts and salons; without fear, incapable of repose, keen and broad of sight, clear in judgment, prompt in decision, fruitful in resources, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus: That in regard King Henry giues consent, Of meere compassion, and of lenity, To ease your Countrie of distressefull Warre, And suffer you to breath in fruitfull peace, You shall become true Liegemen to his Crowne. And Charles, vpon condition thou wilt sweare To pay him tribute, and submit thy selfe, Thou shalt ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... English Queen containing intercepted treasonable letters from the Popish lords in Scotland to the King of Spain and the Duke of Parma, and accompanied by the following letter in Elizabeth's own hand, in which she rates him for his fatuous lenity towards subjects who had joined hands with the enemies of ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... which are employed at the present day at the Inquisition all a fiction? It requires the impudence of an inquisitor, or of the Archbishop of Westminister to deny their existence. I have myself heard these evil-minded persons lament and complain that their victims were treated with too much lenity. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... waters, because the Most High is no respecter of persons, nor does the Most Holy desire the death of sinners, who offered Himself to die for them, but desires to heal the contrite in heart, to raise the fallen, and to correct the perverse in the spirit of lenity. For which most salutary purpose our kindly Mother Church has planted you freely, and having planted has watered you with favours, and having watered you has established you with privileges, that ye may be co-workers with pastors and curates in procuring the ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... persist in rebellion against the United States, and offering all those who should submit to the laws a full pardon for their past seditions and treasons. At the same time I assured those who should persist in rebellion against the United States that they must expect no further lenity, but look to be rigorously dealt with according to their deserts. The instructions to these agents, as well as a copy of the proclamation and their reports, are herewith submitted. It will be seen by their report of the 3d of July last that they have fully confirmed the opinion expressed ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... vile traffic. She and her paramour amassed a huge fortune by accepting money from the unfortunate prisoners who were threatened with the fate which she had so narrowly escaped, and to which she was again to be exposed. The venal lenity shown by Tallien to aristocrats rendered him an object of suspicion, whilst the marked tendency displayed by Robespierre to mistrust and, finally, to immolate his coadjutors was an ominous indication of the probable course of future events. Robespierre had already ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... almost of the humble tenements occupied by this miserable class. None but the women, children, sick and aged, were now at home—the young and able-bodied being abroad at work. No new disturbances have broken out, he tells me; the former severity, followed by a well-timed lenity, having subdued or conciliated all. Curtius, although fond of power and of all its ensigns, yet conceals not his hatred of this institution, which has so long obtained in the Roman state, as in all states. He can devise no ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... that they would have made the people (who, as it was, were in the most terrible distraction imaginable), I say, they would have made them stark mad: whereas the magistrates found it proper on several occasions to treat them with lenity and compassion, and not with violence and terror, such as dragging the sick out of their houses, or obliging them to remove themselves, ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... the freest members of society. I derived a sort of authority and dignity from the receipt and disbursement of money. The tenants and debtors of the lady were, in some respects, mine. It was, for the most part, on my justice and lenity that they depended for their treatment. My lady's household-establishment was large and opulent. Her servants were my inferiors and menials. My leisure was considerable, and my emoluments large enough to supply me with every valuable instrument ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... source whence these accusations spring, I fear not to meet them, and shall require no guard to speed me forward to the scene of my defense. I am ready to go, my friend, and happy to resign the brave garrison, that has just surrendered, to your honor and lenity." Fraser answered that he should be emulous to follow his example in all things, and to abide by his agreements with the Southron governor. He then retired to prepare the army for the departure of their commander, and, much against his feelings, to call out the escort ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... air; for only two of us were allowed to come upon deck at a time; but he answered that he had given orders for our safe treatment, and safe keeping; and he was determined not to lose his ship by too much lenity. In a word, we found the fellow's heart to be as hard as the bed we slept on. Soon after, however, our situation became so dangerous and alarming, that one of the marine corps informed the captain that if he wished to preserve us alive, he must speedily give us more air. If ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... there was in particular one law, the existence of which was almost forgotten, the duke never having put it in force during his whole reign. This was a law dooming any man to the punishment of death, who should live with a woman that was not his wife; and this law, through the lenity of the duke, being utterly disregarded, the holy institution of marriage became neglected, and complaints were every day made to the duke by the parents of the young ladies in Vienna, that their daughters had been seduced from their protection, and were ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... than disagreeable opinions. They are intimately connected with the memory of Laud, first as Bishop of London, and then as Archbishop of Canterbury, whose letters show that the severities in question were to him and Strafford (to use Hallam's expression) "the feebleness of excessive lenity." To the last Charles was not despotic enough to please Laud, who complains petulantly in his Diary of a prince "who knew not how to ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
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