"Lenity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other occasions of needful profit and healthful pastime have permitted) that these little books which I here put into thy hands, might stand instead of many bigger books—yet have I carried myself towards thee in such fanciful guise of careless disport, that right sore am I ashamed now to intreat thy lenity seriously—in beseeching thee to believe it of me, that in the story of my father and his christian-names—I have no thoughts of treading upon Francis the First—nor in the affair of the nose—upon ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... fortunes to those of your uncle, who was well known still to carry on political intrigues, which most other persons had considered as desperate. It was also possible that he, as well as others, might get his pardon, as government showed every year more lenity towards the remnant of the Jacobites, and then he might claim the custody of your person, as your legal guardian. Either of these events she considered as the direct road ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... down through history shining with a halo of gentle lenity, for their tithingman was ordered to bear a short, small stick only, and he was "Desired to use it with clemency." However, if any boy proved "incoridgable," he could be "presented" before the elders; ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... such manifest Obligations to attack publick Immorality, wherever it is found, and by whatsoever Patrons of Power, Dignity, and Interest it is shelter'd and supported, thar, as I have suggested, it is not easy to imagine whence their Lenity and Tenderness for the Theatre can proceed. But if the true Reason of it, whatever it is, and which is so hard to be accounted for, were remov'd, and our Divines would interest themselves with Zeal in the Cause of Vertue, in respect to our Dramatick ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... Albania; Who brings that traitor's head, Theridamas, Shall have a government in Media, Beside [78] the spoil of him and all his train: But, if Cosroe (as our spials say, And as we know) remains with Tamburlaine, His highness' pleasure is that he should live, And be reclaim'd with princely lenity. ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... 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 |
