It is a slight but a very appreciable mitigation of these destructive acts that it was ruined artistically; just as some enthusiastic castle and abbey- painter would have suggested.

We have yet to realize that, in truly great drama, the foreknowledge possessed by the audience is not a disadvantage with certain incidental mitigations and compensations, but is the source of the highest pleasure which the theatre is capable of affording us.

We usually find, as we give ourselves up to reflection, some little mitigation of the afflictions we experience; and yet of the evils which come upon us, some are often so heavy as to overpower the sources of consolation for a time, and to leave us wretched.

Though I profess what I now say, I only intend as a reasonable mitigation of the offence I have given, not entirely to justify my sitting in that court; for which I acknowledge I have deservedly incurred the censure of many good men; and I wish I may ever be able to make a sufficient amends to my country for it.'

Kings and emperors naturally were more alive to the usefulness of subjects who could gather and yield money; but edicts issued to protect "the King's Jews" equally with the King's game from being harassed and hunted by the commonalty were only slight mitigations to the deplorable lot of a race held to be under the divine curse, and had little force after the Crusades began.

And this limitation was a substantial mitigation of its severity.

Still, the feel of gravel underfoot ought to guide her down the drive to the great gateway; and once outside the park, clear of its overshadowing trees, one would surely find mitigation of darkness sufficient to show the public road.

It was a curt, military document without explanation or unnecessary mitigation of the truth.

Thus far we have dealt chiefly with those developments of medicine that seem to have been the outgrowth of much thought and experiment, but there was one that can hardly be viewed as other than a happy discovery, yet it was one that was fraught with unspeakable mitigation of human suffering, and that wrought a boundless extension of the field of surgery.

"Give us a kiss," said Ninian, finding in the plural some vague mitigation for some vague offence.