He may aggravate or extenuate particular circumstances, though he preserves the general transaction; as the general likeness may be preserved in painting, though a blemish is hid or a beauty improved.

I have not the slightest hope that you will grant this request; but I have to make it, nevertheless, for I am a good Christian, sir, and when a good Christian sees himself come to such a point of misery that he can no longer suffer life, he must at least, to extenuate his crime, exhaust all the chances which remain to him before taking the final and fatal step.

Gardiner gave a frank, explicit account of all that had happened since he parted with his owner, concealing nothing, and not attempting even to extenuate his fault.

He ended, and the Heavenly Audience loud Sung Hallelujah, as the sound of Seas, Through Multitude that sung: Just are thy Ways, Righteous are thy Decrees in all thy Works, Who can extenuate thee?

A good Intention joined to a good Action, gives it its proper Force and Efficacy; joined to an Evil Action, extenuates its Malignity, and in some Cases may take it wholly away; and joined to an indifferent Action turns it to a Virtue, and makes it meritorious as far as human Actions can be so.

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.

How different indeed was he from those who, if their wives go mad, shut them in madhouses and give themselves up to concubinage, and nay, what is more, there are many who extenuate such conduct too.

He does not attempt to conceal from her the magnitude of the misfortune, because so far from being a mere novice in sorrow, she has tasted it from her earliest years in all its varieties; and because his purpose was to conquer her grief, not to extenuate its causes.

Of the other comparisons that are usually made, we may observe in general, that, as they consist in comparing the iniquitous practice of slavery with other iniquitous practices in force among other nations, they can neither raise it to the appearance of virtue, nor extenuate its guilt.

Nor is it to be forgotten, sir, how invidiously the minister himself endeavoured to extenuate the honour of that action, by attempting to procure in the address, which was on that occasion presented to his majesty, a suppression of the number of the ships with which he performed it.

It was probably a guilty conscience, a desire to extenuate selfish indulgence at the expense of a poor girl's virtue and happiness, that led him to represent his hero, Werther, as using every possible effort in court to secure the pardon of that erotomaniac who had first attempted rape and then finished up by assassinating his rival.

I am not extenuating Kathleen, but I merely say you have no right to behave as you do.

Their Want of Learning, which has planted them in this Station, may in some measure extenuate their Misdemeanour; and our Professors ought to pardon them when they offend in this Particular, considering that they are in a State of Ignorance, or, as we usually say, do not know their Right Hand from their Left.

When Stephen had shaken off the chains with which he was loaded in Bristol Castle, the Bishop summoned a council at Westminster, on his legatine authority; and there "by great powers of eloquence, endeavored to extenuate the odium of his own conduct"; affirming that he had supported the Empress, "not from inclination, but necessity."

"Madam," he said, "if you ladies would remain and listen to me a few moments, I am sure I would make you aware that there is much to extenuate the apparent offence which I have committed to-night.

It is not strange that some of his best friends accepted the charge as true, and only tried to extenuate the offense on the ground that the circumstances made the temptation a very great one, and that the motive was not mercenary.

Mr. Walters made no attempt to conceal or extenuate the black page in Hill's past, but he asked the jury to believe that Hill had bitterly repented of his former crime, and would have continued to lead an honest life as Sir Horace Fewbanks's butler, if ill fate had not forged a cruel chain of circumstances to link him to his past life and drag him down by bringing him in contact with the accused man Birchill, whom he had met in prison.

Scriptureand this, be it remembered, by the sanction of The Christian Advocateis blasphemously quoted to extenuate the American practice of expectoration.

Such is the equivocal character of the greater part of their sect: but there are some who are mere honest dupes to the pretensions of the science; and others again, who have not one tittle of credulity to extenuate their impudent pretensions.

For what can be urged to extenuate the ridicule of returning thanks where we ought either to express resentment, offer consolations, and propose the means of better success, or cover our grief and shame with perpetual silence?

Ill fare his soule that would extenuate The rigor of your life-confounding doome!

A chair had been placed for him within the bar: he stood uncovered behind it; and, in reply[a] to the speaker, extenuated his own services, related the answers which he had given to the addresses, warned the parliament against a multiplicity of oaths and engagements, prayed them not to give any share of power to the Cavaliers or fanatics, and recommended to their care the settlement of Ireland and the administration of justice in Scotland.

These drawbacks, however, do not wholly destroy the force of the foregoing criticism, or at all extenuate the obvious tautology and impropriety of such phrases as, is being, was being, &c.

Linforth had admitted there was an Englishwoman for whom Shere Ali cared, had admitted it reluctantly, had extenuated her thoughtlessness, had pleaded for her.

If they were, then they were no lesson for the rest of us; if they were not, to call them so is to encourage certain gin-and-water philosophers who would fain extenuate their unpleasant vices by the plea that they are the necessary complement of unusual powers,as if the path to immortality were through the kennel, and fine verses were to be written only at the painful sacrifice of bilking your washerwoman.