Thus in listing the synonyms of love they include such terms as kindness and lenity, words only through stretched usage connected with love.

<Mercy, clemency, lenity, leniency, lenience, forbearance>.

Lenity will operate with greater force, in some instances, than vigor.

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 common principles.

I am too well acquainted, my lords, with the lenity of our ministers to the enemies of their country, and am too well convinced of the prudence and tenderness of the restrictions by which the power of our admirals is limited, to expect that our guns should be ever used but in salutations of respect, or exultations on the conclusion of a peace.

I presume, my lords, that no man dares assert such a flagrant neglect of so important an office, to be not criminal in a very high degree; to steal in private houses that which is received in trust, is felony by the statutes of our country; and surely the wealth of the publick ought not to be less secured than that of individuals, nor ought he that connives at robbery to be treated with more lenity than the robber.

The new outrage, by which she had provoked her fate, seemed to render further lenity impossible; and a gentleman in military dress, with a stout man of inferior rank, drew toward the door of the meeting-house, and awaited her approach.

After the decemviral laws fell into disuse, the Romans in the days of the republic passed from extreme rigor to great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan régime to our own times in the United States.

Some have even supposed that Brutus was Caesar's son, which accounts for his lenity and forbearance and affection.

The famous charter, as it is called, of the Conqueror to the city of London, though granted at a time when he assumed the appearance of gentleness and lenity, is nothing but a letter of protection, and a declaration that the citizens should not be treated as slaves

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 Breauté, a man whom King John had raised from a low origin, to persevere in the course of violence to which he had owed his fortune, and to set at nought all law and justice.

The Countess of Leicester, the king's sister, who had been extremely forward in all attacks on the royal family, was dismissed the kingdom with her two sons, Simon and Guy, who proved very ungrateful for this lenity.

That not only the Bellovaci, but also the Aedui, entreated him to use his [accustomed] clemency and lenity towards them [the Bellovaci]: which if he did, he would increase the influence of the Aedui among all the Belgae, by whose succour and resources they had been accustomed to support themselves whenever any wars occurred.

If you make a right use of the lenity I shew on this occasion, you may perhaps retrieve some part of the influence you once had over me; but see the Swedish prisoners no more, if you hope or desire ever to see MENZIKOFF.

She has broken off her intercourse of visits, because company makes a house dirty; and resolves to confine herself more to her own affairs, and to live no longer in mire by foolish lenity.

This scheme of invigorating the laws by relaxation, and extirpating wickedness by lenity, is so remote from common practice, that I might reasonably fear to expose it to the publick, could it be supported only by my own observations: I shall, therefore, by ascribing it to its author, Sir Thomas More, endeavour to procure it that attention, which I wish always paid to prudence, to justice, and to mercy.[c] No. 115.

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 of the Utah problem which had been gained by the rising of the Mormons in arms should be thrown away.

He painfully felt, that under circumstances like these, lenity would become, not only a weakness, but a crime, and possessing, as he did, the most indubitable proofs of Biron's guilt, he saw himself compelled to forget the friend in the sovereign, and to deliver up the attainted noble to the justice of his betrayed country.

Neither, Madame, has it escaped my memory that the House of Guise endeavoured to wrest from me the crown of France; and, in short, finding myself so ill-requited for my indulgence, I am weary of exercising a lenity which has degenerated into weakness.

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 affront to herself.

But Shaftesbury pays the lenity with which Monmouth is dismissed.

A youth of the name of Julien, particularly in the confidence of Robespierre, was then sent to Bourdeaux, not officially as his successor, but as a spy, to collect information concerning him, as well as to watch the operations of other missionaries, and prevent their imitating Tallien's schemes of personal advantage, at the expence of scandalizing the republic by an appearance of lenity.

Since poverty is punished among us as a crime, it ought at least to be treated with the same lenity as other crimes; the offender ought not to languish at the will of him whom he has offended, but to be allowed some appeal to the justice of his country.

What I offer, was offered because I would not drive an unfortunate and remarkable man, like him we have, to extremities, andthere may be other motives, but do not mistake my lenity.

Deeds which the lenity of our system now considers as venial, may easily turn to crime!"