Besides, the regulations respecting the conscription were annually changed, by which means the code became each year more intricate and confused; and as the explanation of any doubt rested with the functionaries, to whom the execution of the law was confided, there was little chance of their constructions mitigating its severity.

The Emperor Charlemagne, though naturally generous and humane, had been induced by bigotry to exercise great severities upon the pagan Saxons in Germany, whom he subdued; and besides often ravaging their country with fire and sword, he had in cool blood decimated all the inhabitants for their revolts, and had obliged them, by the most rigorous edicts, to make a seeming compliance with the Christian doctrine.

It is perfectly clear that this wonderful organization rendered the whole system of government one great confederacy, in which the small proprietors, tenants, and villeins had not a chance of independence; and that their condition could only be ameliorated by those gradual changes which result from a long intercourse between the strong and the weak, in which power relaxes its severity and becomes protection.

The emperors greatly increased the severity of punishments, as was probably necessary in a corrupt state of society.

For an instant there was a humane impulse to temper their severity.

That such men deserve some severities, cannot be doubted, and therefore a law by which no penalty should be enacted, would be imperfect and ineffectual.

As will be seen later, the load in our family wagon thus lightened through pity for our oxen, also lessened the severity of an accident which otherwise might have been fatal to Georgia and me.

Nero soon after recalled Paulinus from a government where, by suffering and inflicting so many severities, he was judged improper to compose the angry and alarmed minds of the natives.

But when I come to the propositions touching progressive modification, it appears to me, with the help of the new light which has broken from various quarters, that there is much ground for softening the somewhat Brutus-like severity with which, in 1862, I dealt with a doctrine, for the truth of which I should have been glad enough to be able to find a good foundation.

In all the laws of the converted Teutonic nations, from Charlemagne down, we notice the influence of the Christian clergy in modifying the severity of the old Pagan codes.

In some cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous Bengal sepoys within the Punjab, but the Imperial interests at stake were sufficient to justify every severity, although all must regret the painful necessity that called for such extreme measures.

The pack-men, howevercopper-colored, black, and dusky- whitewere not only masters of their art, but possessed tempers that could not be ruffled; when they showed severity it was because severity was needed, and not because they were angry.

Episcopacy was abolished; an impeachment suspended over the heads of most of the bishops, kept them in a state of constant apprehension; and the inferior clergy, wherever the parliamentary arms prevailed, suffered all those severities which they had formerly inflicted on their dissenting brethren.

In this manner, six-and-thirty hours were passed, not a man of them all having the courage to rise from his lair, and encounter the severity of the climate, now unrelieved by anything like a fire.

Unsparing of himself, he demanded utter sacrifice from his subordinates, and his cold, unflinching severity would brook no hesitation.

The harsh, perpetual contest with want and lawless rivalry, to which all uncivilized nations are doomed, permits only a few low powers, and those much the same in all,lichens, mosses, rude grasses, and other coarse cryptogamous growths,to develop themselves; since these alone can endure the severities of season and treatment to which all that would clothe the fields of the soul must remain exposed.

It may be necessary to interfere and even to use severity, but only when the educator is sure of unhealthy growth.

In short, I find that I am generally tired before the children; instead of having to apply any magisterial severity, they are petitioning to learn; and this mode of teaching possesses an advantage over every other, because it does not interfere with any religious opinion, there being no body of Christians that I know, or ever heard of, who would object to the facts recorded in the Bible, being thus elucidated by pictures.

too;but, said she, I will reduce her to what she was, and since she knows not how to prize the honour of my friendship, make her feel the severities of servitude.

But Tasso, while he laments his severity, wonders at it in a man so well bred and so imbued with literature, and thinks it can only have originated in "orders.

He continues his route, and, by degrees, becomes habituated to this regimen of liberty; till, perhaps, on the second day, the validity of his passport is disputed, the municipality who granted it have the reputation of aristocracy, or the whole is informal, and he must be content to wait while a messenger is dispatched to have it rectified, and the officers establish the severity of their patriotism at the expence of the stranger.

" "None, father, but the necessity of maintaining the severity of the laws, which make them senators and you a prisoner.

The mother was a woman of taste and sensibility, of high mind and gentle heart, with the liveliest sense of the loveliness of all lovely things; and it is hardly necessary to remind the reader how much refinement such as hers may sometimes alleviate the severity of sorrow.

M. Flaubert read in fragments, and even in totality, to friends holding high places in the world of letters, the pages which he hoped some day to print, and I assure you that not one of them has been offended by what has just now excited such lively severity on the part of the Government Attorney.

She was taught these verses from a little old book bound in the gaudiest of Dutch gilt paper, as if to relieve the ever-present severity of the text and the distressing scenes portrayed in the illustrating copperplates.