Briante Prieneus, one of the seven wise men of Greece, was observed to weep very bitterly after condemning a guilty person to death; upon which, somebody present asked him why he lamented, since it was in his own power to pardon the man; to this he answered, _You mistake, for it is by no means in my power, and therefore I weep. His life is a debt that is due to justice, and this tenderness of mine, one that I owe to nature._ It is said of Vespasian, that he frequently wept and lamented in tears, the deaths of guilty persons, whom he himself had justly condemned. XX. To him who has a heart so delicate, that the gentleness of his disposition is apt to degenerate into weakness and debility, I will prescribe an admirable remedy, which shall comfort and strengthen his heart, and not lessen or abate its softness. This consists, in directing his attention to contemplate another object, and in making that the object of his compassion. Let us figure to ourselves a judge, at the crisis when he has just passed sentence of death on a notorious rogue, who has been guilty of many cruelties and outrages, and when he is assailed with the cries and intreaties of the convict to be merciful to him; and let us also consider him, when those intreaties are afterwards repeated with the enumeration of all those particulars, that are most likely to excite tenderness and compassion, such, as imploring him to commiserate his distressed wife and children, and to look with an eye of pity, on the miserable and afflicted state of an unhappy man, who is all contrition and repentance, and whose ignominious death, will bring disgrace and affliction on his innocent friends and relations. Upon hearing this, he may be apt to say to himself, taking away the life of a man is a terrible thing, and may perhaps revolve in his mind, all the horrors of a person leading to execution, and also those he may feel, when he is just on the point of suffering the punishment he has been condemned to by the law. These reflections may possibly stagger his constancy, and dispose him to pardon the offender.