The Antwerp authorities had reason and experience on their side when they sought to persuade the Prince of Parma, in 1585, that the hearts of, not the Antwerpers only, but of the Hollanders and Zealanders, were easily to be won at that moment: give them religious liberty, and “govern them by gentleness rather than by Spanish grandees,” and a reconciliation would speedily be ensured. Two years later, but then two years too late, we find the prince averring that he liked “to proceed rather by the ways of love than of rigour and effusion of blood.” This was in answer to Queen Elizabeth, who, at a previous juncture, angrily derided any “slight and mild kind of dealing with a people so ingrate,” and was all for corrosives instead of lenitives for such festering wounds. Rulers, who fail to secure what they wish by gentle means, are apt very soon to resort to the less excellent way; like Chilperic, the “Nero of France,” coaxing the Jew Priscus to turn Christian; first employing argument, then trying blandishments, and anon taking to more powerful reasoning by throwing the Jew into prison. Tytler remarks of the “violent instructions” enforced by Henry VIII. on his envoy to James V., that had the overbearing Tudor adopted a suaver tone, a favourable impression might have been made; but the King o’ Scots was “not to be threatened into a compliance with a line of policy which, if suggested in a tone of conciliation, his judgment might have approved,” and his unwounded sense of self-respect have consented to carry into effect. Simon the glover, in Scott’s story of mediæval Perth, is well described as watchful over the tactics his daughter employs towards Henry Smith, “whom he knew to be as ductile, when influenced by his affections, as he was fierce and intractable when assailed by hostile remonstrances or threats.” _Par un chemin plus doux_, says a shrewd counsellor in Racine, _vous pourrez le ramener_; whereas _les menaces le rendront plus farouche_. Archbishop Whately deprecates the bullying and browbeating system in vogue with certain barristers, and declares it to be a mistake as a means of eliciting truth: he cites his own observation of the marked success of the opposite mode of questioning, and maintains that, generally speaking, a quiet, gentle, and straightforward examination will be the most adapted to elicit truth; the browbeating and blustering which are likeliest to confuse an honest, simple-minded witness, being just what the dishonest one is the best prepared for. “The more the storm blusters, the more carefully he wraps round him the cloak which a warm sunshine will often induce him to throw off.”