We are told of Dr. Beattie, in his relations as a professor with his class, that his sway was absolute, because it was founded in reason and affection; that he never employed a harsh epithet in finding fault with any of his pupils; and that when, instead of a rebuke, which they were conscious they deserved, they met merely with a mild reproof, it was conveyed in such a manner as to throw, not only the delinquent, but sometimes the whole class into tears. Fielding’s boy-hero is at once in tears when the kind squire takes him in hand, instead of the harsh tutor; his “guilt now flew in his face more than any severity could make it. He could more easily bear the lashes of Thwackum than the generosity of Allworthy.” Mrs. Fry used to bear eager record of the docility she had found, and the gratitude she had experienced, from female prisoners, though the most abandoned of their sex: kind treatment, even with restraint obviously for their good, was so new to them, that it called forth, as Sir Samuel Romilly says, “even in the most depraved, grateful and generous feelings.” True to the life is the picture Mr. Reade has drawn of the effect on the actress, of a young wife coming to her as a supplicant, instead of inveighing against her,—coming with faith in her goodness, and sobbing to her for pity: “a big tear rolled down her cheek, and proved her something more than an actress.” In another of his books he illustrates the truth that men can resist the remonstrances that wound them, and so irritate them, better than they can those gentle appeals which rouse no anger, but soften the whole heart. “The old people stung him; but Mercy, without design, took a surer way. She never said a word; but sometimes, when the discussions were at their height, she turned her dove-like eyes on him, with a look so loving, so humbly inquiring, so timidly imploring, that his heart melted within him.” So with Janet Dempster, in George Eliot’s story of clerical life, who “was not to be made meek by cruelty; she would repent of nothing in the face of injustice, though she was subdued in a moment by a word or a look that recalled the old days of fondness.” In fine, we may conclude with the conclusion of old Master Knowell, in the Elizabethan play: “There is a way of winning more by love, And urging of the modesty, than fear: Force works on servile natures, not the free. He that’s compelled to goodness, may be good, But ’tis but for that fit; where others, drawn By softness and example, get a habit.” _HAMAN HANGED ON HIS OWN GALLOWS._ ESTHER vii. 10