GENTLENESS.

In most circumstances, a gentle behaviour is much more likely to procure us respect, and to enable us to attain our ends, than a harsh, or proud, or threatening demeanour. The reason is, that when we try to do anything by force with our fellow-men, we unavoidably raise a feeling of resistance in them. They do not like to be told to do a thing at their peril. Their pride rises at such a command, and they are disposed rather to refuse than to obey. If obliged to obey, they obey with reluctance, and do what is to be done as ill as possible, or in such a way as to be disagreeable to him who commands, just to revenge themselves upon him. If, on the contrary, we try gentle means, we do not offend the pride of the other party, or raise any other resisting feeling in him; and he does what we want with good-will, and therefore satisfactorily.

THE WIND, THE SUN, AND THE TRAVELLER: A FAble.

A dispute once arose betwixt the north wind and the sun about the superiority of their power; and they agreed to try their strength upon a traveller, which should be able to get his cloak off first.

The north wind began, and blew a very cold blast, accompanied with a sharp driving shower. But this, and whatever else he could do, instead of making the man quit his cloak, obliged him to gird it about his body as close as possible. Next came the sun, who, breaking out from a thick, watery cloud, drove away the cold vapours from the sky, and darted his sultry beams upon the head of the poor weather-beaten traveller. The man, growing faint with the heat, and unable to endure it any longer, first throws off his heavy cloak, and then flies for protection to the shade of a neighbouring

ALPHONSO, King of SICILY AND NAPLES.

101

JOSEPH HOLT AND THE CONVICTS.

The men who have been banished to New South Wales for crimes committed in Britain, are obliged to work in chains on the farms of the free settlers, receiving only their food for their work, and always punished by flogging on the back when they are idle or disorderly.

Some years ago, Mr Cox, a farmer, appointed one Joseph Holt to superintend the convicts who worked on his estate. Mr Holt, who was a man of good sense and considerable benevolence, resolved to try if he could manage the men by some better means than the fear of the lash. He therefore began to feed them a little better than formerly; he paid them for all they did beyond their stated tasks; and when any one stole from him, he called them together, and said, "There is a thief amongst you; till he is discovered, I stop all your extra allowances; it is therefore your interest to find him out: let him be found out accordingly, and punished by yourselves, for I do not wish that any man should be flogged." The convicts saw that this was just, and that Mr Holt wished to use them well. They therefore found out and punished the thief amongst themselves. By these means theft, and all other improper behaviour, ceased in this band of convicts. There was never afterwards the least use for the lash amongst them, and they were all as comfortable and happy as it was possible for men to be in such a situation.

ALPHONSO, KING OF SICILY AND NAPLES.

Alphonso was one of the most prosperous sovereigns of modern times, and chiefly through his gentle and benevolent dispositions. When only king of Aragon, he trusted entirely to the love of his subjects, amongst whom he used to walk without state and without guards. When some one suggested that he thus exposed himself to danger, he said, "A father has nothing to fear among his children "-meaning that he considered his people as a family, of which he was the father. Seeing a galley about to sink with its crew and a number of soldiers, he leapt into a shallop or little boat to

go to its relief, saying, "I would rather share than behold their calamity." He was very ready to forgive offenders. A document containing the names of certain nobles who had conspired against him being put into his hands, he instantly tore it in picces, without looking into it. It was his maxim, that while the good are secured by justice, the bad are won by clemency.

The kingdom of Naples, including Sicily, was left to him by its former ruler; but he had to contend with a rival before he could establish himself in that country. In this contest his kind nature did as much as his arms. He gained the important town of Gacta entirely by an act of generosity. It was held out against him by his enemies, and starvation had reduced the inhabitants to great misery. To make their provisions last the longer, the garrison thrust out all the old people, the women, and the children. Alphonso had it in his power to drive back all these into the town, by which it must have been obliged so much the sooner to surrender. His officers recommended him to do this; but he could not bear to think of the misery which would have been the consequence. "I value the safety of so many of my fellow-creatures," said he, "more than a hundred Gactas;" and he allowed them to pass through his army. Every one exclaimed against his conduct as mad; but a little time proved that it was not only a benevolent, but a wise act, for the citizens, melted by his generosity, soon after submitted to him of their own accord.

Alphonso succeeded, in the year 1442, in establishing himself as king of Naples; from which period till his death, twenty-six years after, he was considered the most powerful and influential prince in Italy. He is distinguished in history by the name of ALPHONSO THE MAGNANIMOUS.

THE CATARACT AND THE STREAMLET.

Noble the mountain stream,

Bursting in grandeur from its vantage-ground;
Glory is in its gleam

Of brightness; thunder in its deafening sound!

The

secret, telling him that they would not sell their Turkish prisoners, but land them, if possible, on some part of the African coast. The stranger laughed at them for their generosity, and told them that they might get two hundred pieces of gold for cach man; to which they replied, that they would not sell them for the whole island. Their visitor, contrary to his promise, divulged the secret, and a resolution was formed amongst the Spaniards to seize the Turks. The two Quakers, hearing what was designed, instantly set sail, and, by the aid of their prisoners, they succeeded in escaping pursuit. For nine days they cruised about the Mediterrancan, uncertain what course to take to get quit of their prisoners, but determined not to land then in any Christian country. On one occasion the Turks made an attempt to regain the command of the vessel, but were quictly put down by the master and mate. English crew then began to grumble at the danger to which they were exposed by their superiors, who, they said, preferred the lives of Turks to their own. The vessel was also all this time undergoing the risk of being recaptured by some other Turkish rovers. Still the master and inate adhered to their resolution of avoiding bloodshed and the guilt of slavery. At length, having approached the coast of Barbary, it came to be debated how they were to set the Turks on shore. To have given them the boat for this purpose would have been dangerous, for they might have returned in it with arms, and taken the vessel. If sent with a portion of the crew, they might rise upon these men, and throw them into the sca. If sent in two detachments, that first landed might have raised the natives, and attacked the boat on its second arrival. At length Lurting offered to take the whole ashore at once, with the aid of two men and a boy. The captain consented to this arrangement, which was carried into effect without any accident. The Turks, on being set down on the beach, were so much reconciled to their generous captors, as to ask them to go along to a neighbouring village, where they promised to treat them liberally; but Lurting thought it more prudent to return immediately.

Favourable winds brought the vessel quickly to England,

where the story of the captured Turks was already known. So great an interest did the forbearing conduct of the Quakers excite, that the king, the Duke of York, and several noblemen, came on board at Greenwich to see the men who could act so extraordinary a part. The king took much the same view of the case which the English captain at Majorca had taken. To Thomas Lurting he said, "You should have brought the Turks to me;" to which the mate only made the mild reply, "I thought it better for them to be in their own country."

STORY OF UBERTO.

Genoa, a city on the Mediterranean, was once remarkable as a place of commerce. It was usually governed by a body of nobles; but on one occasion the nobles lost their power, and the city was managed for some time by a set of men elected by the people. The leading man in this popular government was Uberto, who, though originally poor, had risen by his talents and industry to be one of the most considerable merchants.

At length, by a violent effort, the nobles put down the popular government. They used their victory with rigour, in order to prevent any other attempt being made in future to thrust them out of power. Uberto was seized as a traitor, and the nobles thought they used him very gently when they only decreed that he should be banished for ever from Genoa, and deprived of all his property. To hear this sentence, he was brought before the new chief magistrate Adorno, a nobleman not void of generous feeling, but rendered proud by his sense of high rank, and fierce in consequence of the late broils. Indignant at Uberto, he passed the sentence in very insolent terms, saying, "You-you-the son of a base mechanic, who have dared to trample on the nobles of Genoa-you, by their clemency, are only doomed to shrink again into the nothing from which you sprang."

Uberto bowed respectfully to the court, but said to Adorno that perhaps he might hereafter find cause to repent the language he had used. He then set sail for Naples, where it chanced that some merchants were in his debt.