ORIENTAL SKETCHES.-NO. V.

THE MOGUL EMPERORS.

THE Conquest of India by the family of Timur proceeded from the abilities of one man, and not from the effort of a nation. Baber himself was a stranger in the country in which he reigned, before he penetrated beyond the Indus. His troops consisted of soldiers of fortune from various countries; his officers were men who owed their rank to merit, not to succession. The religion of Mahommed, which they in common professed, and their obedience to their leader, were the only ties which united the conquerors upon their arrival; and they were soon dissipated in the extensive dominions which their arms subdued. The character of the prince went down on the current of government; and the mild disposition of his successors contributed to confirm the humane despotism which he had introduced into his conquests.

A continued influx of strangers from the northern Asia became necessary for the support of princes who professed a different faith with their subjects, in the vast empire of India. The army was recruited with soldiers from different nations; the court was occupied by nobles from various kingdoms. The latter were followers of the Mahommedan religion. In the regulations and spirit of the Koran they lost their primary and characteristical ideas upon government; and the whole system was formed and enlivened by the limited principles which Mahommed promulgated in the de

serts of Arabia.

The faith of Mahommed is peculiarly calculated for despotism; and it is one of the greatest causes which must fix for ever the duration of that species of government in the east. The legislator furnishes a proof of this position in his own conduct. He derived his success from the sword more than from his eloquence and address. The tyranny which he established was of the most extensive kind. He enslaved the mind as well as the body. The abrupt argument of the sword

brought conviction, when persuasion and delusion failed. He effected a revolution and change in the human mind, as well as in states and empires; and the ambitious will continue to support a system which lays its foundation on the passive obedience of those whom fortune has once placed beneath their power.

The unlimited power which Mahommedanism gives to every man in his own family, habituates mankind to slavery. Every child is taught, from his infancy, to look upon his father as the absolute disposer of life and death. The number of wives and concubines which the more wealthy and powerful entertain, is a cause of animosity and quarrel, which nothing but a severe and unaccountable power in the master of a family can repress. This private species of despotism is, in miniature, the counterpart of what prevails in the state; and it has the same effect in reducing all the passions under the dominion of fear. Jealousy itself, that most violent of the feelings of the soul, is curbed within the walls of the harem. The women may pine in secret, but they must clothe their features with cheerfulness when their lord appears. Contumacy is productive of immediate punishment. They are degraded, divorced, chastised, and even sometimes put to death, according to the degree of their crime or obstinacy, or the wrath of the offended husband. No inquiry is made concerning their fate. Their friends may murmur, but the laws provide no redress; for no appeals to public justice issue forth from the harem.

The simplicity of despotism recommends it to an indolent and ignorant race of men. Its obvious impartiality, its prompt justice, its immediate severity against crimes, dazzle the eyes of the superficial, and raise in their minds a veneration little short of idolatry for their prince. When he is active and determined in his measures, the great machine moves with a velocity which throws vigour into the very extremities of the empire. His violence, and even his caprices, are virtues, where the waters must be always agitated to preserve their freshness; and indolence and irresoVOL. II. Nov. 1829.

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lution can be his only ruinous vices. The first, indeed, may injure the state; but by the latter it must be undone. A severe prince, by his jealousy of his own authority, prevents the tyranny of others; and, though fierce and arbitrary in himself, the subject derives a benefit from his being the sole despot. His rage falls heavy on the dignified slaves of his presence; but the people escape his fury in their distance from his hand.

The despotic form of government is not, however, so terrible in its nature as men born in free countries are apt to imagine. Though no civil regulation can bind the prince, there is one great law-the ideas of mankind with regard to right and wrong-by which he is bound. When he becomes an assassin, he teaches others to use the dagger against himself; and wanton acts of injustice, often repeated, destroy, by degrees, that opinion which is the sole foundation of his power. In the indifference of his subjects for his person and government, he becomes liable to the conspiracies of courtiers, and the ambitious schemes of his relations. He may have many slaves, but he can have no friends. His person is exposed to injury. A certainty of impunity may arm even cowards against him; and thus, by his excessive ardour for power, he with his authority loses his life.

Despotism appears in its most engaging form under the imperial house of Timur. The uncommon abilities of most of the princes, with the mild and humane character of all, rendered Hindostan the most flourishing empire in the world during two complete centuries. The manly and generous temper of Baber permitted not oppression to attend the victories of his sword. He came with an intention to govern the nations whom he subdued; and selfish motives joined issue with humanity in not only sparing, but protecting the vanquished. His invasion was no abrupt incursion for plunder; and he thought the usual income of the crown a sufficient reward for his toil. His nobles were gratified with the emoluments of government ;

and, from disposition, an enemy to useless pomp and grandeur, he chose rather that his treasury should be gradually filled with the surplus of the revenue, than with the property of individuals whom the fortune of war had placed beneath his power. Awed by his high character, the companions of his victories carried his mildness and strict equity through all the departments of government. The tyranny of the family of Lodi was forgotten; and the arts, which had been sup pressed by a violent despotism, began to rear their heads under the temperate dominion of Baber.

But little is known of the Mogul emperors but their victories: their historians delighted in the pomp of war; and but seldom indulged in details which might throw light on the manners of the age. Few, however, as their anecdotes are, we learn from them that oriental kings had, as Lord Chesterfield would say, the minds of spoiled children; easily irritated, and soon pacified, fond of show, and not always strangers to humanity. Delighted with baubles; and, in pursuit of pleasure, regardless of the misery their sports occasioned. Their crimes and virtues, however, possess an air of romance which must always excite at

tention.

It is related, by an eastern historian, that Subuctagi, who flourished in the latter end of the tenth century, was at first a private horseman in the service of Abistagi, and, being of a vigorous and active disposition, used to hunt every day in the forest. It happened one time as he employed himself in this amusement, that he saw a deer grazing with her young fawn, upon which, spurring his horse, he seized the fawn, and binding his legs, laid him across his saddle, and turned his face towards his home. When he had rode a little way, he looked behind and beheld the mother of the fawn following him, and exhibiting every mark of extreme affliction. The soul of Subuctagi melted within him into pity; he untied the feet of the fawn, and generously restored him to his liberty. The happy mother turned her face to the wilderness, but often

looked back upon Subuctagi, and the tears dropped fast from her eyes. Subuctagi is said to have seen that night a figure or apparition in his dream, who said to him, That generosity and compassion which you have this day shown to a distressed animal, has been approved of in the presence of God: therefore, in the records of Providence, the kingdom of Ghizni is marked as a reward against thy name. But let not greatness destroy your virtue, but thus continue your benevolence

to men

It is said in the Masir ul Maluck, that Mamood his son having built a pleasure-house in an elegant garden near the city of Ghizni, he invited his father, when it was finished, to a magnificent entertainment which he had prepared for him. The son, in the joy of his heart, desired the opinion of Subuctagi concerning the house and garden, which were esteemed admirable in taste and structure. The king, to the great disappointment of Mamood, told him, that he looked upon the whole as a bauble, which any of his subjects might have raised by the means of wealth: but that it was the business of a prince to erect the more durable structure of good fame, which might stand for ever, to be imitated, but never to be equalled, by posterity. The great poet, Nizami, makes upon this saying the following reflection Of all the magnificent palaces which we are told Mamood built, we now find not one stone upon another; but the edifice of his fame, as he was told by his father, still triumphs over time, and seems established on a lasting foundation.

Another eastern writer, in proof of Mamood the First's love of money, relates the following anecdote :-'Having a great propensity to poetry, in which he made some tolerable progress himself, he promised to the celebrated Phirdoci a golden mher for every verse of an heroic poem which he was desirous to patronize. Under the protection of this promise, that divine poet wrote the unparalleled poem called the Shaw Namna, which consisted of sixty thousand couplets. When it was presented, Mamood repented of his promise, tell