12 



AMRA. 



And give you, mixed with western sentiraentalism r 

 Some samples of the finest orientalism ! 



LORD BYRON. 



AKBAR, the most enlightened and renowned among the sovereign 

 of the East, and the contemporary of our Queen Elizaheth, reigned 

 over all those vast territories, which extend from the Indus to the 

 Ganges, and from the snowy mountains of the north to the kingdoms 

 of Guzerat and Candeish on the south. After having subdued the 

 factious omrahs, and the hereditary enemies of his family, and made 

 tributary to his power most of the neighbouring kingdoms, there 

 occurred a short period of profound peace. Assisted by able min- 

 isters, Akbar employed this interval in alleviating the miseries, 

 which half a century of war and ravage had called down upon this 

 beautiful but ever wretched country. Commerce was relieved from 

 the heavy imposts which had hitherto clogged its progress ; the re- 

 venues of the empire were improvd and regulated ; by a particular 

 decree, the cultivators of the earth were exempted from serving in 

 the imperial armies; and justice was every where impartially ad- 

 ministered ; tempered, however, with that extreme clemency which, 

 in the early part of his reign, Akbar carried to an excess almost 

 injurious to his interests. India, so long exposed to the desolating 

 inroads of invaders, and torn by internal factions, began, at leu 

 to " wear her plumed and jewelled turban with a smile of peace ; v 

 and all the various nations united under his sway the warlike 

 Afghans, the proud Moguls, the gentle-spirited Hindoos, with one 

 voice blessed the wise and humane government of the son of Baber, 

 and unanimously bestowed upon him the titles of AKBAR, or tin 

 GREAT, and JUGGUT GROW, or GUARDIAN of MANKIND. 



Meantime the happiness, which he had diffused among millions, 

 seemed to have fled from the bosom of the sovereign. Cares far 

 different from those of war, deeper than those of love (for the love 

 of eastern monarchs is seldom shadowed by anxiety), possessed his 

 thoughtful soul. He had been brought up in the strictest forms of 

 the Mahommedan religion, and he meditated upon the text, which 

 enjoins the extermination of all who rejected his prophet, till his 

 conscience became like a troubled lake. He reflected, that in his 

 vast dominions there Were at least fifteen different religions, which 

 were subdivided into about three hundred and fifty sects : to extir- 

 pate thousands and tens of thousands of his unoffending subjects, 

 and pile up pyramids of human heads in honour of God and his 



