ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 



475 



nience of such young gentlemen as 

 may be sent out to India in the com- 

 pany's service, at the moderate price 

 of one guinea. 



Having thus briefly noticed the 

 motives inducing the general sup- 

 port of the work throughout the 

 provinces of India, subjected to, or 

 connected with the British govern- 

 ment in that country, we shall now, 

 with the greater satisfaction, deve- 

 lope the plan, and demonstrate its 

 utility to men of letters, and, in 

 general, to the higher orders of so- 

 ciety in Great Britain. 



The emperor lilaleddeenMahom- 

 med Akber, to whose regulations 

 for the government of Hindostan, 

 and patronage of Abulfazel his vi- 

 zier, and the original author, the 

 world is indebted for this great 

 work, was the sixth in descent from 

 Timur, known in Europe by the 

 name of Tamerlane. He was born 

 at Amerkote, A. D. 1 542 ; was 

 proclaimed emperor, or grand mo- 

 gul, in 1556, and died at Agra in 

 l605, in the fiftieth year of his 

 reign ; but, as he was only in the 

 fourteenth year of his age when he 

 ascended the throne, we will al- 

 low seven years for his attaining to 

 the European age of majority, and 

 considering him then as arrived at 

 that maturity of mind, which is dis- 

 cernible at a very early age in men 

 of uncommon talents, we shall find 

 that this young Indian emperor was 

 the contemporary of our renowned 

 queen Elizabeth, throughout her 

 long and glorious reign. Our rea- 

 son for desiring the reader to bear 

 in mind this historical memoir, is, 

 that we imagine every man of 

 science and of sound judgment, 

 conversant in tlic transactions of 

 great nations and vast empires, will 



be struck with astonishment on find- 

 ing, in the Institutes of the emperor 

 Akber, a system of sound morality, 

 of excellent polity, and of domestic 

 economy ; of political arithmetic ; 

 of finance ; of military discipline 

 and regulations ; which equal, if 

 they do not surpass, in many re- 

 spects, similar institutes, at the same 

 a;ra, of the principal European pow- 

 ers, who considered this sage Mogul 

 in no better light than as an igno- 

 rant Pagan prince, himself uncivi- 

 lized, and his subjects lawless bar- 

 barians. Such is the pride and ar- 

 rogance of short-sighted mortals in 

 the highest stations of human life, 

 that they confine political wisdom 

 within the narrow limits of their 

 own sphere, and too often contemn, 

 or overlook, where they ought to 

 imitate, and might improve. 



From the translator's preface we 

 select the following material in- 

 formation : — ' It is needless for me 

 here to enter into a detail of the 

 excellencies of Akber's government, 

 as his political talents and unremit- 

 ting attention to the happine.ss of 

 his subjects will best appear from 

 the regulations he established in 

 every department of his empire. 

 His history was written with great 

 elegance and precision by his vizier 

 Abulfazel, down tothe forty-seventh 

 year of his reign ; at which period, 

 this great man was murdered by 

 some banditti, on his return from 

 the Decan, whither he had been 

 deputed by the emperor upon some 

 weighty business.' This history is 

 composed of three volumes. The 

 first consists of a summary account 

 of the emperor's ancestors. The 

 second comprises the occurrences of 

 his own reign ; and the third is the 

 emperor's Institutes; which the au- 



