572 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



BIOGRAPHY. 



VIZIER ALLY. 

 (From the Asiatic Jpumal.) 



IN May last (1817,) died, in 

 confinement, at Fort William, 

 Calcutta, the Vizier Ally. 



Those extraordinary vicissi- 

 tudes of fortune which are so 

 often the result of a turbulent 

 and restless disposition, were 

 never more fully exemplified 

 than in the fate of this individual, 

 whose early career of life com- 

 menced amidst all the gorgeous 

 splendor of Eastern magnifi- 

 cence. 



Vizier Ally was the adopted 

 son of Asuf-ud-Dovvlah, late 

 nabob of Oude, whom he suc- 

 ceeded in his possessions and 

 jurisdiction. His mother was 

 the wife of a Forash (a menial 

 servant of a low description, 

 employed in India in keeping the 

 metalic furniture of a house 

 clean). His reputed father, 

 Asuf-ud-Dowlah, was a wealthy 

 and eccentric prince. Having 

 succeeded to the musnud (throne) 

 of Oude by the assistance of the 

 East India Company, he pro- 

 fessed great partiality to the 

 English. Mild in manners. 



sidering his education, which 

 instilled the most despotic ideas. 

 He was fond of lavishing his 

 treasures on gardens, palaces, 

 horses, elephants, European guns, 

 lustres, and mirrors. He ex- 

 pended everyyear about 200,000/. 

 in English manufactures. This 

 nabob had more than an hundred 

 gardens, 20 palaces, 1,200 ele- 

 phants, 3,000 fine saddle horses, 

 1,500 double barrel guns, seven- 

 teen hundred superb lustres, 

 thirty thousand shades, of various 

 forms and colours ; several hun- 

 dred large mirrors, girandoles, 

 and clocks ; some of the latter 

 were very curious, richly set 

 with jewels, having figures in 

 continual movement, and playing 

 tunes every hour ; two of these 

 clocks cost him thirty thousand 

 pounds. Without taste or judg- 

 ment, he was extremely solicitous 

 to possess all that was elegant 

 and rare ; he had instruments 

 and machines of every art and 

 science, but he knew none ; and 

 his museum was so ridiculously 

 disposed, that a wooden cuckoo 

 clock was placed close to a superb 

 time-piece which cost the price 



polite and affable in his conduct, 

 he possessed no great mental 

 powers ; his heart was good con- Vol. I.'p." 539 



* For an account of his splendid 

 hunting parties; see Asiatic Journal, 



of 



