439 



SHAFTESBURY, EARL OF. 



SHAHJEHAN. 



440 



in bis own day ; and his name still remains a considerable one in the 

 history both of English philosophy and English eloquence. He appears 

 to have bestowed unwearied pains upon his diction ; but although he 

 abounds in ingenious, forcible, and even brilliant passages, he failed 

 to attain the crowning art of concealing his art, and his composition 

 has for the ihost part an air both of effort and affectation. His philo- 

 sophy as a system has little claim to originality; but it is animated 

 by a lofty spirit of ancient wisdom and beauty ; and is full of glimpses 

 and hints of important and sometimes new truths. "The noble 

 author of the ' Characteristics,' " Warburton has said, while expressing 

 his repugnance to the general character of Shaftesbury's philosophy, 

 " had many excellent qualities both as a man and a writer. He was 

 temperate, chaste, honest, and a lover of his country. In his writings 

 he has shown how much be has imbibed the deep sense and how 

 naturally he could copy tbe gracious manner of Plato." 



Lord Sbaftesbury married, in 1709, his relation Jane, daughter of 

 Thomas Ewer, Esq., of Lea in Hertfordshire ; and by this lady, who 

 survived till 1751, he left one son, Anthony, the fourth earL His 

 own mother was Lady Dorothy Manners, daughter of John, first duke 

 of Rutland. 



* SHAFTESBURY, ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, SEVENTH 

 EARL OF, eldest son of the 6th Earl, who was for many years Chair- 

 man of Committees in the House of Lords, was born on the 28th of 

 April 1801. He received his early education at Harrow, and proceeded 

 thence to Christchurch, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1822 as 

 a first class in classics. He entered parliament in 1826 as M.P. for 

 Woodstock, and was a Commissioner of the Board of Control from 

 1828 to 1830. In 1831 he was elected for Dorset, and became a lord 

 of the Admiralty under Sir Robert Peel's administration of 1834-35. 

 On the death of Mr. Michael Thomas Sadler, Lord Ashley (for such 

 wfvs tbe courtesy title which he bore) took charge of the Ten Hours' 

 Bill in the House of Commons, the object of which was to limit the 

 hours of work for children employed in factories. On the restoration 

 of Sir Robert Peel to power in 1841, a post was offered to Lord 

 Ashley, who declined to take office under a ministry which would not 

 adopt the > Ten Hours' Bill. In 1846 Lord Ashley supported the 

 changes proposed in the Corn Laws by Sir Robert Peel, and finding 

 his views at variance with those of his constituents, he resigned his 

 seat for Dorsetshire. In 1847 he was returned to parliament for the 

 city of Bath, which he continued to represent till his accession to the 

 peerage on the death of his father in 1851. 



Meanwhile as Lord Ashley he had acquired a remarkable amount 

 of popularity and influence in what is commonly known as "the 

 religious world," by his earnest advocacy in parliament and in public 

 meetings of the views of the " evangelical party " in the Church of 

 England, and his untiring support of almost every society and every 

 movement which had for its object the extension of Protestant 

 doctrine, the amelioration of the condition of the suffering and 

 neglected classes, or the reformation of the erring, without regard to 

 sect or party. This influence he has, as Earl of Shaftesbury, extended 

 and strengthened, and bis position has been not inaptly compared 

 with that formerly held by Mr. Wilberforce. He is president of the 

 Bible Society, of the Church Pastoral Aid Society, of tbe London 

 Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, and either presi- 

 dent or a leading member of the Church Missionary Society, the 

 Protestant Alliance, the Labourers' Friend Society, and various others, 

 including the Ragged School Society, which has engaged during the 

 last few years a considerable share of his time and care, in endeavour- 

 ing to procure for destitute children a certain amount of education, 

 and for providing the youth with employment as shoeblacks, a project 

 that has been eminently successful. 



It has been stated, without being contradicted, that on the accession 

 of Viscount Palmereton to office in 1855, the chancellorship of the 

 duchy of Lancaster was offered to the Earl of Shaftesbury (who is 

 connected with Lord Palmerston by marriage) and accepted by him, 

 but that the strong repulsion between him and eome "high church" 

 members of the cabinet, on account of the wide difference in their 

 religious sentiments, prevented the arrangement being carried out. 



SHAH-ALIM I. (also called SULTAN MOAZIM and BAHADUR SHAH, 

 succeeded as emperor of India on tbe death of Aurungzebe, of whom 

 he was the eldest surviving son, A.D. 1707 (A.H. 1119). During the 

 life of his father he had been entrusted with various important com- 

 mands ; but bis uniformly unassuming deportment failed to disarm 

 the jealous suspicions with which Aurungzebe habitually regarded his 

 sons, and he was at one period, for nearly seven years, kept under 

 restraint. At tbe outset of his reigu he had to sustain a contest with 

 his two brothers, Azim and Cambakhsh, who were dissatisfied with 

 tho splendid appanages, the kingdoms of Beejapoor and the Dekkan, 

 bequeathed them by their father ; but these ambitious princes were 

 successively defeated and slain, leaving Shah-Alim without a rival. 

 The remainder of his short reign presents few events of importance, 

 being chiefly occupied by operations against the Sikhs, who had lately 

 exchanged tbe character of peaceful devotees for that of armed 

 fanatics, and had overrun the Punjab and adjoining provinces. He 

 died in a fit, in bis camp before Lahore, at the age of seventy (lunar) 

 years, on the 16th of February 1712 (A.H. 1124), and was succeeded 

 after a short civil war, by his eldest son Jehandar-Shah. His character 

 is summed up by an able native historian, Meer Hussein-Khan, with a 



frankness which singularly contrasts with the adulation usual in 

 eastern writers : " This emperor was extremely good natured, and 

 mild even to a fault ; but very deficient in firmness, for which quality 

 indeed the princes of the house of Timour have never been remark- 

 able hi later times." 



SHAH-ALIM II. succeeded to the nominal rank of emperor on the 

 murder of his father Alimghir by the vizier Ghazi-ed-deen, November 

 1759 (A.H. 1173), a fate which he himself had only escaped by flyiug 

 from Delhi some time previous. He spent several years in the vain 

 attempt to establish his authority in some of the provinces of the 

 distracted empire, and is often mentioned by English writers of that 

 period under the name of the Shahzadeb, or prince; but in 1765 he 

 was compelled to throw himself on the protection of the British, who 

 assigned him the city and district of Allahabad for his maintenance, 

 receiving in return a formal grant of Bengal, Babar, and Orissa, the 

 original titledeed of the Anglo-Indian empire. His impatience to 

 return to Delhi however led him to unite himself with tbe Mahrattaa 

 in 1771; but he quickly found that he had merely made himself the 

 tool of his new allies, and after various vicissitudes he was seized and 

 blinded (1788) by a Rohilla chief named Ghola'm Khadir, who had 

 taken Delhi. The recovery of the capital by Madajee Sindiab restored 

 him to liberty, but he continued virtually a captive of the Mahrattas 

 till the capture of Delhi by Lord Lake in 1803, when he was rescued 

 from the miserable and degraded state to which he had been reduced, 

 and assigned an annual pension of 120,OOOZ. for his support. He 

 died in 1806, aged eighty-seven, and was succeeded by bis son Akbar 

 Shah II., who continued an English state pensioner all bis life, and 

 never exercised authority beyond the palace walla. Akbar died at the 

 age of eighty-two, on the 28th of September 1837. 



SHAHJEHAN, or 'King of the World,' tbe title assumed by 

 Khurrem-Shah, the fifth of the Mogul emperors of India, who suc- 

 ceeded his father Jehanghir Selim Shah, in 1627 (A.H. 1037). He 

 had borne a distinguished part in the transactions of his father's reign, 

 and had tbe glory (1614) of first reducing the Rana of Oodipoor, the 

 chief of the Rajpoots, to submission; and in 1616 be was declared 

 heir to the throne, though he had then two elder brothers living, both 

 of whom however died before Jehanghir. He was afterwards employed 

 against Candabar and the Dekkan, and distinguished himself by his 

 bravery and military skill ; but the intrigues of the famous empress 

 Noor-Jehan, who favoured the pretensions of a younger princa named 

 Shabriyar, led to his disgrace and recall. He was even driven for a 

 time (1623) into open rebellion, and was never entirely reconciled to 

 his father. On tbe death of JehanghJr however tbe succession was 

 secured to Sbabjehan by the fidelity of the vizir Azof Jab, and Shah- 

 riyar was taken and put to death. The revolt in tbe following year 

 (1628) of a powerful chief named Kban-Jehan Lodi, who took refuge 

 with the independent Moslem kings in the Dekkan, gave rise to a war 

 in that quarter which lasted several years, and ended in tbe total sub- 

 jugation of the kingdom of Ahmednuggur (1631), while the more 

 powerful states of Beejapoor and Golconda were compelled (1636) to 

 pay tribute to the court of Delhi. A war with tbe Uzbeks in Balkh 

 (1644-47) was attended with little result; and Candahar (which, after 

 falling into the hands of the Moguls in 1637, had been recovered ten 

 years later by the Persians), defied all the efforts of two successive 

 armaments, led by the princes Dara-Sheko and Aurungzebe, to retake 

 it. The war in the Dekkan was renewed in 1655; and Aurungzebe, 

 who was viceroy in the south, gained great advantages over the two 

 kingdoms which remained, Beejapoor and Golcouda. But a dangerous 

 illness, which seized Shabjehau in 1657, led to a premature civil war 

 between his four sons for the succession. Tbe eldest, Dara-Sheko, 

 had been destined by his father for tbe heir ; but he was overthrown 

 by the united forces of Aurungzebe and Morad, who entered Agra 

 (1658), and deposed their father, while Aurungzebe, speedily getting 

 rid of Mourad, proclaimed himself emperor. Shoojah, the fourth 

 brother, was shortly after defeated and driven out of India ; and Dara, 

 being taken prisoner the next year in a fresh attempt, was put to 

 death by order of Aurungzebe. From this period Shabjehan was 

 confined by his ungrateful son to the citadel of Agra, though con- 

 stantly treated with respect and allowed an ample establishment. He 

 died there, December 1666 (A.H. 1076), in tbe seventy-fourth year of 

 his age. The reign of Shabjehan was the epoch of the greatest splen- 

 dour and prosperity of the Mogul dynasty, though its territory was 

 afterwards greatly extended by Aurungzebe. The wise regulations 

 introduced by Akbar for securing impartial justice to all classes of his 

 subjects, Hindoo as well as Moslem, wero still in full force ; and 

 Tavernier, who visited India during this reign, says that Shahjeban 

 " reigned not so much as a king over his subjects, but rather as a 

 father over his family and children." The magnificence of bis court 

 was unequalled even in tbe tales of Oriental pomp. The famous 

 ' peacock throne,' the jewels composing which were valued at 

 6,500,000/., was constructed by his orders; but the most durable 

 monuments of his greatness are the numerous and splendid public 

 buildings which he erected. The city of New Delhi, or Shahjehana- 

 bad, with its fortified imperial palace and noble mosque, was built 

 under his direction; but the superb mausoleum of the Taj-Mahal, 

 near Agra, which he built for the sepulchre of his favourite queen, 

 and in which he himself lies interred, is unsurpasEed perhaps by any 

 edifice either iu Europe or Asia for chaste elegance of design and 



