I860.] The Kirdn-us-Sa'dain of Mir Khisrau. 239 



of humiliating ceremonies round the king to chill the paternal heart 

 from the approach. " To all these the prince submitted ; until after 

 repeated obeisances he found the king remaining unmoved on his 

 throne, when, shocked by this unnatural behaviour, he burst into 

 tears. This sight overpowered all the king's resolutions ; he leaped 

 from his throne and ran to throw himself at his father's feet ; and 

 the father hastening to prevent him, he fell oh his neck and they 

 remained for some minutes weeping in each other's arms, while the 

 whole court was almost as much affected as themselves." One feels 

 that there is nothing in Mir Khusrau's poem one half so truly 

 pathetic as this plain prose ; it is one of those touches of nature 

 which make the whole world kin, but which Mir Khusrau completely 

 overshoots in his endeavours to be original and sublime. 



There is only one observation more, and that relates to the final issue 

 of the dramatis personae. We read that the poet wrote for the king 

 in the year 688, but in that very year* the king murdered the vizier 

 who had been such an evil guide for his youth. Cowed by that 

 superior will, he dared not openly to assume his authority, and he 

 could only turn to the poison bowl to rid him of the too powerful 

 servant. But his own hands were too enervated to seize the reins 

 which the dying minister dropped ; the whole empire relapsed into 

 confusion, and the great military chiefs openly contended for the 

 falling fragments. The dissolute young king found himself utterly 

 powerless in the midst of the confusion which he had evoked, and 

 he was soon assassinated in Kilii Khari, the scene of so many 

 of his revelries ; and one of these Turkish chiefs, Jelal-ud-Dfn 

 Khilji, mounted the vacant throne. A party in the court en- 

 deavoured to secure the crown for the little child Kaiomars whom 

 we watched on his baby mission to his grandfather in Bengal ; he 

 was then an infant in arms, and he is even now only three years of age ; 

 but the attempt fails, and Khilji's first exercise of power is to sweep 

 the poor child for ever out of his path. Baghra Khan retained 

 Bengal through these confusions as through the last, and thirty-six 

 years after, we still find him there, as Ghaias-ud-Din, the founder of 

 the Toghlak dynasty, confirms him in his government. 



* Ferishta gives 687 as tlio last year of his reign, but this must be wrong. 



