192 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
the impressions stamped upon my mind by these re- 
peated mementoes of life’s uncertainty and of death’s 
assurance ; — it was in truth an awful lesson ! 
From Cawnpoor we made the best of our way to 
Futtypoor, and thence across to Agra,, which was 
raised by Akbar from an inconsiderable village to be 
the capital of the province, and had the honour of 
being the birth-place of Abu Fazel, his prime minister, 
perhaps the most distinguished man of his age. Dur- 
ing the life of that emperor, to whom it owes its pre- 
sent magnificence and importance, it was the seat of 
the Mahomedan government. It is further memorable 
as having been the prison of the sanguinary Shah Jehan. 
This tyrant was destined both to witness and to feel 
the rod of retribution wielded by his politic but un- 
principled son, who doomed him to perpetual impri- 
sonment, a punishment far less than he deserved, 
when we consider the atrocious murders by which he 
had originally secured his succession to the throne of 
his father Jehangire. Though imprisoned in the city 
of Agra, this ruthless fratricide, who had assumed the 
vain title of Sovereign of the World, which is the 
literal interpretation of Shah Jehan, lived in splendour 
and died in ignominy. That city, which had been the 
pride of his grandfather, the celebrated Akbar, was 
the scene both of his own magnificence and disgrace ; 
he indeed, following the example of his renowned 
ancestor, adorned it considerably during his life, as if 
to render it but the more striking memorial of his death. 
That body which contained, during the brief term of 
its mortal pilgrimage, a soul polluted with the foulest 
crimes, now reposes amid the splendours of perhaps the 
