126 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
admiration of what is essentially and irrespectively 
good. * Though he had obtained by conquest an in- 
credible extent of dominion, his empire was disjoint- 
ed and unwisely governed. His genius was ex- 
clusively warlike. He had made himself master of 
vast tracts of territory, hut the resources of his mind 
were unequal to the mighty task of founding an em- 
pire. Though deeply skilled in the art of war, he 
was ignorant of legislation ; and consequently, within 
a few years after his death, his dominions were torn 
from his descendants, and there remained in his fa- 
mily only his native country of Transoxiana, with 
Persia and Cabul. Gibbon, after a very favourable 
view of his character, looking upon him rather as 
a political than a moral agent, concludes his eloquent 
summary in these words : 
" The four following observations will serve to ap- 
preciate Timour’s claim to the public gratitude ; and 
perhaps we shall conclude that the Mogul emperor 
was rather the scourge than the benefactor of man- 
kind. First : If some partial disorders, some local 
oppressions, were healed by the sword of Timour, the 
remedy was far more pernicious than the disease. By 
their rapine, cruelty, and discord, the petty tyrants 
of Persia might afflict their subjects ; but whole na- 
tions were crushed under the footsteps of the re- 
* The writers of Timur’s Life, in the Universal History, after 
giving a summary of his character from the work of his eulogist 
Shureef-ood-Deen Ally, observe, that “it is confirmed by his 
enemy Arabshah, with circumstances which give us a much 
greater idea of that prince than what his professed friend and 
flatterer has said of him.” Of Arabshah the same writers have 
