238 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
turally strong and grasping intellects received their 
fall developement. During those adolescent years 
when other youths are passing their days in boyish 
sports or easy occupations, his life was a shifting scene 
of hardships, privations, and perilous adventures. He 
was frequently a fugitive without a shelter, and with 
scarcely a follower to share his bereavement ; one 
month the head of a principality, the next without 
a home, obliged to skulk into caverns, forests, or 
mountains, and often destitute of the common neces- 
saries of life. Within a few years, and before those 
of his manhood were attained, he had shared almost 
every variety of fortune. 
In proportion, however, as the buoyancy of his in- 
domitable spirit bore him above the influence of these 
evils, his mind was enriched with a store of wisdom 
which it gleaned from the lessons taught by a rigorous 
though fortifying experience. The variously-coloured page 
of human life and of human character was fully unfold- 
ed to him ; and at an age when others are generally re- 
posing in the lap of ignorance, he was daily quaffing 
from a troubled indeed, but invigorating fountain, whence 
he drew the inspirations of sound practical knowledge. 
He was growing wise under the harsh yet salutary in- 
structions of adversity, which, while they fortified his 
experience and awakened his perceptions, softened his 
humanity and warmed his heart ; for under no condi- 
tion either of prosperity or of adversity do we find him 
forgetting the amenities and obligations of social or 
kindred affection. He was the kind companion, the 
warm friend, the zealous worker for the welfare of 
others, in a degree seldom exhibited by those who have 
