GOVERNMENT OF KERIM KHAN. 
713 
people and the vanquished, may succeed to the corruptible 
pyramid of human heads, severed from bodies to whom resist¬ 
ance was no more. Their own great moral poet Sadi has furnished 
a motto for that renewed standard. “ The happy conqueror was 
not an angel; neither was he cased in enchanted armour. It 
was by his valour, justice, and mercy, that he attained great and 
happy ends. Be thou brave, just, and merciful, and thou shalt 
be this hero ! ” * ■ 
The palace and its dependencies, far from magnificent in 
themselves, are proofs of the parental care with which Kerim 
Khan provided for the more substantial grandeur of the country 
over which he was the actual sovereign, while bearing no prouder 
title than that of vakeel, or lieutenant of the reigning monarch. 
The king, whose duties he performed, was a poor child of eight 
years old, the last of the race of Sefi; and who had been 
nominally placed in the vacant throne by the destroyers of Nadir 
Shah. The happy government of Kerim Khan, Malcolm beauti¬ 
fully observes, when contrasted with the tyrants who preceded 
him, “ affords to the historian that description of mixed pleasure 
and repose which a traveller enjoys, who arrives at a lovely and 
fertile valley in the midst of an arduous journey over barren and 
rugged wastes; for it is pleasing to recount the actions of a 
chief, who, though born in a subordinate rank, obtained power 
without a crime, and who exercised it with a moderation that 
was, in the times in which he lived, as singular as his humanity 
and justice.” All the cities of Persia flourished under his juris¬ 
diction, but none with such marks of personal attachment as 
Shiraz. Sprung from one of the native tribes himself, he pre¬ 
ferred that city from its vicinity to the simple people from whom 
he derived his descent; strengthened its works, enriched it with 
4 Y 
VOL. I. 
