THE 
 
 FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 A TRAGEDY. 
 
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 THE 
 
 FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
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 British Museum, 
 1st July, 1806. 

 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 J. he subject of the Tragedy for which I have 
 now to solicit the public candour, is the subver- 
 sion of a mighty Empire, effected by the well- 
 known irruption into India of Nadir Shah, the 
 usurper of the Persian Throne, in the year 1738. 
 This empire, called, from Timur and his Tartar 
 descendants, the conquerors of India in preceding 
 centuries, that of the Moguls, comprehended, at 
 the death of Aurengzebe in 1707, a tract of coun- 
 try extending, according to Major Rennel*, from 
 the tenth to the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude, 
 and nearly as much in longitude, and produced a 
 revenue exceeding thirty-two millions sterling, 
 which, in a country where, as that writer observes, 
 the products of the earth are about four times as 
 cheap as in England, is an enormous annual 
 amount. 
 
 " Aurengzebe" — the reader will be pleased to 
 pardon a short extract from my own historical re- 
 
 * Memoir. Introduction, p. 63, edit. 1788. 
 B
 
 11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lation of the important events of this period — 
 " Aurengzebe left the richest and most powerful 
 " empire in the world to be rent asunder and con- 
 " vulscd to its very centre, by the ambitious confen- 
 " tions of his surviving offspring. India had not 
 " for ages seen two such immense armies assembled 
 " on her plains, as those which accompanied to the 
 " field his sons Azem Shah and Mahommed Mau- 
 " zim, the rival competitors for his vacant throne. 
 " The black and aggravated crimes by which the 
 " father himself ascended to empire, seem to have 
 " been avenged by Heaven in the successive de- 
 " struction of his immediate descendants. From 
 " the death of the victorious Mauzim to the irrup- 
 " tion from Persia in 1738, there occurs a period 
 " of Indian history the events of which it is pain- 
 " ful to record, — a period deeply stained with blood, 
 " and marked by many progressive scenes of na- 
 <c tional calamity, the effect of that general anar- 
 " chy and that uncontrolled spirit of faction which 
 11 diffused itself among the Omrahs at the court of 
 " Delhi*." 
 
 Not to enter, in this place, into those particular 
 details which will more properly occupy the pages 
 of the work alluded to, it will be sufficient to ob- 
 
 * History of Hindostan, vol. i. p. \Q, published by White, 
 Fleet-street.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ill 
 
 serve here, that two of those factious Omrahs, the 
 most powerful by birth and fortune in all the em- 
 pire, denominated the Seyds (Seyd Abdalla, and 
 Seyd Hossan,) possessed influence and power 
 enough to dethrone or murder three successive 
 emperors, viz. Jehander Shah, Furrokhsere who 
 granted the English East India company their 
 Firmaun, or Patent, exempting them from paying 
 any duties in his dominions, and Raffeih Al Dirjat. 
 Their combined authority, also, raised to the 
 throne Mahommed Shah, the unfortunate mo- 
 narch whose sufferings this Drama records ; but 
 attempting to keep him bound in the same chains 
 with which they had manacled his predecessors, this 
 prince in a short time exerted himself with sufficient 
 promptitude and energy to subvert their overgrown 
 power, causing Ilossan to be assassinated in his 
 tent, when on an expedition towards the Deccan, 
 and afterwards vanquishing Abdalla, in a pitched 
 battle, whom he generously permitted to live, and 
 allowed a handsome pension for his support in 
 confinement. 
 
 This event took place in A. D. 1720 ; and had 
 Mahommed continued to act, throughout his long 
 reign, with that decision and vigour which marked 
 its commencement, the dreadful catastrophe that
 
 IV INTRODUCTION 
 
 happened nineteen years afterwards might have 
 been prevented: but having annihilated his enemies, 
 and enjoying the throne without a rival, he seems 
 from that moment to have sunk down into a fatal 
 apathy and inglorious indolence ; to have indulged 
 in all the excesses of Eastern luxury and intempe- 
 rance ; and, his intellects having by those excesses 
 in some degree become impaired, to have willingly 
 resigned to his courtiers the command of that scep- 
 tre which the Seyds had taken by violence from 
 his predecessors. 
 
 To obtain the dominion over a prince who pos- 
 sessed the supreme sovereignty of nearly the fourth 
 of Asia, was an object of no vulgar nor unanimated 
 contention, The empire was again convulsed to 
 its centre by the struggles of the great Viceroys for 
 that envied distinction. Two of the more powerful 
 Omrahs, named Kamir-o'deen Khan, and Khandoran, 
 the former in the office of Vizier, the latter in that 
 ofBukhshi, or paymaster-general, at length gained 
 such an entire ascendancy over their weak master, 
 that the highest places of trust and emolument in 
 the empire were disposed of at their sole will and 
 pleasure. The favourites were not without consi- 
 derable abilities, but unfortunately were, like their 
 sovereign, immersed in every species of voluptuous
 
 INTRODUCTION. ▼ 
 
 dissipation ; to gratify which the public treasures 
 were devoted. The arm of government was in 
 consequence universally relaxed ; the distant pro- 
 vinces were in a state bordering on rebellion, and 
 the warlike tribe of the Mahrattas had spread their 
 ravages even to the confines of Delhi. 
 
 Sadit Khan* was at this period Viceroy of Oude, 
 and was an officer equally renowned for long expe- 
 rience and steady valour. At the desire of the Em- 
 peror he took the field at the head of a large body 
 of troops, disciplined by himself, and, having driven 
 the marauders from his own province, joined the 
 forces of the Empire assembled for the protection 
 of the capital under the Vizier, and Khandoran. 
 By his exertions principally, although those Omrahs 
 arrogated to themselves distinguished honours in 
 the affair, the enemy was repulsed, and the Empire 
 saved. Sadit, not thinking his merits sufficiently 
 noticed or rewarded by the Emperor, and perhaps 
 insulted by his ministers, retired in disgust to his 
 province. 
 
 Exalted far beyond all these in celebrity, both 
 as a warrior and a statesman, in the remote region 
 of the south, in little less than royal magnificence, 
 
 * Softened in the Drama into Sadi, a name not uncommon in 
 Asiatic History.
 
 \1 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and with only nominal dependence on the crown 
 of Delhi, flourished the great Nizam-al-Muluck. 
 He had heen one of the favourite Generals of 
 Aurcngzebe, of whose maxims, both military and 
 political, he was an ardent admirer, and therefore 
 could not behold without a mixture of extreme 
 contempt and indignation, the very opposite plan 
 of government pursued by his effeminate successor. 
 By the vigour of his administration, and the 
 terror of his arms, he had preserved the Deccan, 
 and the adjoining region, free from the depreda- 
 tions of the Mahrattas, and had frequently defeated 
 them, when commanding the Imperial forces, in 
 distant provinces. To this distinguished character 
 the well-meaning Emperor had recourse for advice 
 and assistance in the fatal extremity to which the 
 Empire was reduced : he was offered the high 
 post of Asoph Jah, a title greater than that of 
 Vizier, with an unlimited control over the mili- 
 tary and financial departments ; and he repaired to 
 Delhi in the confident hope of restoring public 
 order, and that rigid discipline which under 
 Akbar and Aurengzebe had raised the Empire to 
 such an envied pitch of grandeur and prosperity. 
 Whatever beneficial projects, however, he had 
 formed, were rendered wholly abortive by the
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 superior and unbounded influence which the 
 favourites had obtained over the mind of the King-. 
 He was strenuously opposed in all his plans in- 
 tended to promote reform and (economy. Khan- 
 doran, and the whole tribe of courtiers, obedient 
 to his nod, made both him, and them, the constant 
 subject of their ridicule, and at length carried their 
 insults so far, that, finding it useless to complain 
 to the Emperor, and pleading urgent necessity for 
 his presence in Deccan, he retired thither with 
 rage and indignation in his heart, and a full reso- 
 lution to take a deep and speedy revenge for 
 those insults. Instead of repressing the Mahrattas, 
 he, thenceforth, encouraged them to make inroads 
 on the provinces bordering on the capital ; and 
 those un warlike ministers were glad to purchase 
 peace by paying the invaders the heavy tribute of 
 the Chaut, or quarter part of the clear revenues 
 of the provinces thus redeemed from rapine. 
 
 At length, finding nothing could rouse the 
 court from its inglorious slumber, and determined 
 rather to make the Empire a wreck than leave that 
 revenge unsatiated, he joined with Sadit Khan in 
 the iniquitous project of inviting Nadir Shah, at 
 that time engaged in besieging Candahar, to 
 march his victorious army into Hindostan. Nadir
 
 till INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Shall obeyed the summons, and appeared on the 
 plains of Karnal, a few leagues from Delhi, at the 
 head, according to Fraser, of 100,000 horse. The 
 army of Mahommcd, when collected together, 
 amounted to five times that number ; but the im- 
 mense difference between the two armies, in point 
 of personal bravery and of discipline, gave that 
 decided superiority to the former, which soon 
 determined matters in their favour, after a very 
 short conflict, in which not a third of either host 
 were engaged. Nadir immediately marched into 
 Delhi, seized the famous throne constructed in the 
 form of a peacock, of the richest Oriental jewels ar- 
 ranged according to the colours that mark the plu- 
 mnge of that resplendent bird, (and which alone cost 
 Shah Jehan eleven millions sterling, ) with all the 
 oilier imperial jewels and regalia. He found, also, 
 an immense sum in coined money and bullion 
 hoarded in the vaults under the palace, the accu- 
 mulated wealth of ages; and on some resistance 
 of the Delhians, who were cruelly beaten and tor- 
 tured to make them discover their concealed 
 wealth, he ordered a general massacre, in which one 
 hundred thousand Indians perished. Nadir is 
 supposed to have carried out of India, on the 
 whole, seventy millions sterling; and though he
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 restored the crown to the vanquished Emperor ; 
 yet, as he had utterly drained the treasury, and 
 thrown the whole government into a state of 
 distraction and anarchy, from which it wanted 
 vigour to emerge, that crown proved but a shadow. 
 The Empire never recovered from the shock 
 which it received from this irruption ; the great 
 Viceroys became gradually independent in their 
 respective Soobahs, particularly the Nizam, who 
 founded a powerful kingdom in the south; the 
 Mahrattas, the Abdaili, and the Rohillas, by their 
 reiterated inroads completed the dreadful work 
 of devastation ; and in less than twenty years, of 
 all the immense domain conquered or inherited by 
 Aurengzebe, only Delhi, and a small territory round 
 it, remained to the fallen house of Timur. 
 
 So great and sudden a revolution, (only to be 
 paralleled by one nearer our own times, and 
 between which many resembling circumstances 
 and characters may be traced by the attentive 
 readtr,) so vast and awful a vicissitude in human 
 atfairs, I considered as sufficiently interesting and 
 important, both in a moral and political point of 
 view, to become the subject of Imperial Tra- 
 gedy. By far the greater part of the incidents 
 
 are founded on historical fact, and are recorded 
 
 c
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in Fraser's and other histories of the Persian 
 Usurper. The minor incidents, and the love- 
 plot, so indispensable in modern tragedy, derive 
 their existence in part from the Author, and are 
 made instrumental towards a more accurate dis- 
 play and complete development of the principal 
 character, Nadir Shah; in whose breast ambition, 
 lust, and cruelty, seem alternately to have pre- 
 dominated, and who well merited the inglorious 
 death which he met with, A. D. 1747, being- as- 
 sassinated at midnight in his tent ; the result of 
 a conspiracy entered into by the officers of his 
 Persian troops, whom, it is authentically stated, 
 he had doomed in the morning to indiscriminate 
 massacre*. His nephew, Ali, who instigated his 
 murderers to this deed of retributive vengeance, 
 and who for a short time enjoyed the vacant 
 throne, — to secure himself upon it, put all the 
 princes, his descendants, to death in one day, to 
 the number of nineteen']', except Shahrokh, a youth 
 about fourteen years old, whom he kept concealed 
 
 * The fact lias been doubted ; but all doubt is now removed b_v 
 the publication of the " Memoirs of Khojeh Abdul Kurreem," a 
 Persian nobleman, resident in the camp of Nadir. See those 
 Memoirs, p. igo. 
 
 i Sir William Jones's Nadir Shah, p. 116, edit, 1773.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 in a lonely tower at the city of Meshed for 
 political purposes, and who filially revenged upon 
 Ali the murder of his uncles and cousins ; but, 
 being himself soon after blinded by a fresh usurper, 
 was rendered incapable of reigning over Persia, 
 and was living in Korasan when Mr. Franklin 
 visited Persia, in A. C. 1788*. 
 
 As another of Nadir's historians informs us, that 
 at the time of his assassination he was <f in bed 
 " with a daughter of the house of Timur, whom 
 ff he had espoused in Indiaf," there was sufficient 
 ground for exhibiting Nadir in love with the grand- 
 daughter of Aurengzebe; though I thought it more 
 consistent with the haughty spirit of that race, that 
 she should undauntedly destroy herself at the altar 
 to which she was drasr^ed, than suffer the embraces 
 of the detested subverter of that illustrious dynasty. 
 Mahommed Shah wielded for a few years longer the 
 enfeebled sceptre of India, and was succeeded by 
 his son Sultan Hamed, (as the name is written by 
 Orme, and therefore, to prevent confusion, adopted 
 by me,) who, in an expedition against Abdaliah in 
 A. D. 1748, manifested a considerable portion of 
 that heroic military ardour with which his character 
 
 * Franklin's Travels in Persia, p. 298. 
 -J- Hr.nway.
 
 XH INTRODUCTION. 
 
 is invested in these pages, though then quite a youth. 
 Nizam-al-muluckj who, after Nadir's retreat, became 
 in fact the sovereign of India, had influence enough 
 to maintain his son Gazi-o-deen, and his grandson of 
 the same name, after him, in the post of Captain- 
 general and Vizier at Delhi to both these nominal 
 emperors. By that grandson, in A. D. 1753, was 
 Hamed eventually dethroned and blinded after a 
 short reign of six years; and by the same sanguinary 
 arm was Allumgeer, the second of the name, and 
 father of the Mogul Shah Aulum, deposed and 
 murdered. The menace, therefore, denounced, 
 towards the close of the first act, to young Hamed, 
 by the veteran chief of Deccan, 
 
 O'er all thy race a constant scourge I '11 hang, 
 And wash away th' offence in royal blood, 
 
 was but too well fulfilled by himself and his pos- 
 terity. It may also be added as a circumstance not 
 a little singular, and indicative of the justice of that 
 Providence which superintends human events, that 
 as the treacherous Nizam had called in Nadir Shah, 
 in 1738, to crush the IMogul, so Abdallah was, in 
 1756, invited by his successor on the tottering 
 throne, to crush the overgrown power of the Ni- 
 zam's family at Delhi ; and the ruin of their affairs 
 at that capital was the consequence. It was reserved
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 for Zumani*, the last wretched survivor of the dra- 
 matis persona? of this Tragedy, to see the final spark 
 of the glory of the Mogul empire expire on the 
 more recent visits to Delhi, at six different periods, 
 of the ferocious Abdalli; in one of which a massacre 
 of seven days continuance took place, which almost 
 depopulated a capital, that, in the reign of Au- 
 rengzebe, contained nearly two millions of inhabi- 
 tants. During those incursions, all the remaining 
 wealth of Delhi was plundered ; even the sepul- 
 chres of the dead were broken open for the orna- 
 'ments that adorned them; and the stately palaces 
 of the nobility, with most of the other public build- 
 ings of that antient city, were reduced to ashes. 
 
 The ill-fated Zumani, also, lived late enough to 
 witness and to feci the more terrible desolations 
 and boundless spoliage of the cruel, the sordid 
 Rohilla chief Gholaum Kaudir, son of Zabetah 
 Khan, who in the absence of Scindia, the Mahratta 
 chief, then in possession of the capital, marched 
 suddenly into Delhi, in July 1788, and in the fury 
 of insatiable avarice tore down the plates of silver 
 tbat overlaid the ceiling of the Divan, or creat 
 
 * Zumani, the.wife of Mahommed Shah, died at a great ago in 
 the year I/S9 : she was buried at Delhi, and her tomb near the 
 Cabul gate is described by Mr. Franklin, who was at Delhi in 
 1793. Asiat. Res. vol. iv. p. 421. London edit.
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 hall of audience, and other state rooms of the 
 palace, and broke up the floors of other apart- 
 ments for concealed treasure, melting' the silver 
 bed-steads, sophas, and even kitchen utensils, to 
 coin into money ; and finally dethroning, and 
 " stabbing out " the eyes of the aged, wretched, 
 broken-hearted Emperor*. 
 
 The rival contests for power, and consequent 
 carnage, of the invading armies of Mahommedan 
 despots neither merit nor excite our pity. But 
 what pen can adequately describe the miserable 
 fate of the patient oppressed Hindoo, who for a 
 long series of ages has beheld his beloved native 
 region, by those contests, alternately made a 
 desert, or deluged with blood ! that blood, at the 
 shedding of which he is led both by nature and 
 his religion to shudder. To record scenes like 
 those exhibited in this drama, and not at tin- 
 same time to brand the unfeeling aggressors with 
 the infamy their crimes deserve ; not to have 
 expressed a due abhorrence of the perpetration 
 of such sanguinary and prolonged atrocities in 
 the strongest terms language could afford, or 
 
 * Consult for these melancholy details, which are facts, not 
 fables, a journal kept at Delhi of the daily ravages and cruelties 
 of this monster in human form, translated and inserted in Scott's 
 History of Dekkan, vol. ii. p. 285.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 outraged humanity suggest; would have been 
 to counteract all the avowed purposes of Tra- 
 gedy, to sanction baseness, and canonize cruelty ! 
 I have therefore ventured, after the manner of 
 the antient chorus, occasionally to bring for- 
 ward a band of Brahmin priests, inflamed with 
 a kind of holy fury on surveying the sacred land 
 of their forefathers so basely defiled and so cruelly 
 ravaged, calling aloud on both the Dii Majoresand 
 Minores of India, to pour down their collected 
 vengeance on the successive invaders of their 
 desolated country. By this means not only a 
 greater interest is excited, and the scene consider- 
 ably varied, but an opportunity was afforded me of 
 poetically introducing into the piece, specimens of 
 the mythology of that wonderful people, who, it 
 should be remembered, independently of their 
 three great Deities, viz. Brahma, whom they adore 
 as the Creator ; Veeshnu, as the Preserver, and 
 Seeva, as the Avenger, or Destroyer, personify all 
 the attributes of God, and venerate all the elements 
 of nature. To that superstitious race, the universe 
 is a vast Pantheon, filled with intellectual beings 
 of various classes and powers, from the Genii that 
 preside in the sun and direct the planets, down to . 
 the subordinate Intelligences which rule over the
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tribes of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. 
 These various and powerful agents on the great 
 theatre of nature are solemnly invoked, by persons 
 fully persuaded of their existence, to the aid of 
 agonizing virtue against lawless oppression ; and 
 both loeal circumstances and historical retrospect 
 are made to combine their effect in producing the 
 awful moral impressions which constitute the 
 essence of tragical exhibition. 
 
 The rise, and the prosperity as well as the 
 fall, of a mighty empire arc thus attempted to be 
 depicted in the glowing language and in the superb 
 scenery* of a drama devoted to inculcate the im- 
 portant truth, that the proudest fabric of human 
 glory and grandeur is baseless, when energy and 
 virtue are wanting to its support; for in no countrv 
 or period of the world was imperial magnificence, 
 with all its glittering insignia, displayed in such 
 meridian splendour as at the court of Delhi, previ- 
 ously to the invasion of Nadir Shah. The flourishing 
 
 * Among that scenery it is intended to introduce the sublime- 
 pageant of the peacock throne, formed of artificial gems, and 
 the great Divan or hall of audience ; the Elephanta cavern, with 
 splendid fire-temples, and Persees at their devotions round it, 
 singing select portions of the Ode to Mithra; and whatever else 
 can have the effect to interest the spectators, and sustain the high 
 dignity of Imperial Tkagejdy.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XVII 
 
 state of that empire was indeed amply manifested 
 by the immense wealth of the capital. It was esta- 
 blished by the vigorous councils and military ge- 
 nius of the early sovereigns of the house of Timur, 
 particularly of Akbar, who united in his person 
 all the commanding talents and virtues of a great 
 prince; it was precipitated into irretrievable ruin 
 by the lethargic indolence, the luxurious effemi- 
 nacy, the prostration of all the nobler mental 
 powers of Mahommed Shah, aided by the factious 
 cabals of the great Omrahs, over whom, from want 
 of energy of conduct, he had lost the command of 
 an emperor, such as, by their military code, the 
 Mogul emperors ought to have been. Yet, though 
 culpable as the sovereign of a vast empire, the 
 sceptre of which he wanted abilities to wield, Ma- 
 hommed was by no means destitute of private vir- 
 tue, of which many instances are on record. His 
 disposition was by no means tyrannical, but highly 
 benignant ; as a husband and parent he was ex- 
 tremely affectionate ; and in his friendships he was 
 so ardent, that the death of Kamir-o-deen, his faith- 
 ful Vizier, which happened by a cannon ball when 
 opposing Abdalla in the field, under the banners 
 of his beloved son Hamed, is supposed to have 
 given him that fatal shock which occasioned his
 
 XV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 death by a fit in 1749, when sitting on the musnud 
 of Delhi in the act of dispensing justice to his sub- 
 jects*. Mahommed, therefore, being neither deeply 
 criminal nor wholly innocent, is rendered by his 
 sufferings an object of our deepest commiseration ; 
 in those sufferings his errors are forgotten ; and 
 that pity, to produce which is one great end of Tra- 
 gedy, is strongly excited ; while the daring atroci- 
 ties and remorseless cruelties of Nadir awaken in 
 our breasts the strongest emotions of terror, and fill 
 -us with rage and detestation against that unprin- 
 cipled usurperf . That a character so deeply stained 
 with guilt, should be represented as marching tri- 
 umphantly away with the spoils of India, as in re- 
 ality, and according to historic evidence, he did, 
 would have been to exhibit on the stage the shock- 
 ing example of successful villany :— -for the sake, 
 therefore, of that moral, which in dramatic exhibi- 
 
 * Orme's History, vol. i. p. 122, 2d edit. 
 
 f His character is fully delineated by himself in the answer 
 which he gave to a Derveish who had the boldness to present a 
 writing to him conceived in these terms : " If thou art a god, act 
 " as a god ; if thou art a prophet, conduct us in the May of salva- 
 " tion ; if thou art a king, render the people happy, and do not 
 " destroy them !" To this the barbarian replied, " I am no god, to 
 act as a god ; nor a prophet, to show the way of salvation ; nor a 
 king, to render the people happy : but I am he whom God sends 
 to the nations which he has determined to visit with his wrath ! !" 
 Orme's Dissertation, vol. i. p. 23.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 tton should never be forgotten, I have, in the closing 
 scene of this Tragedy, not inconsistently with the 
 powers often arrogated by that holy tribe, invested 
 my Brahmins with a portion of the prophetic cha- 
 racter, and made them denounce to the audience the 
 final doom of the usurper, of his children, and his 
 empire, as recorded above. The circumstance of 
 Sadi having actually poisoned himself, while Nadir 
 was at Delhi, gave me an opportunity of exhibit- 
 ing, at least in one of the conspirators, though not 
 the one most guilty, the just fate of ambition and 
 treason ; and the warning voice of history has since 
 declared the fallen grandeur* and consequence of 
 the Nizam's descendants in India. 
 
 Besides the Hindoos, there exists in western Hin- 
 dostan another very injured race, who owe to the 
 same ferocious invaders all the evils, though greatly 
 mitigated by the generous Hindoos, which they 
 have endured since their expulsion by the Arabs 
 from their native country in the early centuries of 
 the Hejira, the amiable and unoffending race of 
 Persees, who, though in these pages denominated 
 Jire-wor shippers, are represented by enlightened tra- 
 vellers as only adoring the supreme Deity in their 
 favourite symbols of the sun and fire. Having 
 
 * So fallen, that the present Nizam owes the very existence of 
 his throne at this time in the Deccan to the power and protection
 
 XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 elsewhere entered very extensively into this sub* 
 ject*, I shall only remark here, that, in stigmatiz- 
 ing the atrocities of the Mahommcdans during 
 their irruptions into the various regions of Asia, I 
 could not avoid introducing these commiserated 
 exiles, also, into the drama, uttering against their 
 avowed persecutors in every age, similar complaints 
 and similar execrations. I have taken care, at the 
 same time, to mark as distinctly as possible the cha- 
 racter of the respective systems of mythology of these 
 two antient tribes — which, in fact, was no very easy 
 matter, where the original features of both in many 
 points bear so near a resemblance — uniting their 
 evidence to demonstrate the truth of the hypothesis 
 that derives their descent from one primitive stock, 
 and their science from one primaeval school, that of 
 Chaldea. 
 
 This choral band of Hindoo and Persee Priests 
 do not, like the Greek chorus, remain permanently 
 on the stage, but appear at intervals when any event 
 of more than usual interest occurs, as that of the 
 massacre at Delhi ; and as their parts are recited, 
 not sung, I have not varied the measure, nor shac- 
 kled myself with rhime. Their business is, like 
 that of the antient Ayyshog, to make the audience 
 
 * See Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. chap. ii. of the Indian Theo- 
 logy.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 acquainted with facts which elucidate the story, 
 and exalt the interest of the drama ; and they are at 
 once the means of high poetical embellishment, and 
 of conveying that moral, to inculcate which, I have 
 already observed, is the essential duty of the Tragic 
 Muse. But I must beg permission to impress it upon 
 the reader, that neither the character nor the language 
 of these choruses will be completely intelligible to 
 him, unless, during the perusal, he will occasion- 
 ally advert to what has been observed in a preceding 
 page concerning the peculiar mythology of the 
 Hindoos ; and bear in mind the Persian doctrine 
 of the two principles, constantly contending with 
 each other for the government of the world, viz. 
 Oromasdes, god of light, the good Principle, with 
 Ahriman, god of darkness, the evil one, at the head 
 of their attendant good or bad angels; their venera- 
 tion of Mithra, the sun personified ; their resem- 
 bling notions of subordinate intelligences; and their 
 grand AKoxotToiroccrtg, or final restitution, and pur- 
 gation of all things by fire, so similar to theJLKTrvpucng 
 of the Platonists, most probably borrowed from the 
 elder Asiatic school.
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 Mahommed Shah, the Great Mogul, first dethroned, 
 and then restored by Nadir Shah. 
 
 Nadir Shah, Sovereign of Persia, Conqueror of 
 Hindostan. 
 
 Sultan Hamed, Son of the Great Mogul, betrothed 
 to Solima. 
 
 NizAM 3 the Mogul General. ] Omrahs supposed to have 
 
 > invited Nadir Shall to 
 Sadi, an Indian Chief J invadc India 
 
 Thamas Khan, the Persian General. 
 
 Zumani, Empress of Hindostan. 
 
 Solima, a Princess of the Race of Aurengzebe, be- 
 trothed to Homed. 
 
 Chorus of Brahmin and Persee Priests. 
 
 Persian Officers, Attendants, Guards, §c.
 
 THE 
 
 FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 
 
 An open plain, with tents, and a view of Delhi at a 
 distance. 
 
 Enter Nizam and Sadi. 
 
 Sadi. At length triumphant on the lofty towers 
 Of yon proud capital our standards stream. 
 And Hindostan, through all her bounds, submits 
 To Nadir's powerful sway. 
 
 Nizam. The great revenge 
 That brooded in my breast is now complete ; 
 Nor brook'd my wrath a meaner sacrifice 
 Than India plunder'd, and her proud Mogul 
 Bound in the fetters of a foreign yoke, 
 
 Sad. Nizam, thy wrongs were infinite, and rous'd 
 Resentment boundless as the bold affront. 
 
 Niz. Sadi, by Mecca's holy shrine I swear, 
 The insults of the venal court of Delhi
 
 24 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Had reach'd extremes too daring to be borne : 
 Oh, arrogance of tyrant power, to deem 
 That the fam'd chief of Deccan's rich domain, — 
 He who beneath the all-victorious banners 
 Of the great Aurengzebe was train'd to war, 
 And by the side of that immortal prince 
 Toil'd up the steeps of glory, — who so oft, 
 Beneath the blasting wind and scorching sun, 
 Hath led the flow'r of Asia to the field — 
 Would stain, at last, his laurels and his age 
 Bv basely cringing to these pamper'd lords, 
 Whose bold rapacious grasp usurp d the empire. 
 
 Sad. Nurs'd in soft harams, and with women bred, 
 Too weak to guide the helm their rashness seiz'd, 
 What terrors shook th' affrighted courtier throng, 
 When late the storm of wild rebellion rag'd, 
 And roll'd its thunder to the gates of Delhi ! 
 
 JV7z. 'Twas then, in abject mood and servile strain, 
 My counsel they implor'd, and ask'd my sword 
 To crush the hydra. With my choicest troops 
 Swift from our lofty Gauls' dark bounds I flew, 
 Stemm'd the rude storm, and from perdition snateh'd 
 The trembling empire. 
 
 Sad. Nor did Sadi's sword 
 Sleep in its scabbard, when on Jumna's banks 
 The fierce Mahratta bands triumphant rear'd
 
 A TRAGEDY. 25 
 
 Their blood-stain'd banners. What the high reward, 
 But scoffs and insults from his fawning minions. 
 Who burn'd with envy at our well-earn'd glory ? 
 
 Niz. To such a height of phrensied insolence 
 Their outrage rose, that oft, in full divan, 
 When mighty kingdoms on its high resolves 
 Waited their doom, these gaudy sycophants, 
 The pests of courts and kings, would buz around me; 
 Mimic my gait, my voice ; and taunting cry — 
 <c Mark how the Tiger of the Deccan storms* !" — 
 Dear have they rued the taunt ; and learn too late 
 How terrible, when rous'd, this Deccan tiger ; 
 Whose roar is vengeance, and whose gambols 
 war ! 
 
 Sad. Oh, Timur ! how was thy immortal line, 
 How India's throne, disgrac'd by such a monarch ; 
 Who, buried in voluptuous sloth, resign 'd 
 To slaves his sceptred rights ! # 
 
 Niz. How chang'd ; how fall'n 
 From that proud eminence where once he tower 'd ! 
 Young, ardent, vigorous, like a new-flcdg'd eagle, 
 Hemounted to the vacant throne, and hurPd 
 
 * See Fraser's History of Nadir Shah, p. 68. — They called him 
 by way of contempt the " Deccan Monkey :" but as the word 
 Monkey scarcely suits the dignity of the tragic sock, and as the 
 peninsula abounds with Tigers as well as Monkeys, I have chosen 
 to adopt the latter appellation for this ferocious chieftain.
 
 2G THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Destruction on the foes that plann'd his downfal. 
 The traitor Seyds, those murd'rers of his race, 
 Who at their nod exalted or dethron'd 
 India's imperial lords, first felt his ire ; 
 A rival sultan, then, his arms o'erthrew, 
 Mild amidst vengeance ; while remotest realms 
 Admir'd his clemency and fear'd his power. 
 
 Sad. Such was Mahommed ! What a strange 
 reverse ! 
 His martial spirit and each princely virtue 
 Lost in luxurious indolence, and sunk 
 In torpid inactivity : the feats, 
 The warlike games that gave his soul delight, 
 Spurn'd for the haram's soft ignoble toils ; 
 And the fam'd chiefs and omrahs of his court 
 Exil'd, for juggling knaves and low buffoons. 
 
 JVYz. No more. The recollection stings my soul : 
 *T»vas time to rouse him from th' inglorious dream, 
 \nd summon to our aid from Persia's realm 
 Victorious Nadir, whose resistless arms 
 Strike terror through the earth 
 
 Sad. With justice strike : 
 For soldiers more undaunted, more resolv'd, 
 So proud an army with so brave a leader, 
 Yon sun ne'er saw 
 
 JV&. Like Aurengzebe himself,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 27 
 
 In martial daring and consummate skill, 
 
 This lord of vanquish'd Asia — in whose eye 
 
 Flames forth the genius of his ardent soul — 
 
 In stature towering, like his godlike mind, 
 
 Far o'er the vulgar level ; while his voice 
 
 Strong as the trumpet's breath is heard in battle, 
 
 And animates his myriad troops to glory ! 
 
 How look'd our dwarfish bands on Karnal's plains, 
 
 When front to front the rival armies stood, 
 
 View'd with those thunderbolts of war ! 
 
 Sad. 'Twere vain 
 For India to have wag'd th' unequal combat : 
 Yet, though decided victory be ours, 
 On a dark precipice we seem to stand, 
 Whose yawning bosom may ingulph our hopes. 
 The storm is over, but I dread the calm : 
 For who shall bound this warrior's bold career, 
 Or stay his sword ? 
 
 Niz. Who bound his bold career ? 
 Who stop the roaring Ganges in his course, 
 When, swoln with all the tribute of the skies, 
 And half the snows of frozen Caucasus, 
 From his dark source, 'mid Tibet's mountain 
 
 glooms, 
 In headlong cataracts he thunders down ; 
 Then, with an ocean's grandeur sweeps along !
 
 58 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Sad. And oft, as fatal as the host of Nadir, 
 Whose countless legions rush resistless on, 
 Spread famine wide through India's fertile realm, 
 And heap her vales with carnage. 
 
 Niz. Who shall check 
 
 The glowing ardour of victorious troops, 
 
 Flush'd with the insolence of recent triumph ! 
 
 Sad. Still, you must own, one deep and deadly 
 stain 
 
 Sullies his hays ; — his dire insatiate rage 
 
 To grasp the treasures of each conquer'd realm? 
 
 JV7z. Of chieftains towering on the banner'd field 
 The countless treasures by the inglorious heap'd 
 Goad the bold efforts, and they justly seize 
 The shining guerdon. 
 
 Sad. But, beyond all bounds 
 He estimates the wealth of vanquish 'd India : 
 The sum, incalculably vast, demanded 
 For proffer'd friendship and returning peace, 
 Is such as might exhaust Golconda's mines. 
 
 Niz. I'll tell thee : — In the dark and cavern'd 
 vaults 
 That stretch beneath imperial Delhi's palace, 
 And form the basis of that mighty pile, 
 Long buried from the sun that gave it being, 
 There sleeps a boundless hoard of wealth, reserv'd
 
 A TRAGEDY. S9 
 
 Against some dreadful crisis like the present : 
 Go ! rend the signet ; burst the brazen bolts, 
 And bring the shining treasure back to day. 
 
 Sad. Astonishing, indeed, that hoard must prove, 
 If equal to discharge the vast demand. 
 Tomorrow's sun shall view this victor chief, 
 Triumphant, through her gates his legions pour ; 
 When all her dazzling wealth, for ages heap'd, — 
 Vessels of massy gold, rich spoils of war, 
 The empire's proud regalia, and her throne 
 Fam'd through the world, itself amine, and form'd 
 Of clust'ring diamonds meant to imitate 
 The splendour of the peacock's glowing train,—' 
 Shall glut his boundless avarice. 
 
 Niz. But, still more 
 He claims — a treasure that transcends the whole ! — 
 By bonds of lasting friendship to cement 
 The rival nations, he resolves to wed 
 The lovely Solima, our empire's pride, 
 Who boasts from Aurengzebe her high descent, 
 And with the blood of India's royal race 
 Mingle his own. Myself he charg'd to bear 
 The proud demand. 
 
 Sad. How will our youthful sultan, 
 The princely Hamed, who to madness dotes 
 On that fair princess, rave to be bereav'd 
 Of all his soul holds dear !
 
 30 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Niz. He must submit. 
 War levels rank, nor heeds the claims of love. 
 But yonder, heedless of th' impending blow, 
 Th' impatient lover towards th' imperial tent 
 Directs his hasty step, nor deems how near 
 The fatal herald that shall blast his hopes. — 
 No longer I'll delay th' unwelcome tidings, 
 But follow, and denounce his doom. Farewell ! 
 
 Sad. And I to Delhi's trembling turrets go ; 
 A messenger as baleful to her peace. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 CHORUS OF BRAHMINS. 
 
 The inside of a magnificent Pagoda : Brahmins, 
 sacrificing at the altar, solemnly pronounce an exe- 
 cration on the successive plunderers of India. 
 
 1st Brahmin. Full thirty centuries have seen the 
 race, 
 Who boast from Brahma their sublime descent, 
 Beneath a foreign despot's iron scourge 
 Bend the reluctant neck. — First, from the depths 
 Of frozen Scythia's boundless deserts rush'd, 
 Relentless as the rocks that gave him birth, 
 The fierce Oghuzian chief. — The Persian, next, 
 Pouring his legions down the craggy steeps 
 Of snowy Taurus, on our patient race
 
 A TRAGEDY. 31 
 
 Emptied the quivers of his hoarded vengeance. — 
 The veteran bands by fierce Escander led, 
 From distant Macedon to Sinde's proud wave, 
 Then like a wasteful fire impetuous burst 
 On the rich kingdoms of the ravag'd Panjab, 
 And bound great Porus to the Grecian yoke. — 
 Next, the fierce Robber of Arabia came, 
 Burning for plunder, and for blood athirst ; 
 Despoil'd our temples of their hoarded wealth 
 Sacred to heav'n ; and the polluted shrines 
 ( Oh, horrible ! ) with human carnage fill'd ! — 
 Nor less ferocious stalk'd th' unsparing Othman, 
 When the dire splendour of his gleaming crescent 
 Flam'd on her blasted plains. His countless hordes, 
 Devouring as the locust's ravening tribes, 
 From all the mountains on our western frontier, 
 Remorseless Nadir, Persia's direst scourge, 
 In dire array now pours impetuous down, 
 
 And closes the dark scene Avenging See va ! 
 
 Thou whose red arm th' eternal thunder rolls 
 O'er guilty nations that delight in blood, 
 Defend our cause, and let the myriad host 
 Around thy walls, imperial Delhi ! pour'd, 
 Smit by the blasting pestilence, expire ; 
 Or, stung to madness by the pangs of famine, 
 Rush furious on their own destroying spears :
 
 32 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 And by one general,, undistinguish'd carnage 
 Expiate the murder of thy chosen race ! 
 
 2d Brali. Eternal Spirit of Creative Brahme, 
 That, ere the circling spheres their course began, 
 Within the golden egg's refulgent orb, 
 In splendour brighter than a thousand suns, 
 Floated sublime on the chaotic deep, 
 And from the strife of warring elements 
 Bad'st harmony and beauteous order spring, 
 Sovereign of earth and skies — all-seeing Power ! 
 How have these daring infidels defae'd 
 Thy fairest works ; and o'er Creation's bounds, 
 Through all the periods of revolving time, 
 In the wide phrensy of ambition, hurPd 
 Ravage and Death ! Oh, let the yawning earth, 
 Whose loveliest regions they have laid in ruin, 
 Ope wide itsjaws, and in its deepest caves 
 Ingulph their impious bands ! 
 
 3d Brali. And thou, dread Veeshnu ! 
 Preserver of the world by Brahma form'd, 
 That in the radiant sacrificial flame 
 Delight'st, and in its central blaze, sublime, 
 Hast fix'd, invisible, thy burning throne ; 
 If e'er these altars glow'd with purer fires ; 
 If e'er from costliest gums, from sweetest woods. 
 And richest balsams of the ransack'd East,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 33 
 
 Round yon high roofs the wafted incense stream' d, 
 Arise in wrath, as when thy powerful arm 
 ( Our hallow'd records tell ) the rebel Deives 
 O'erthrew in battle, and th' infected earth 
 Purg'd of polluting daemons. 
 
 All. Sovereign Lords ! 
 Divine, ineffable, eternal triad ! 
 To our united pray'rs auspicious bend ! 
 Cloth'd in the terror of the midnight storm, 
 That sweeps the cliffs of blasted Taurus, rise ; 
 Pursue them on the volley'd lightning's wing, 
 And plunge them down the fathomless abyss 
 Of Pattal*, where eternal darkness broods, 
 And furies like themselves for ever yell. 
 
 [Exeunt Brahmins. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 An apartment of the liar am. 
 
 Sultan Hamed, Solima. 
 
 Ham. Spoil'd of my birthright, India's promis'd 
 throne ; 
 Each tow'ring hope of high ambition crush'd; 
 From scenes of horror to thine arms I fly, 
 Whose love may well repay an empire's loss. 
 
 * The Hindoo Hell'. 
 F
 
 34 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Sol. In this dread moment of despair and ruin, 
 If aught the hapless Solima may yield 
 Of ease or solace to the prince of India ; 
 At once by duty and affection hound, 
 That wretched aid with rapture would she bring. 
 Ham. Tortures and death !— Yet speak those 
 words again, 
 For they were precious as the dew of heav'n, 
 That cherishes by night these torrid plains. 
 Thy love must be the balm for all the wounds 
 Which bleeding honour is compell'd to suffer, 
 And stand me in the place of crowns and kingdoms. 
 Sol. Oh, prince ! methinks the thousand thousand 
 perils, 
 The restless jealousies and racking cares, 
 That harass Greatness in its proud career, 
 Can leave but little of substantial joy 
 To sooth the splendid tortures it inflicts, 
 And recompense Ambition's arduous toils. 
 
 Ham. Plac'd on a high and glittering emi- 
 nence, 
 L nnumber'd duties pressing on my soul, 
 Yet without pow'r to act, my mind is torn 
 With varied anguish ; and distracted thought 
 Floats in a sea of wild perplexities. 
 Now, kindling at a. father's wrongs, I burn
 
 A TRAGEDY. 35 
 
 To rush through every obstacle, and plunge 
 My sabre in the base usurper's heart. 
 My surT'ring country now to vengeance warms ; 
 While public justice goads me to attempt 
 Some daring enterprise, whose fame shall ring 
 Through all th' astonish'd world. 
 
 Sol. Oh, rather wait 
 Till fairer prospects and revolving time 
 Enable thee to strike th' avenging blow 
 With safety and with honour. 
 
 Ham. Yes; I'll bend 
 My stubborn spirit to the humbling stroke ; 
 Forget that fortune smil'd upon my birth ; 
 That glory's radiant beam illum'd my path, 
 And nature bade my kindling soul aspire. 
 Love, only love, shall occupy its pow'rs, 
 And beauty be the substitute for fame. — 
 When shall our nuptials be ? To-night/my love ? 
 
 Sol. And would my Hamed shock his royal sire, 
 In this dark hour of complicated peril, 
 By aught that might appear unseemly joy; 
 And light the nuptial torch amidst the blaze 
 Of burning cities and of plunder'd fanes ? 
 
 Ham. Curst be the hour that wak'd me into 
 being ! 
 Reserv'd to see this dread catastrophe — 
 When the nroud fabric of this mie-htv rmnire.
 
 36 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 That boasts immortal Timur for its founder, 
 For ages govern'd by a race of kings 
 Renown'd for wisdom, sanctity, and valour, 
 Crumbles to ruin in th* ambitious grasp 
 Of an usurping tyrant ! 
 
 Sol. Ah, forbear 
 These furious sallies, and with manly firmness 
 Prepare to meet the utmost rage of fate. 
 
 Ham. Forgive my warmth ; for, oh ! the galling 
 subject 
 Fir'd my indignant soul. But say again 
 (Nor glance upon the horrid fact) what hour. 
 The brightest in the chronicle of time, 
 Shall stamp thee mine. 
 
 Sol. No longer urge a theme 
 Which at this awful crisis fills my soul 
 With horror, and revolting reason shocks. 
 
 Ham. Another moment may for ever shade 
 Each gleam of happiness that yet remains. 
 
 Sol. Ah, do not deepen with imagin'd ills 
 The gloom that wraps us round ! — But soft — I hear 
 The empress, rising from that short repose 
 Which anguish and corroding cares allow. 
 
 Ham. My much-lov'd parent ! how has she 
 sustain'd 
 Her sad reverse of fate ? 
 
 Sol, Though rooted deep
 
 A TRAGEDY. 37 
 
 Th' unutterable woe that heaves her breast, 
 Still her exterior wears a decent firmness, 
 Mixt with a native majesty of soul, 
 That soars superior to the pangs she feels. 
 
 Enter Zumani. 
 
 Zwra. Eternal Pow'rs, my Son ! — What favouring 
 chance, 
 What hov'ring angel brought thee to relieve 
 My sinking heart, and save it from despair ? 
 
 Ham. The same that in the rage of battle spread 
 The guardian shield, and rescued me from death 
 In thousand threat'ning shapes and urgent perils. 
 
 Zum. The brightest, sure, of the celestial train 
 Shall he be hail'd by me. Know'st thou the lot 
 That waits thy hapless sire ? 
 
 Ham. Alas ! I know not, 
 So dark the councils of this artful tyrant ; 
 But tremble for the worst. 
 
 Sol. No ; rather trust 
 In Heaven's high justice, and the best presage. 
 
 Enter a Eunuch addressing Zumani. 
 
 Eun. Madam, the Chief of Deccan waits without, 
 Impatient of delay ; and bears commands 
 Of high importance from the Persian camp.
 
 38 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Zum. How ! (starting) Is our royal dignity 
 reduc'd 
 To this low level, to receive commands ? 
 Does conquest give impatient slaves this right 
 To violate theharam , s sanctity ? 
 I'll not admit that traitor to my presence. 
 
 Run. His claims are urgent : scarce the slender 
 band 
 That guards your tent his entrance dare oppose. 
 
 Ham, Death to the ruffian ! Who these line? 
 invades, 
 Rushes on this bright sabre's point. 
 
 Zum. Forbear : 
 I know this crafty soubah's subtle arts ; 
 Will hear his errand, and confront his baseness. 
 
 Enter Nizam. 
 
 Ham. Presumptuous chieftain, instantly declare 
 What means this outrage — why these tents profan'd ! 
 
 Niz. I bear a message of no humble import 
 To yon fair paragon of matchless beauty ; 
 Whose charms, supreme o'er all the captive train, 
 Have fir'd th' enamour'd victor's glowing breast, 
 Who charg'd me at her highness' feet to lay 
 Persia's imperial crown. 
 
 Ham. What do I hear !
 
 A TRAGEDY. 39 
 
 Can Deccan's powerful chief, renown'd in war, 
 From his high function of commanding armies, 
 Descend the gentle messenger of love ? 
 
 Sol. Much honour wait him in his new employ ! 
 Though here at least success will be denied. 
 
 JSTiz. The mighty victor whose commands I bear 
 Will hardly brook denial, but ere long 
 Resolves in person his devoirs to pay. 
 
 Sol. Insolent tyrant ! Is it not enough 
 His bold ambition has o'erlurn'd the empire, 
 But I, with studied insult, must be made 
 The pageant of his pride to grace his triumphs ? 
 
 Niz. Madam, reflect. Is this a just return 
 For the high honour of a proffer'd crown? 
 
 Sol. His vows, himself, his proffer'd crown, I 
 spurn ; 
 Nor will debase the line of Aurengzebe 
 By an alliance with its deadliest foe. 
 
 Niz. Instant destruction would await the wretch 
 Whose daring lips that answer should report. 
 
 Sol. And I a thousand deaths would rather die, 
 Than wed this far-fam'd Persian ravager, 
 Train'd up in blood and stain'd with deepest crimes. 
 
 Zum. Hence, treacherous omrah ! bear to thy 
 new lord 
 These tidings of his herald's proud success;
 
 40 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 And learn henceforth thy talents to confine 
 To war, their proper field. Leave softer cares 
 To abler advocates and younger heads : 
 Gray hairs ill suit th' ambassador of love. 
 
 Ham. Ere thou depart'st, the injur'd Hamed 
 hear : — 
 Thou, whose base perfidies and dark cabals 
 Have robb'd my sire of empire, and involv'd 
 His progeny in shame and ruin, mark 
 My fixt resolve — never to sheathe this sword, 
 Till vengeance, ample and decisive vengeance, 
 O'ertake thy traitor head and rebel bands. 
 
 JVYz. Prince, thou mayst live this insult to repent, 
 For never shall my soul forget the wrong : 
 (Aside.) O'er all thy race a constant scourge I'll 
 
 hang, 
 And wash away th' offence in royal blood. 
 
 \_Exit Nizam. 
 
 Zum. How like a guilty traitor, self-condemn'd, 
 The hoary ruffian, at the stern rebuke 
 Of virtue, bent to earth his scowling eye ! 
 Rage in his heart, and muttering as he went 
 Deep-laid revenge 
 
 Ham. Too sure to be fulfill'd, 
 Unless my Solima in instant flight 
 Her safety seek.
 
 A TRAGEDV. 41 
 
 Zum. Ah, whither should we fly, 
 Surrounded as we are by hosts of foes, 
 Spies to each act, and faithless to each trust ? 
 
 Ham. Love shall elude them all ; Love guide our 
 steps 
 To some sequester' d gloom, amidst the depth 
 Of those eternal forests that defend 
 Our empire's northern bounds ; or down the stream 
 Of Jumna, and the Ganges' sacred wave, 
 Lead to Bengal's proud bay, where ready barks 
 Shall waft us far from Asia's blood-stain'd shore. 
 
 Sol. Thy terrors for my safety lead thy mind 
 Too wide astray o'er fancy's dreary wilds : 
 Nor want I truth unshaken to my lord, 
 Or firmness to resist at ev'ry hazard 
 The tyrant's snares. 
 
 Ham. 'Twere impious those to doubt : 
 Thy firmness and thy truth alike I've tried, 
 And found them adamant. But, (oh, the pangs 
 That wring my heart ! ) when that stern tyrant comes, 
 Burning with lust and rage, by force to act 
 The lawless dictates of a despot's will; 
 How will my lovely maid, though firm and true.. 
 And virtuous as th' angelic train, escape 
 The brutal ravisher ? 
 
 Sol. Not unprepar'd 
 
 G
 
 42 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Ev'n in this last and fatal exigence, 
 I'll with a dagger arm my steadfast hand, 
 And, sooner than admit his loath'd embrace, 
 I'll plunge it in the heart devote to Hamed. 
 
 Ham. Oh, noblest proof of human constancy, 
 And matchless faith ! Just Heav'n forbid the trial f 
 
 Zum. No ; rather plunge it in the tyrant's bosom, 
 And leave the world to wonder and applaud. 
 To give full vigour to thy virtuous purpose, 
 I'll bring thee one thy dauntless grandsire wore, 
 Rich in its workmanship, but rarer still 
 For its keen burnish'd edge that never fails. 
 
 f Fetches a dagger. 
 
 Sol. The bold usurper and his crimes I leave 
 To the just punishment of angry heav'n ; 
 But, for myself, with rapture I accept 
 The invalued boon, and to my aid invoke 
 The Spirit of my godlike ancestors 
 That planted on this soil the Tartar banners. 
 
 Ham. It shall not be. If flight thy soul disdain, 
 This sword shall be thy bulwark from the foe ; 
 Nor ever will I quit thy presence more, 
 But root me here, and perish by thy side. 
 Resign this glittering steel 
 
 Sol. With life alone !— 
 But cherish it as dearly as thy love ;
 
 A TRAGEDY. 43 
 
 Next to thyself, my honour's sacred guardian. 
 But hark ! What shouts are those that rend the air, 
 While with more sprightly notes the trumpets 
 sound ? 
 
 Enter Eunuch. 
 
 Eun. Madam, a general joy pervades the camp ; 
 The king is free — the captives are releas'd, 
 And fines proportion* d to their ransom fixt, 
 ( To the prince) For whose due payment, sir, your 
 
 royal person 
 And fifty noble youths will be detain'd 
 As hostages within the Persian lines. 
 A chosen guard attends your convoy thither. 
 
 \_Exit Eunuch. 
 
 Zum. When Freedom comes in this suspicious 
 garb 
 I tremble to accept the doubtful blessing, 
 And hardly hail her as a welcome guest. 
 
 Ham. To rend a parent's chains, I'd gladly brave 
 Bondage and Death. But here, unmask'd Deceit 
 Stalks with so bold a front, that force alone, 
 Dear lovely Solima, shall drag me hence. 
 
 Zum. That force, alas, too soon may be em- 
 ploy'd ! 
 I will dissemble with this son of Fortune ;
 
 44 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Exalt his justice ; praise bis dauntless valour ; 
 And strive to win upon his savage nature : 
 YY hile the last jewel that adorns thy mother, 
 To gain thy speedy freedom shall be sold. 
 
 Ham. A thousand thanks for this parental good- 
 ness ; 
 But, ah, my Solima 
 
 Sol. Courage — fear not ! 
 I feel enkindling in this woman's breast 
 A spark of Aurengzebe's immortal fire, 
 That brightest blaz'd where danger threaten'd most. 
 Urg'd by despair, perhaps insulted Virtue 
 May vindicate her own and India's rights ; 
 Repel the rash aggressor's bold assaults, 
 And paint the cruelties that mark his progress, 
 His fraud and baseness, in such glowing colours 
 As may strike terror to his guilty soul. 
 
 Re-enter Eunuch. 
 
 Eun. Sir, the attendant guard your orders wait ; 
 The hour of their return is near elapsed. 
 
 Ham. By love distracted, yet by duty drawn, 
 Instruct me, gracious Heav'n, the path of right ! 
 
 Zum. To filial piety Heav'n holds on high 
 The radiant meed ; points out the ready path, 
 And bids you hasten to a father's rescue.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 45 
 
 Ham. {kneeling) Hear then, ye pow'rs ! 
 And while with holy awe 
 Your high eternal mandates I obey, 
 Make Innocence your charge, and o'er her stretch 
 The everlasting arm that launch 'd the spheres, 
 That keeps them steady in their shining track, 
 And poises in its grasp the centred sun. 
 
 End of Act I.
 
 46 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 ACT II. SCENE I. 
 
 The 'palace of Delhi. 
 
 Enter Mahommed Shah, Nadir Shah. 
 
 JWah. Eternal as the beam whose splendours gild 
 The martial pomp of yon bright cavalcade, 
 Victorious Nadir, may thy glories last ! 
 India presents her crown, by conquest thine : 
 
 ( He lays the crown at Nadir's feel. 
 Accept the glittering boon, by fate bestow'd, 
 And reign mere worthy her imperial throne. 
 
 Nad. Thanks to the succour of our holy prophet, 
 Whose cause I fight — whose sacred banner bear ; 
 Conquest hath mark'd my way to Delhi's tow'rs : 
 Nor come I with the bold usurper's grasp 
 Its gorgeous sceptre from your hands to rend, 
 But to restore the lustre of your throne, 
 And drive from all your bounds, to Hell's abyss, 
 The haughty infidel Mahratta race, 
 Who, fame reports, have laid your empire waste : 
 Their boundless ravage ev'n to Delhi's gates 
 Have spread, and made the noble house of Timur 
 Their tributarv slaves.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 47 
 
 Mali. In me that house 
 Its grateful vows returns, and bids you hail ! 
 
 Nad. Such was our high resolve, delay'd alone 
 Till the resistless might of Persia's arms 
 Had fixt our standards on the bastion'd heights 
 OfCandahar. The rebel Hussein crush'd, 
 Gave leisure to chastise those rude barbarians. 
 
 Mali. Such proud success hath mark'd your 
 bright career, 
 That victory and Nadir seem the same. 
 
 Nad. When on the frontiers of your realm arriv'd, 
 
 No heralds, as became our kingly rank, 
 
 W ere sent with welcome greeting to our camp ; 
 
 But all our proffers with neglect were spurn'd ; 
 
 Th' ambassador we sent was basely slain, 
 
 * 
 And war was levied to obstruct our progress 
 
 Through all the distant confines of your empire. 
 
 Mah. To curb the Patan mountaineers they 
 arm'd, 
 By whom, in ambush plac'd, the chief was slain. 
 
 Nad. Away ! nor by dissembling heighten 
 guilt : 
 On these brave troops alone their sabres fell ; 
 And when at length the eagle victory, 
 That on its wide-spread plumes my standard bear"!, 
 High on the mountains of renown'd CabuJ,
 
 48 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 And proud Lahore's imperial citadels, 
 
 The radiant ensigns of our glory rcar'd, 
 
 No compensation for the daring- wrong, 
 
 No terms of friendly amnesty were ofTcr'd ; 
 
 But, equally unskill'd to guide in war 
 
 Or rule in peace, with an unnumber'd host 
 
 Of rude unwarlike bands you rush'd to battle ; 
 
 In one rash onset stak'd an empire's fate, 
 
 And headlong plung'd into the snare we spread. 
 
 Mali. The truly brave in clemency delight ; 
 Ourself, our kingdom, at your feet we throw, 
 
 ( kneeling. ) 
 And from your sovereign justice wait our doom. 
 
 Nad. Rise ! and receive the crown your rashness 
 lost. (placing it on his head. 
 
 By antient treaties bound, and plighted faith, 
 We will not violate the sacred ties 
 That to the noble house of Timur bind 
 Th' illustrious princes of the Seffi line. 
 
 JYIah. Oh, generous goodness ! What sublime 
 reward 
 Shall raptur'd gratitude for this return ? 
 
 Nad. Behold these veteran bands to battle train'd ; 
 Mark their bold fronts, furrow'd with many a scar, 
 And their skin shrivell'd with the blasting winds : 
 Long and severe beneath this fiery clime,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 49 
 
 O'er scorching sands, and oft through torrent floods, 
 Has prov'd their toilsome march : — their weary 
 
 limbs 
 Demand some respite, and exhausted valour 
 Seeks its reward amidst the golden harvest 
 The sun matures in Asia's Paradise, 
 This far-fam'd overflowing realm of Hind. 
 
 Mali. Whate'er through all its bounds that sun 
 beholds, 
 Rare in its kind, or costly in its worth, 
 Be dauntless Fortitude's distinguish 'd meed. 
 
 Nad. In Delhi, then, your empire's capital, 
 Rich in the wealth of tributarv agres, 
 My harass'd soldiers shall repose from toil ; 
 And, as their vast arrears to millions 'mount, 
 India's exhaustless coffers must discharge them. 
 
 Mali. The treasures of her antient kings deceas'd, 
 Buried as deep, and sacred as their tombs, 
 Shall all be ransack'd to supply your wants. 
 
 Nad. What waste of wealth is here ! what glow- 
 ing gems 
 Adorn the fabric of this gorgeous throne ! 
 
 ( Surveying the peacock throne. 
 Where vivid em'ralds of unrivall'd splendor, 
 With sapphires intermixt of loveliest blue, 
 Rival the blushing ruby's crimson dyes ! 
 
 H
 
 50 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Who of jour mighty ancestors constructed 
 This mine of blazing "wealth — this noblest work 
 Of human art ? 
 
 Mali. The toil of many an age — 
 The labour of successive kings it cost ; 
 But chief the boast of Jehan's splendid reign, 
 The father of our deathless Aurengzebe: — 
 To form the wondrous bird's resplendent traim 
 Proud Raalconda half its treasures lent, 
 And the deep mines of rich Pegu were drain'd. 
 
 Nad. Astonishing display of countless riches, 
 Exceeding far all Pervia's blended pomp : 
 By Ileav'n, without this trophy to my glory, 
 Poor were my conquests, and my triumphs vain ! 
 Let chosen troops surround the gaudy pageant 
 
 JWah. (starting) W ho takes the throne, 
 Methinks, should wear the crown. 
 
 Nad. How ! — art thou startled at our just demand '* 
 Know, all the wealth of Hindostan we claim : 
 Your sceptre wc restore, your treasures seize ; 
 But leave you liberty — a brighter gem 
 Than ever flam'din Ganior Pegu. 
 
 Mali. With deep submission we accept the boon 
 
 Nad. Bring instant forth th' unknown, th* enor- 
 mous hoard 
 Of gold and jewels, beyond number vast,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 51 
 
 Beneath whose cumbrous weight this palace groans: 
 
 Bid the luxurious omrahs of your court 
 
 A faithful schedule of their boundless wealth, 
 
 Wrung from the toil of gasping slaves, prepare: 
 
 Bid the voluptuous citizens of Delhi, 
 
 Whose merchants glitter with the pomp of kings, 
 
 Haste with the tribute by your generals fixt, 
 
 The price of freedom, when on Karnal's plains 
 
 I call'd from plunder my victorious bands: — 
 
 No longer for the dastard progeny 
 
 Of pamper'd indolence shall yon bright orb 
 
 Ripen the glowing ore. Bid them dispatch — 
 
 Six months already o'er our heads have roll'd 
 
 Beneath this sultry clime ; conquest stands still, 
 
 And glory calls me hence to distant realms. 
 
 [Exeunt all but Nadir and Nizam. 
 
 SCENE IL 
 
 Nadir Shah, Nizam. 
 
 Nad. Yet will we seize some interval for love. 
 What answer bear'st thou from our fair obduratc- 
 The lovely Solima ? 
 
 Niz, As yet she sp urns
 
 5$ THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 All thought of softer tares ; immers'din grief 
 
 For the deep stain the late severe defeat 
 
 Hath brought on Aurengzebe's illustrious house. 
 
 Nad. Oh, worthy her immortal ancestor ! 
 The spark I felt now kindles to a flame ; 
 While the proud spirit of that dauntless race 
 Seems quite revers'd — extinguished in its sons, 
 And blazing only in a female bosom. 
 
 Niz. So exquisite appears her keen distress, 
 All love, I fear, is banish'd from her breast ; 
 While with abhorrence she regards the victor. 
 
 Nad. Fly to her instantly, and soothe her anguish ; 
 Tell her — for her -that victor has renoune'd 
 His conquest, and to her illustrious house 
 Restor'd the forfeit crown. By Heav'n, my soul 
 Burns with desire to gain this scornful beauty ! 
 
 Niz. The majesty of Nadir's graceful presence 
 Will deeper on her heart the tale imprint ; 
 For much I fear a happier rival reigns 
 In the proud stubborn heart thou aim'st to bend. 
 
 Nad. In arms and love, a rival I disdain : — 
 However high in rank, or proud in fame, 
 He dies — the victim of his bold ambition ! 
 
 Niz. By distant consanguinity allied, 
 'Tis through the palace whisper'd, her fair hand 
 To India's youthful prince was early pledg'd.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 53 
 
 Nad. I'll burst the bands, dissolve their plighted 
 vows, 
 And bear her hence to Persia's brighter throne. 
 Meanwhile, be thine to watch that favor'd youth, 
 Our royal hostage for the promis'd tribute, 
 And let a triple guard surround his prison : 
 Point to the fatal rock that hangs above him ; 
 Warn him his danger : If he persevere, 
 Death or eternal dungeons are his doom. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 An apartment of the haram. 
 
 ZUMANI, SoLIMA. 
 
 Zum. Oh, generous Persian — glorious, godlike 
 act ! 
 
 Sol. Godlike indeed must prove th* heroic deed 
 Whose virtue, singly, shall atone for crimes 
 Monstrous as those that mark his dire career. 
 
 Zum. Say — Where docs History's recording p;igc 
 Point out a victor, in the hour of triumph, 
 Resigning, uncompcll'd, a victor's claims — 
 A crown ; — and India's crown ! Oh, 't is a deed
 
 .'it THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Whose greatness soars "beyond belief, and stands 
 Unrivall'd in the annals of the world ! 
 
 Sol. To yield up conquests too remote to hold 
 Argues as much his prudence as his greatness. 
 
 Zum. Empire and Liberty are cheaply bought 
 Ev'n at the price of all that India boasts. 
 
 Sol. What alter' d sentiments, Zumani, fire 
 Your royal breast ! 
 
 Zum. I own the mighty change 
 This victor's princely courtesy hath wrought. 
 Didst thou not mark with how sublime a port, 
 'Midst the triumphal pomp, he pass'd along ? 
 His eye, where valour sat with wisdom thron'd, 
 Diffus'd a majesty around, and fill'd 
 With awe and wonder the astonish'd crowd. 
 
 Sol. I view'd the victor with no partial eyes ; 
 Butmark'd him as th' invader of my peace, 
 And the stern tyrant who detains my Hamed. 
 
 Zum. To me, my Solium, he seems no more 
 The hostile, tyrant, but the gen'rous chief 
 Led on by Fortune andespous'd by Heav'n. 
 
 Sol. Astonishment ! — And does a son in bonds 
 Excite no terror in a parent's breast ? 
 
 Zum. The soul, like Nadir's, gen'rous and benign, 
 As this unbounded goodness proves, can leave
 
 A TRAGEDY. 55 
 
 No room for dark suspicion's pallid train. 
 Already half the ransom is prepar'd, 
 And treasure from all quarters of the empire 
 Flows in a torrent to the royal coffers : 
 Hamed shall soon be free,, and share with thee 
 The bright inheritance his birth bestow'd. 
 
 Sol. 'T is not the promise ev'n of India's throne 
 Can yield me solace while my Hamed pines,, 
 Lonely, remote, in drear captivity, 
 Amidst oppressive bonds and tyrant foes. 
 
 Zum. Perhaps, at length, the victor may relent ; 
 And at our joint entreaty loose those bonds. 
 
 Sol. A thousand pray'rs — a thousand tears I'd 
 pour, 
 My Hamed to release. But who shall stop 
 The tempest's rage ; or soothe the rav'niug wolf. 
 When, stung with famine, he surveys his prey 
 Pant at his feet, or struggling in his grasp ! 
 
 Zum. Vain is thy horror of this mighty chief, 
 Whose courtly manners seem no force to menace 
 Barbarous and savage, as thy fears presage. 
 
 Sol. My horror is, alas, too justly founded ! 
 I dread each moment his detested presence. 
 Support me, Heav'n, in this tremendous crisis — 
 Arm me with courage equai to the shock, 
 And let me not disgrace my high descent!
 
 56 THE PALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 A darkened room of the palace, with numerous guards 
 placed around. 
 
 Hamed Solus. 
 
 Born to the richest crown the sun surveys, 
 
 Descended of a race of antient kings, 
 
 For valour, as for worth, through Asia fam'd, 
 
 I spurn these bonds : nor can barbarian rage, 
 
 The deep dead silence of the dungeon's gloom, 
 
 Nor vaulted rocks, nor bars of adamant, 
 
 Chain down the free-born soul, that mounts in fire 
 
 Above yon concave vault and rolling orbs, 
 
 To join the spirits of illustrious heroes 
 
 By virtue canoniz'd. 
 
 Enter an Officer. 
 
 Off. Sir, to your royal father's urgent pray r — 
 To visit in these glooms amuch-lov'd son — 
 The victor yields : Those sounding trumpets speak 
 The king's approach. 
 
 Enter Mahommed Shah 
 Ham. Thus, on my bended knee.
 
 A TRAGEDY; 57 
 
 Glowing with grateful transport, let me hail 
 That honour'd father — king, alas, no more ! 
 
 Mali. Yes, best of sons, the crown is still my own, 
 Though shorn of half its honours. — But what words 
 Shall speak my sorrow at this dire exchange 
 Of light and liberty for chains and darkness ! 
 Unfeeling tyrant, who releas'd the sire 
 Only to plunge the son in tenfold woe ! 
 
 Hum, Waste not a moment on so poor a theme, 
 But instant say if Solima be safe 
 From brutal harm, and how the queen sustains 
 Her weight of woe ? 
 
 Mah. The guardian arm of Heav'n 
 Still o'erthem spreads th' inviolable shield : — 
 The beauteous Solima her dubious fate 
 With more than human fortitude sustains. 
 Nor utters for herself one plaintive sigh ; — 
 But when she meditates on thy hard doom. 
 Thy absence, and the dangers that surround thee, 
 Her soul is riv'd with anguish, and resolve 
 Is lost amidst the whirl of madd'ning passions. 
 
 Ham. Oh, unexampled goodness ! But for her, 
 Since Heav'n hath freedom and his crown restor'd 
 To my lov'd sire, these dark and lonely bounds 
 Would soon appear a palace of delights; 
 
 i
 
 58 THE FALL Of f HE MOGUL, 
 
 Th' innumerable guards that hover round me 
 Would seem the ready ministers of pleasure, 
 Made for my pride, and arm'd for my defence ;— * 
 Now, dire suspense and terror chill my bosom, 
 And horrors multiply on every side. 
 
 Mali. Let not distrust* or dark despair torment 
 thee : 
 Weak as this arm, and bounded as my pow'r, 
 Yet shall each nerve be steel thy love to guard 
 From ruffian violence. 
 
 Ham. Alas ! I dread 
 That boundless spirit which inspires her breast, 
 Mild as soft whispers of the vernal breeze 
 That sweeps the spikenard gardens of the South, 
 When the chaste passion flows from virtue's source ; 
 But, in the lofty pride of conscious worth, 
 Relentless as the tropic whirlwind's rage 
 To harden'd guilt, and the unhallow'd vows 
 Of lawless lust 
 
 Mah. That spirit may appal 
 His guilt-stain'd soul. 
 
 Ham. And haply may inflame 
 To deeds of horrible and frantic outrage. — 
 Said'stthou the victor had restor'd thy crown ? 
 
 Mali. Contented with the plunder of the empire.,
 
 A TRAGEDY, 59 
 
 With his own hand upon ray brows he plac'd 
 The ravish'd diadem : but all our treasures 
 jHis vulture-grasp hath seiz'd, 
 
 Ham. Insatiate robber ! 
 
 JVLah. This unexpected grace I fondly deem 
 The prelude of approaching liberty 
 To my lov'd Hamed, 
 
 Ham. A far diff'rent omen, 
 Of aspect most malignant, bids me dread 
 Eternal banishment from love and freedom. 
 The numerous Persian bands- that guard my dungeon 
 Have late been trebled, and each word and action 
 Mark'd with severe and jealous vigilance : — 
 Most I suspect Nizam's malignant wiles, 
 Of whose deep perfidy, in league combin'd 
 With Sadi Khan, of long suspected faith, 
 These papers bear irrefragable proof. 
 
 Main. How '.—where obtain'd ? 
 
 Ham. From an expiring slave, 
 The confidant of both ; who, as I rang'd 
 The field of battle, stung with keen remorse, 
 Consign'd them to my charge. 
 
 Mali, (reading) Immortal povv'rs ! 
 What complicated guilt — what deep-laid fraud 
 This register of courtly crimes unveils !
 
 CO THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Ham. There thou wilt see the dreadful scene 
 disclos'd ; 
 There read the fall of Hindostan, pourtray'd 
 In characters of blood : that, while thy throne 
 With flatterers was besieg'd, and prostrate baseness 
 Bow'd at thy feet the suppliant servile neck, 
 Rebellion in thy palace rear'd on high 
 Her hydra head, and beckoned from afar 
 The rav'ning eagle, gorg'd with Persian gore, 
 To revel on imperial Delhi's spoils. 
 
 Mali. So high the culprits, my enfeebled pow'r 
 Will scarcely with effect its vengeance point. 
 
 Ham. Leave them to fate, and their despotic lord : 
 He will avenge thy cause ; for dark suspicion 
 Sits ever brooding on her ebon throne 
 Within the jealous tyrant's guilty breast ; — 
 They love the perfidy — but dread the traitor. 
 
 JVLah. Still, as I read, more black the catalogue 
 Of brooding treasons grows, that to the centre 
 This mighty empire have convulsed, and threaten 
 Total extinction to the house of Timur. 
 Avast and overwhelming weight of woes, 
 Too mighty to sustain, bows down my soul. 
 And tears me from thee. 
 
 Ham. Heav'n preserve the king ;
 
 A TRAGEDY. 61 
 
 Grown him with years ; and in his righteous grasp 
 Long let the sceptre of his fathers flourish ! 
 
 Mali. Perish that sceptre, so I save my Hamed ! 
 Oh, I will fly to this ferocious victor, 
 And render back the crown his insult gave ; — 
 A crown restored in vain while virtuous Hamed, 
 The glory of my life, its rightful heir, 
 Pines in ignoble bondage ! Oh, my son ! 
 I go to barter empire for thy freedom, 
 And guard with all a father's tenderest zeal 
 The beauteous object of thy love. Farewell ! 
 
 Ham. Oh, injured sire, farewell ! bear to the queen 
 My fervent pray'rs for health and life prolong'd ; 
 To Solima, ten thousand thousand blessings ! 
 
 \_Exeunt omnes. 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 "Brahmins on the banks of the Jumna*, the river that 
 washes the walls of Delhi. 
 
 1st Brah. Imperial Jumna, daughter of the Sun, 
 Whose hallow'd fountains the profoundest glooms 
 ,Of Caucasus conceal from mortal ken; 
 
 * The Sanscreet name is Yamana, called by the Greeks Jomanes; 
 in the common Indian dialect, Jumna : Its source is not precisely- 
 known. All the great rivers of India are feminine, Yamana 
 means " Daughter of the Sun." See Asiatic Researches, vol. l, 256. 
 Lond. Edit.
 
 62 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Whose conscious waves, in India's happier day, 
 When the first golden gleam of Surya* flam'd 
 On Delhi's lofty tow'rs, orChandraf led 
 Her glimmering myriads down the western sky, 
 Resounded with devotion's raptur'd song, 
 And, rushing from her hundred gates, beheld 
 Impatient crowds beneath the waters plunge, 
 To wash away their sins — -Hear, Jumna, hear ! 
 Hear from thy secret grots and crystal springs; 
 Nor longer thy polluted billows roll 
 To nourish foes who bind thy sons in chains, 
 Eternal chains, by all our gods accurst ! 
 To thy dark source, beneath the marble base 
 Of yon stupendous range that girds the globe, 
 Oh, Jumna, swiftly urge thy refluent flood ! 
 Through the vast tract thy sacred current laves, 
 May barrenness and sultry drought prevail, 
 While mad with burning thirst their hosts expire! 
 Nor — born to spring from death's oblivious shade 
 To scenes of ripening bliss, in happier spheres, — 
 Will Brahmins mourn the wide o'erwhelming blow 
 That dooms alike th' oppressor and th' oppress'd 
 To undistinguish'd ruin ! 
 
 2d Br ah. Holy pow'rs ! 
 Sublime, but far beneath the Thund'rer's throne, 
 
 * Sanscreet name of the sun. -J- Sanscreet name of the moon;
 
 A TRAGEDY. 63 
 
 In the bright class of beings form'd to rule 
 (Heav'n's awful delegates) the subject earth X 
 Ye, who the dews and genial rains dispense, 
 O'er vegetation's boundless tribes preside, 
 In the deep mine the burning gem prepare, 
 Or guard the mighty mass of central Jire : 
 Spirits ! who mount the rapid whirlwind's wing. 
 And agitate to storms the vast abyss ; 
 The blasting pestilence whose arm directs, 
 And points the dire volcano's fearful rage — 
 'Gainst God's and Nature's foes in vengeance rise ; 
 Your pow'rs, beneficent and mild, suspend ; 
 Your noxious pow'rs, to torture and destroy, 
 With tenfold fury on their heads discharge ! 
 Regents of Planets — Genii of the Stars — 
 Who, gliding through th' immeasurable void, 
 The high behests of righteous Heav'n fulfill 
 In the vast wilds of space ! — Ye ponderous spheres 
 Of rolling fire, that through yon blue abyss 
 Pour your concentcr'd blaze, and, as you run 
 Your radiant circuit, on this nether world 
 Are deem'd benign or baleful beams to shed, 
 Assume your darkest aspect ! — Be yon sun 
 Eclips'd in midnight gloom : portentous blaze, 
 The gleaming meteor ; let the crimson skies 
 In all their dreadful pageantry be drest,
 
 64 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 And on the guilty parricides rain blood, 
 Torrents of blood, in which they love to bathe 
 Their tainted souls, and deluge all the bounds 
 Of outraged nature ! 
 
 3d Brain Sovereign judge of Ades ! 
 Tremendous Yam a*, from thy ebon throne> 
 Centred in deep chaotic darkness, hear ! 
 Ope wide thy inmost portals to receive 
 Th' accursed progeny of black despair ! 
 Hell's direst tortures for the deepest crimes- — 
 Murder and fraud, and ravening lust — prepare. 
 Rouse all thy furies from their dark abodes ; 
 Call all thy serpents to the gorgeous feast, 
 For countless are the victims doom'd, ere dawn, 
 Beneath the slaughtering sabre to expire ; 
 And wide and deep, through Delhi's spacious bounds, 
 The dreadful stream of sacrifice must flow. 
 Remorseless tyrants ! whom th' insatiate thirst 
 Of India's treasures to these shores have lured 
 From earth's remotest bound, your reign is o'er ! ! 
 To my rapt vision, in th' expanding heavens, 
 By mighty Devatas sublimely borne, 
 The radiant register of fate unrolls, 
 And through the lightning's ardent beams, that play 
 Round its bright edge, in mystic characters, 
 
 :i * He is also called Seshanaga, or " The King of Serpent*."
 
 A TRAGEDY. 65 
 
 Engrav'd on burning adamant, I read 
 
 The instant doom that waits their impious race ! 
 
 Vengeance for all jour daring crimes is nigh : 
 
 Smote by the might of Veeshnu's conquering arm, 
 
 The/Mm* chief of Tartary expires; 
 
 The fading moon* of Othman sets in night, 
 
 And Persia's eagles* bow the head in dust ! 
 
 * These are the symbolic devices on the respective standards of 
 these nations. 
 
 End of Jet II.
 
 66 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 ACT III. SCENE I. 
 
 The great divdn, or hall of audience, with the 
 peacock imperial throne, vessels of gold and silver, 
 and rich cabinets of precious stones, and other 
 treasures ranged around. 
 
 Nadir Shah, Mahommed Shah. 
 
 Jtfali. The antient treasures of this mighty empire, 
 Th' immense collected wealth of all its kings, 
 Are here, dread Nadir, to thy view display'd. 
 
 Jsad. Where am I — on what rich enchanted 
 shore ? 
 Rais'd by what magic skill, what potent charm, 
 This vast accumulated endless mass 
 Of blazing gems, and gold, which Afric's mines, 
 Prolific as they are in treasur'd ore, 
 And Asia's self, with beds of sparkling stones, 
 Matured by ardent suns, so richly fraught, 
 Could scarcely have produc'd ! 
 
 Jtfah. These strings of pearls, 
 Of such pure water and such wondrous size, 
 From the rich shores of your own Ormus came; 
 Those glitt'ring rubies from the spicy isle
 
 A TRAGEDY. 67 
 
 Of fam'd Ceylon ; while yon rich cabinets, 
 Fill'd with the choisest diamonds of Golconda, 
 All computation of their value spurn. 
 
 Nad. These, as our right, we claim : — but fame 
 reports 
 Within these walls one jewel still remains, 
 Of that supreme, inestimable worth, 
 It beggars all yon heap of dazzling riches. 
 
 Mali. The golden keys, that ope the inmost vaults 
 Of our exhausted treasury, receive, 
 Nor harbour base suspicion of our faith, 
 
 Nad. Not in the mines of fam'd Golconda born, 
 Nor yet from wealthy Ormus' pearly beds 
 This jewel sprang : No native of this earth, 
 But surely of celestial parentage — 
 The lovely Solima an angel tow'rs ! 
 
 Mali. That is, indeed, a jewel which we pfize 
 Far beyond all thy eager glance surveys — 
 A jewel Fate reserves to deck the throne 
 Her grandsire with such genuine lustre fill'd. 
 
 Nad. The love I bear to that proud victor's name, 
 Inflames me with an ardent zeal to view 
 And hail each remnant of his mighty line. 
 This grace, at least, the sovereign lord of Hind 
 Will grant to him who seldom deigns to ask. 
 
 Mali. Our royal cousin 's indispos'd.
 
 G8 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Nad. Just Heav'n ! 
 Protect the beauteous fair : Oh, lead me to her f 
 
 Mali. Dread conqueror of Asia, I entreat thee, 
 Urge not at present this severe demand : 
 Our empress with impatience waits to pay 
 Her grateful homage for our crown restor'd. 
 
 Nad. Thy pow'rful intercession may prevail 
 On that fair maid thy consort to attend. 
 
 Mali. Oh, hear the pray'r a vanquish'd monarch 
 pours ! 
 My only son in chains thou dost detain 
 
 Nad. How ! — Am I trifled with ? I'll hear no 
 more— 
 In this I cannot, will not be denied. 
 Contentions, too, I've heard, and rising tumults 
 Rage in your capital, and ask your presence : — 
 Haste instant, and appease the bold insurgents. 
 
 \_Exit Mahommed. 
 
 Nadir Shah to his attendant officers : 
 
 Since Heav'n thus gloriously hath crown'd our arms, 
 Let sounding trumpets through the camp proclaim 
 A general amnesty ; and, from these stores 
 Of Indian wealth, our treasurers bestow 
 On each brave soldier, as the meed of valour, 
 A year's gratuity of pay ; meantime.
 
 A TRAGEDY* 69 
 
 *Till further summons, from our royal presence 
 Let all, on pain of instant death, retire ! 
 
 The attendants leave the stage ; vast folding doors ex- 
 pand, and display to view the interior apartments of 
 the haram : Zumaniand Solium arc seen at a di- 
 stance approaching. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 ZuMANI, SoLIMA, NADIR SlIAII. 
 
 Znm. For freedom and a crown, at once regain'd, 
 What terms, illustrious Nadir, shall express 
 The grateful rapture of my bursting heart ! 
 
 Mid. Princess, wherever justice points this sword, 
 Mercy, the radiant seraph, still is nigh, 
 Tempers our wrath and blunts its falling edge. 
 
 Zum. No wonder, sir, thus wide your triumphs 
 ring, 
 While clemency and fortitude unite 
 At once to blazon and to fix your fame. 
 
 Nad. In fields of death to reap triumphal palms 
 Thousands with me the transient glory share ; 
 By kindness to subdue the stubborn foe 
 Stamps nobler glory, yields sublimer bays 
 That never tarnish — but, eternal pow'rs ! 
 What bright assemblage of unrivall'd charms.
 
 70 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Reigns through yon graceful yet majestic form ; 
 Her beauteous features, her commanding aspect, 
 
 At once transport with love, and awe my soul 
 
 To conquer here were victory indeed ! 
 
 Zum. The princess Solima, my lord. 
 
 Jsad. Her fame 
 Hath long resounded through the Persian court ; 
 The knee that never bow'd before shall pay 
 The due devoirs her birth and beauty claim. 
 Allow me, charming Solima, to kiss 
 That hand which angels might be proud to press. 
 
 ( attempts to seize her hand. ) 
 Why, with abhorrent glance and backward step, 
 Thus strangely dost thou shun my fond salute ? 
 
 Sol. Thou art, I think, that Persian so renown'd, 
 Whose arms strike terror through remotest realms ; 
 And, having laid half Asia waste, at length 
 Hast fixt thy standard on the tow'rs of Delhi. 
 
 JSad. What means my sweet upbraider — whither 
 tends 
 This wild abrupt address ? 
 
 Sol. You came — you conquer'd : 
 Nay more — have tow'rd beyond triumphal palms, 
 And, with heroic nobleness of soul 
 Scarce parallel'd, upon the vanquish'd head 
 Replac'dthe forfeit crown.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 71 
 
 Nad. By Heav'ns I'm charm'd ! 
 Though wounded to the quick, my bosom glows. 
 
 Sol. 'Twas gloriously resolv'd. For this just 
 deed 
 The bright recording angel of the skies 
 Shall half thy guilt expunge. And what remains ; — 
 But to pursue high honour's radiant track, 
 And, crown'd with laurels and renown, return ? 
 Nor stain the lustre of this godlike act 
 By rapine and ensanguin'd violence. 
 
 Nad. Secure in beauty's shining panoply. 
 Say on — But did not those celestial charms 
 Give thee resistless influence o'er my heart, 
 It ill would brook this forward petulance ; 
 Not Aurengzebe himself should thus have dared 
 With bold impunity — 
 
 Sol. And yet / dare, 
 Arm'd with his spirit, to thy view unfold 
 The unnumber'd woes which war's wild rage hath 
 
 heap'd 
 On bleeding: Hindostan. — In ev'rv breeze 
 Some frantic shriek, or groan of deep despair 
 Is wafted through her vales. The lab'ring hind, 
 In India's happier day, from war's rude toils 
 By holiest laws releas'd, is forc'd to arms, 
 Or dragg'd to instant death. Millions of looms,
 
 72 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 The rich resources of her wealth, stand still ; 
 While all the trophies of her antient pow'r 
 Are dash'd to earth by your enrag'd barbarians ! 
 
 Nad. By Ilcav'n, too far my patience you insult ! 
 Presume no longer on your beauty's pow'r, 
 But drop the theme, and let us talk of love. 
 
 Sol. Such love as animates the tiger's breast, 
 Or drives the hungry panther on his prey — 
 
 Zum. Forbear, my Solima, with ill-tim'd zeal 
 To urge to rage the victor's soften'd mind. 
 And thou, most noble chief, desist thy suit 
 Till the high tumult of her blood subsides, 
 And the unbounded spirit of her race 
 Has better learnt to bear a victor's presence. 
 
 Sol. A victor I canbear, but in that form 
 Disdain a suitor ; ev'n though sceptres wait 
 The hand, no pow'r on earth shall make me yield. 
 
 Nad. Stay, lovely Solima, nor rashly plunge 
 In woes that never may have bound or pause. 
 Your language paints me tyrant in my nature, 
 And savage in my love ; — Would'st thou provoke 
 A tyrant to revenge, and from his slumber 
 Rouse the reluctant savage ? 
 
 Sol. Undismay'd, 
 And not unarm'd, in either case I bid n 
 
 A tvrant's rage defiance.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 73 
 
 Nad. Stern and fierce 
 As war has made me to my foes appear, 
 I have a heart that in the softest flame 
 Of tender love can melt ; a heart that feels 
 Thy beauty's animating warmth, and burns 
 To lay both life and empire at thy feet. 
 
 Sol. The heart that knows with love's soft fires 
 to glow, 
 Delights in mercy ; generous and benign, 
 It plots no mischief, as it fears no ill. 
 Ask the departed shades of those that fell 
 On Karnal's crimson'd plains, or those who now, 
 The victims of thy boundless avarice, 
 Stretch'd on our Jumna's shores unburied lie, 
 If mercy be thy darling attribute ? 
 
 Nad. The victims of their headlong rage they fell. 
 But on this subject I no parley hold. 
 
 Sol. Nor I on one so hateful as thy love. 
 Farewell ! 
 
 Nad. Once more let me entreat thine ear. 
 Won by thy charms, I own the victor vanquished. 
 The delegated pow'r which Fortune gives, 
 To thee I'll yield. Reverse, if thus dispos'd, 
 The stern decrees of war ; resume its spoils ; 
 Release the noble youths, our hostages, 
 And back to Persia our whole force command. 
 
 L
 
 74 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 For this unlimited extent of sway, 
 
 I only ask one slender boon — thy love. 
 
 Sol. My love I cannot grant; but act thyself 
 Thus nobly generous, and depend on all 
 In my poor pow'r to grant : my ceaseless pray'rs; 
 And gratitude, to end with life alone. 
 
 Nad. These are too cold, too barren a return 
 To satisfy the cravings of a soul 
 Pining with love, and ardent for fruition. 
 
 Zum. Oh, gen'rous chief, while mercy is the 
 theme, 
 A mother's plaints attend : amidst the train 
 Of Indian hostages, one youth remains — 
 The hope and solace of his doting parents : 
 I will not ask his freedom till the terms 
 Of ransom are fulfilPd ; but fame reports 
 The prince is with unusual rigour guarded, 
 The object of thy mark'd severity. 
 
 Nad. Rash in his speech, and furious in his ges- 
 tures, 
 His conduct justifies less lenient treatment ; 
 Nor dare we yet relax, so bold his menace, 
 Our cautious vigilance. 
 
 Zum. To noblest hopes 
 Of bold ambition train'd, his high-born soul 
 With anguish keener than his comrades feels
 
 A TRAGEDY. 75 
 
 Confinement's irksome gloom. Ob, gracious prince, 
 Pardon the darings of impetuous youth, 
 , And by thy own brave mind his feelings judge. 
 
 Sol. If aught my pray'rs or grateful vows a\ail, 
 Oh, for a prince of such heroic virtue 
 Let me your royal clemency implore ! 
 
 Nad. Thou'st heard what terms may gain him in- 
 stant freedom ; 
 And know, his future treatment shall depend 
 On thy acceptance, princess, or rejection, 
 Of these my proffer'd vows. 
 
 Sol. Assist me, Heav'n ! 
 
 Nad. Nay, more : from hence, upon thy smile or 
 frown 
 His fate, his being hang. 
 
 Sol. Stern, barbarous man ! 
 
 Nad. Ha ! have I touch'd at last the tender string 
 Whose least vibration throws thy soul in tumult ? 
 Revenge and Death ! Is Hamed, then, my rival ? 
 Better that man had never seen the light 
 Who dares with me for Beauty's prize contend. 
 
 Zum. Oh, dauntless chieftain, by these gushing 
 tears, 
 By ev'ry sacred tie that binds mankind, 
 Show mercy to my son ! 
 
 Nad. Zumani, mark me ;
 
 70 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Though rigid Justice claim him for her victim, 
 
 Not unavailing shall thy sorrows prove ; 
 
 Those tears shall save him from her stern demand, 
 
 And gain of liberty as wide a range 
 
 As with our safety shall be found consistent. 
 
 This to thy tears is due ; but if those lips 
 
 (to Solima) 
 Should ever more presume his cause to plead, 
 Her words are fatal, and his doom is seal'd. 
 
 \_Exit Nadir Shah. 
 
 The curtain is let down, and the princesses retire 
 within the haram. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 Enter Mahommed Shah and Sadi. 
 
 Sad. A dark and dreadful gloom o'ercasts the 
 scene 
 That late so cloudless shone : the brutal fierceness, 
 The unrelenting fury of, the chiefs 
 Appointed to collect tb/ excessive tribute, 
 Has rous'd so bold a spirit of sedition, 
 That all the empire's force, and even the dread 
 Of their enraged oppressors, scarce avai 
 To quell the madness of the populace.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 77 
 
 Mali. To what new woes is this devoted realm, 
 And I, its most ill-fated monarch, doom'd ! 
 In the short space of some few circling hours, 
 Captive, dethron'd, again saluted king, 
 Yet meanly plunder'd of the wealth that gave 
 Strength to my arm and splendour to my reign, 
 I stand the object of all Asia's gaze, 
 The shadow of departed majesty ! 
 
 Sad. Look forward, sire, to more auspicious years ; 
 With wisdom use the moments in your pow'r, 
 And thus the errors of the past erase. 
 
 Mali. Oh, Sadi, hadst thou kept unshaken faith, 
 Or half the ardour of that zeal display 'd, 
 Which drove from Oude the fierce M ahratta tribes, 
 I had not seen this day of black disgrace ! 
 
 Sad. My zeal to serve my royal master glows 
 With unabated warmth ; but oh, reflect, 
 While thus you stigmatize a veteran soldier, 
 How were my faithful services repaid 
 By cold neglect and aggravated wrongs, 
 While in your smiles my happy rival reign 'd, 
 Th' enervate Kh'andoran ! with lavish hand 
 Heaping the highest honours of the state 
 On grov'ling sycophants and base poltroons. 
 
 Mali. Wound not my bleeding memory with the 
 name
 
 78 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Of that brave hapless man, who nobly fell, 
 On that dire morn when India's sun declin'd, 
 Cover'd with glorious wounds. 
 
 Sad. Oh, had he perish'd 
 Long since by some less honourable death, 
 Glory and vigour still had crown'd your reign ; 
 Yourself remain 'd the idol of your people, 
 And distant nations trembled at your power. 
 
 Mah. Insult not thus the ashes of the brave, 
 Whose plans, in peace or war, your dark intrigues 
 With those of your bold factious colleague marr'd : 
 Blame not the dead, but own thyself a traitor, 
 And the base cause of India's overthrow. 
 
 Sad. By Heav'n, whoe'er that daring falsehood 
 fram'd 
 Impos'd upon your unsuspecting faith, 
 And is a perjur'd, dark, malignant villain ! 
 
 Mali. The proofs of your black perfidy are here, 
 
 ( showing a paper roll) 
 And vengeance, vengeance is not far remote. 
 Wouldst thou atone the daring crime, away ; 
 Appease by ev'ry art the madd'ning throng ; 
 Avert the storm thy treacherous wiles have rais'd ; 
 Release my son, or see my face no more. [Exeunt, 
 
 End of Act III.
 
 A TRAGEDT. 79 
 
 ACT IV. SCENE I. 
 
 A court of the palace. 
 Enter Nadir Shah, Nizam. 
 
 Nad. Nizam, I swear tlHs heroine's spirit soars 
 Beyond the vast conceptions I had form'd ; 
 And will a siege require more long and arduous 
 Than any thatoppos'd our course to Delhi. 
 
 Niz. Well skill'd in all the labours of the siege, 
 Your persevering ardour will not fail 
 To triumph here with your accustom'd prowess. 
 
 Nad. At first, with lofty and reproachful strains 
 She met my vows ; but at the name of Hamed, 
 In all her sex's softness she dissolv'd ; 
 Her pride then vanish 'd in a flood of tears, 
 And from my censor she became my suppliant. 
 
 Niz. Still there remains one certain way to gain 
 her: 
 Dazzled with rank, and fonder still of pow'r, 
 Zumani views with no abhorrent eyes 
 The princely donor : — win her to your purpose 
 With soothing flattery and indulgent kindness : 
 She rules her lord, and Solima must yield.
 
 80 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Nad. Your plans in war are deeper laid than love. 
 
 J\lz. In love's soft arts I'm not profoundly vers'd. 
 
 Nad. Monarchs at will may human laws reverse; 
 But who shall alter the eternal laws 
 Of nature, rend the in\ iolable ties 
 That to her offspring bind the doting parent? 
 No more ! The conqueror of the prostrate world 
 Scorns to submit to woman's wild caprice ; 
 My will alone shall be the law of love, 
 And royal tears and beauty plead in vain. 
 
 Enter Sadi. 
 
 Sad. With grief and horror I acquaint your high- 
 ness, 
 That midst the raging tumults which prevail 
 Through ev'ry street and quarter of the city, 
 A num'rous body of your guards is slain*. 
 
 Nad, By Ali's tomb, for ev'ry Persian slain 
 A thousand youths of Hindostan shall bleed ! 
 "Where were your city guards — the myriads, where, 
 On Karnal rang'd ? Or stood they tamely by, 
 And view'd, well pleas'd, the slaughter of my troops ? 
 
 Sad. To that resistless height the storm is ris'n, 
 It spurns all limit, and disdains control. 
 
 Nad. I'll find a method to restrain its fury. 
 
 * 2000 of the Persian guards were slain at the principal bazar.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 81 
 
 Let messengers be instantly dispatch'd 
 To the main body of the Persian army 
 That lies encamp'd without the walls of Delhi, 
 And twenty thousand Affghan horse be rang'd 
 In the great square that fronts the palace gates, 
 With sabres drawn, and ready at a signal 
 To rush in vengeance on the frantic throng. 
 Nizam, see thou our high commands obey'd, 
 And wait my coming in th' imperial mosque, 
 Whose lofty fabric, in the centre plac'd, 
 From its proud dome an ampler view affords 
 Of Delhi's vast extent. (Exit Nizam.) — Meantime, 
 be thine (to Sadi) 
 
 With added rigour to collect the tribute 
 From every rank and age. 
 
 Sad. Alas ! dread sir, 
 Bow'd with infirmity, and rack'd with pain, 
 Fm no more equal to that arduous task, 
 But to some abler and more active chief 
 Implore your highness to consign the charge. 
 
 Nad. What ! wouldst thou plunge in twofold 
 perfidy ? 
 Dost thou repent thy ardour in my cause ? 
 Know, when such factious rebels as thyself 
 Kmbark in desperate schemes of high ambition, 
 
 M
 
 82 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Their daring spirits should be cloth'd in flame ; 
 
 In cv'ry chance of war, or change of fate, 
 
 To their high trust inexorably firm ; 
 
 Deaf to remorse, and steel'd against contrition ! 
 
 Thou lukewarm, half-bred, conscientious villain, 
 
 Go and repent ; but, ere to-morrow dawns, 
 
 Bring me the promis'd ransom, or thy head 
 
 Shall answer, traitor, for the bold neglect. \_Exit. 
 
 Sadi Khan solus. 
 Is this, Ambition, this thy glittering meed ? 
 Are scorn and insult the triumphal palms 
 Ungrateful tyrants on their tools bestow 
 For tarnish'd glory and extinguish'd virtue ? 
 Remembrance, glancing back on brighter days, 
 Is rack'd with torture at the rending thought. 
 I cannot bear the outrageous wrong, and live. 
 Oh, sacred honour's violated rights ! 
 Oh, Delhi, drench'd in thy own ofi'spring's blood ! 
 And ye, her long illustrious progeny 
 Of antient kings, in war or peace renown'd, 
 Whose fair domains my perfidies have ruin'd, 
 This shall avenge your cause — these fainting limbs, 
 
 (produces apliial of poison. ) 
 Already trembling on death's awful verge, 
 Require from poisonous drugs no mighty aid
 
 A TRAGEDY. 83 
 
 To urge them forward to the dreary goal. 
 
 (drinks it off \) 
 'T is done — and Hindostan 's at length reveng'd ! 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 After somepause, Mahommed Shim, with attendants, 
 appeal's in haste classing the stage. 
 
 Is it some airy vision mocks my sight ; 
 Or does indeed my royal master come 
 To view the deep contrition of his slave ? 
 Oh, stay, most injur'd — most insulted prince ! 
 
 Mah. Traitor! avaunt! begone! — my soul ab- 
 hors thee ! 
 
 Sad. That sound again — oh, agony to hear ! 
 Is there no mercy in the breast of kings ? 
 Can no repentance wash away my crimes ? 
 
 Mah. Not while the heir of a vast empire pines 
 In gloomy bondage, by thy wiles betray'd. 
 
 Sad. He pines no longer. — As I pass'd the square, 
 Where the late vizier's lofty palace tow'rs, 
 ( His spacious prison ) I vievv'd tli' impetuous crowd 
 In furious escalade the walls ascend, 
 Shaking the batter'd pile ; and soon thy son 
 Borne on the shields of a bold warlike band, 
 Who made the skies resound the name of Hamed !
 
 84 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 JVIahi Thanks to our holy prophet, who hath 
 burst 
 The chains that bound the heir of India's throne ! — 
 But say, thou turbulent, aspiring chief, 
 Does thy presumptuous treason fill thy mind 
 With poignant grief, and undissembled horror > 
 
 Sad. Anguish and black remorse, alternate, shake 
 My shudd'ring soul ; while memory stings home, 
 And fancy conjures up ten thousand phantoms, 
 Ghastly, in gleaming steel, and bath'd in blood, 
 Who stalk in crowds before my startled view, 
 
 Waving their spears and menacing revenge ! 
 
 How swift I feel the subtle fluid rush (aside) 
 
 From vein to vein, convulsing all my frame ! 
 
 Mah. Thy deep repentance, from my inmost 
 soul 
 Extorts forgiveness for the black offence. 
 My suff 'rings as a king are great — unequal I'd ; 
 Great as a father, too, my pungent grief; 
 But still the bleeding empire suffers more. 
 
 Sad. With prostrate reverence I accept the boon, 
 
 And in these pangs the empire is reveng'd. 
 
 Again 1 burn, as nearer to my heart (aside) 
 
 The liquid conflagration rolls — 
 
 Mah. What say'st thou ? 
 Thylfeatures seem convuls'd, as if with torture.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 85 
 
 Sad. Oh ! torture horrible — ineffable ! 
 Your friendly aid, kind sirs. — This poison seizes 
 With swifter progress than I meant my life. 
 
 Mali. Poison ! What daemon urg'd to this mad 
 deed ? 
 
 Sad. The daemon Conscience ! — She it is who 
 dictates 
 The exalted vengeance ; she, with scorpion fangs 
 More painful than the dire envenom'd draught, 
 Harrows my soul ; and, with a voice of thunder, 
 Bids future traitors by my fate beware. (dies. ) 
 
 Mah. Unhappy victim of thy blind ambition ! 
 Though factious, headstrong, jealous in th* extreme, 
 Thou hadst thy virtues ; while thy vices vanish, 
 
 Forgotten 'midst the pangs that mark'd thy end. 
 
 Bear hence the corpse, and give it speedy burial, 
 With honours suited to his noble rank. 
 
 \_Exit Mahommcd with attendants. 
 
 SCENE Til. 
 
 A pavilion in a beautiful garden, with a fountain 
 playing, and solemn music. 
 
 ZuMANI, SoLIMA. 
 
 Sol. Oh ! tell mc not of Hope's delusive dream,
 
 86* THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 But let each lip in dumb despair be clos'd : 
 And ye, chaste virgins of the tuneful art, 
 Cease to resound the strain of empty joy, 
 Till Flamed, emperor of my soul, be free. 
 
 Znm. Swiftly the rolling moments glide away ; 
 And every moment, on its golden wings. 
 Adds to the portion that shall gain his freedom. 
 
 Sol. Ah me ! too heavily they seem to roll, 
 And nought but anguish on their pinions bear. 
 Methinks (for tyrants' promises are vain) 
 I hear the stern barbarian's boisterous voice 
 
 ( Enter Hamed at a distance unobscwcd. ) 
 Denouncing vengeance for th' atrocious crime 
 Of dauntless virtue and unblemish'd truth. 
 I see my Hamed, circled with a band 
 Of merciless tormentors, bound in chains, 
 And writhing with the anguish of his wounds. 
 
 Hamed, breaking upon tlicm. 
 
 F come to chase the gloom of thy despair — 
 To tell thee F have burst th' oppressor's bonds — 
 To strain thee to my beating heart again. 
 
 {they embrace.) 
 Sol. Alas ! my fears had painted other scenes, 
 Dreadful and dark — the dungeon and the rack — 
 And Fancy war.rler'd in a maze of horror.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 87 
 
 Ham. Such thrilling accents seem'd to strike my 
 ear, 
 As slowly through yon flow'ring shrubs I press'd, 
 Fearful to violate your lone retreat. 
 How has Zumani borne th' incumbent weight 
 Of woes, at once so mighty and severe ? 
 
 Zum. Supported only by the rapturous hope 
 Of thy approaching liberty, I liv'd ; 
 And with dissembling praise, but genuine tears, 
 Sooth'd the relenting tyrant's savage mind. 
 
 Ham. Then I am dear as ever in thy sight ? 
 
 Zum. Dear as the life-blood circling round my 
 heart. 
 Why didst thou doubt my love ? 
 
 Ham. The treacherous guard 
 Told me, Zumani, for a guilty passion, 
 Had sacrificed her son. 
 
 Zum. Abandon'd ruffian ! 
 
 Ham. From vague report he spoke, nor vouch'd 
 the fact. 
 
 Zum. He dar'd not vouch it — Persia's monarch 
 dare not. * 
 Struck with the splendour of his twofold gift — 
 A crown resign'd, and liberty restor'd — 
 Won by the graceful majesty that reigns 
 Through his whole form, I vainly deem'd his mind
 
 8S THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Of kindred fashion and congenial stam p ; 
 
 But, on a nearer prospect, foifnd it black 
 
 With e\'ry monstrous crime through nature known — 
 
 Revenge and murder, avarice and lust ; — 
 
 His mercies fatal as th' hyaena's tears, 
 
 The shining prelude of the deepest fraud. 
 
 Ham. Eternal blessings crown mv much-lov'd 
 parent ! 
 
 Zum. A mother's tenderest prayers attend my son ! 
 
 Sol. But, oh, my lord, this miracle explain, 
 Nor let me burst with wonder and suspense. 
 How ! — whence ! — what strange vicissitude of fortune 
 Gives thee once more to my transported sight ? 
 Ow'st thou thy freedom to the victor's mercy, 
 Or intervening chance t 
 
 Ham. To chance alone. — 
 Within these walls profoundest concord reigns : 
 But all beyond is anarchy and uproar. 
 Enrag'd to madness by repeated insults, 
 The people, like a vast o'erwhelming flood, 
 Rush on in torrents to the crowded squares ; 
 There, with what deadly weapon comes to hand, 
 Infuriate, headlong, burning for revenge, 
 They hurl destruction through the Persian ranks. 
 Amidst the boundless carnage raging round, 
 My guard was slaughter' d, and the palace storm 'd,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 89 
 
 Where Nadir's jealousy detain'd me captive. 
 Instant my prison's massy gates gave way, m ') G 
 A shout of frantic joy the concave rent, 
 And anxious myriads bore me to thy presence. 
 
 Sol. Where is the fierce usurper > 
 
 Ham. Not far distant, 
 But in a different quarter, he was seen 
 Where danger threaten 'd in its direst form, 
 Undaunted, riding in the face of death ; 
 But soon I'll check the tyrant's wasteful progress. 
 At hand a warlike courser harness'd stands, 
 And eager multitudes my coming wait 
 To point their vengeance on th' astonish'd foe. 
 
 Zum. Ah ! plunge not rashly in too certain ruin. 
 
 Sol. By all the softer ties of tender love, 
 By the eternal union of our hearts, 
 Let me conjure thee not to risque the danger ! 
 
 Ham. Not risque the danger ! Heav'n then guard 
 my love! 
 I go, thy thousand insults to revenge, 
 And render to my suff'ring country justice, 
 Great as her woes, and public as her shame. 
 
 Zum. What will thy sabre's single force avail 
 Against th' embodied phalanx of his guards ? 
 
 Ham. Half slain or routed, scarce his broken 
 bands
 
 90 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Sustain their ground amidst the furious onset 
 
 Of men determin'd to succeed or perish ; 
 
 Whose spur is freedom, and whose cause a phalanx. 
 
 Sol. Terror and doubt distract my wav'ring mind 
 How shall I suffer thee to rush on death ? 
 How urge thee to decline the glorious effort ?■ 
 
 Ham. To crush the tyrant is to end the conflic t ■ 
 Through legions of the foe I'll cut my way. 
 And find his heart amidst the triple steel 
 That girds it round. i ••„■■ (going) 
 
 Zum. Yet> yet, a while forbear ! 
 
 Ham. Zumani, I'm resolv'd. To HeavnYhigh 
 care 
 I leave thee and yon idol of my soul ; 
 Nor Love itself nor Fate shall longer hold me. 
 
 \JfiXeunt. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 CHORUS OF BRAHMINS. 
 
 A magnificent pagoda, Brahmins' sacrificing as 
 before. 
 
 1st: Brali. Propitious to the ardent vows we 
 [T . pour'd— 
 From the deep caverns of the groaning earth;
 
 A TRAGEDY. 91 
 
 Fom the tumultuous ocean's rocky bed ; 
 From the dark chambers of the vaulted skies, 
 Where the fork'd lightnings sweep, and thunders 
 
 brood ; 
 From all the vast extent of Nature's bounds, 
 At Seeva's dread behest, to Delhi rush 
 The mighty spirits of destruction — rouse 
 To horrible revenge her outrag'd sons ; 
 With their own fury fire each glowing bosom, 
 And howl amidst the storm that thickens round. 
 c Zd Brah. Ye butcher'd myriads who have drench'd 
 these plains 
 With rich o'erflowing streams of Brahmin blood; 
 All whom the baneful poison's subtle fluid 
 Hath by slow wasting tortures sunk to death ; 
 All who by hunger's ling'ring pangs expir'd 
 In the deep dungeon's subterranean gloom ; 
 Or, exiles from the dear domestic roof, 
 Unpitied perished on a barb'rous shore — 
 Ye royal youths, descended from the Sun, 
 Who pass'd in slavery your corroded bloom ; 
 Ye hapless virgins, ere your prime deflower'd 
 By the dire lust of brutal ravishers, 
 Shout from the grave ! your sufferings arerevengd. 
 And ravag'd Hindostan will soon be free.
 
 92 THE FALL OP THE MOGUL, 
 
 3d Brah. From Naugracut's vast range, and gilded 
 shrines, 
 Tow'ring in hoary grandeur mid the stars ; 
 From proud Varanes*, and the sacred wave 
 Of Ganga flowing through eternal ages ; 
 From Mathura's rich plains and spicy woods, 
 With heav'nly harpings resonant, they come ! 
 The Gods of Hindostan, in holy pomp, 
 Exulting to behold the nameless wrongs 
 Our race have suffer'd, in the blood expung'd 
 Of their remorseless victors. — Strike, strike deep, 
 Tremendous pow'rs ! th' exterminating blow; 
 And let the dread example show mankind, 
 That high above yon vast and blazing vault, 
 Upon a throne whose adamantine base 
 In the deep centre of surrounding worlds 
 By the Grand Architect is firmly fixt, 
 Eternal Justice sits, and rules the globe ! 
 
 All. Divine, ineffable, eternal triad ! 
 Cloth'd in the terror of the midnight storm, 
 That sweeps the cliffs of blasted Taurus, rise ! 
 Pursue them on the volley'd lightning's wing, 
 And plunge them down the fathomless abyss 
 
 * Jknares.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 93 
 
 Of Pattal, where eternal darkness broods, 
 And furies like themselves for ever yell ! 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 TJie portal of the great mosque of Delhi. 
 
 Nadir Shah is discovered with a drawn sabre in his 
 hand at the head of his guards ; the enraged multi- 
 tude pressing upon them on every side. 
 
 Nad. Stand firm, my valiant comrades of the war f 
 In this our last extremity stand firm, 
 Or all is lost. By yon eternal Sun ! 
 The mighty fabric of my glory, rear'd 
 At the vast price of so much toil and blood, 
 Already totters on the verge of fate ; 
 And all the dazzling plunder you have heap'd, 
 The bright reward of many an arduous day, 
 Hangs on the desp'rate vigour of a moment ! 
 No heralds from the camp ? No aid arriv'd ? 
 And has the brave Nizam a traitor prov'd ? — 
 For this, oh, Delhi, thou shalt feel my vengeance ; 
 For this lay low in dust thy tow'ringhead. 
 
 The tumult increases — shouts at a distance. 
 Enter Thamas, the Persian general. 
 Hail to the general of my gallant Persians !
 
 94 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Guide of my life, and partner of my glory, 
 Thrice welcome in this darkest hour of peril ! 
 
 Thamas. Your majesty's high mandates are obey'd. 
 And twenty thousand of your choicest troops 
 Are eager for the signal to discharge 
 Their fury on the foe ; who, thronging round, 
 Show'r stones and arrows on their dauntless brows, 
 And bid them at the sabre's point defiance. 
 ( A musquet is discharged, by which an officer standing 
 
 close by Nadir is killed. ) 
 Aim'd at yourself the wing'd destruction came- — 
 Thank Heav'n, that warded off the deathful blow ! 
 
 Nad. How ! — does Sedition raise against our life 
 Th' assassin's coward arm ? — Then take thy fill, 
 Ensanguin'd Slaughter ! glut thy thirsty spear 
 With carnage, ample as the bounds of Delhi ; 
 And let thy vultures gorge themselves with prey ! 
 
 Tham. Fire off the rockets — light the blazing 
 signal, 
 The dreadful rites of Azrail to begin ! 
 
 Nad, (to his officers) Remorseless as the fury of 
 your foes, 
 Go forth, intrepid harbingers of fate ; 
 Nor vain distinction show to rank or age ; 
 But, as the deep foundation of her walls
 
 A TRAGEDY. 95 
 
 Were laid in blood, by human victims pour'd*, 
 
 Let one vast crimson deluge round us roll. 
 
 By Heav'n, in vengeance for this daring outrages * 
 
 I'll raise a pyramid of heads, sublime 
 
 As yon blue vault, whose soaring point shall tower 
 
 An everlasting monument of justice, 
 
 And teach how sacred are the lives of kings ! 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 
 CHORUS OF PERSEES. 
 
 A splendid Fire-temple with a train of Persee piiests 
 ranged around, and apparently adoring the ascend- 
 ing flame. 
 
 1st Persee. From that fair region where the sa- 
 cred flame, 
 That burst from Heaven, through many a distant 
 
 age, 
 To Mithra on a thousand altars blazed 
 In gorgeous temples, towering 'mid the skies ! 
 But chief, imperial Balkf ! in thy proud dome 
 Pour'd its full lustre and concentred rays: 
 
 * A fact asserted by Indian historians. 
 
 f The principal Fire -temple in ancient Persia, and the constant 
 residence of the Archimagus, was at Balk, the antient Bactha. 
 See Hyde de Relig. Vet. Pers.
 
 96 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 From that blest realm where Science first difrus'd 
 Its orient beam, and righteous Khosro reign'd 
 
 Driv'n from those altars by the slaughtering swords 
 Of Othman's blood-train'd chiefs, to India's shores 
 Our pious fathers fled. — Down yon steep cliffs 
 In frantic horror rush'd the affrighted band 
 Of Persia's hoary seers, from rapine's grasp 
 Bearing the glittering ensigns of our God, 
 The golden censers, and the hallow'd vase 
 Beaming celestial splendours, that contain'd 
 The last bright remnant of the solar fire 
 By fiend-like rage unquench'd. The holy blaze, 
 By day their guardian, and by night their guide,. 
 O'er rocks and deserts wild their path illum'd, 
 And to the astonish'd sons of earth flam'd forth 
 
 A second Sun 'Twasthen the illustrious race, 
 
 Prom holy Brahma sprung, survey'd from far 
 The radiant symbol of the star of day ; 
 Bow'd to the sacred beam, and bade us hail. 
 Oh ! may benignant Heav'n, for this, avert 
 The black'ning storm that broods o'er Hindostan, 
 Crown her with blessings, and avenge her wrongs t 
 %d Pers. Lord of the host of heav'n, whose my- 
 riad orbs 
 Roll by thy nod, and sparkle with thy fire !
 
 A TRAGEDY. 97 
 
 Hear, Oromasdes ! from that brighter sphere 
 Where, in the centre of encircling light, 
 Too pure, too radiant for created vision, 
 From everlasting ages thou hast dwelt— 
 Hear ; andwith thunder strike the impious race, 
 Who, by the daemon Ahriman impel I'd 
 To deeds of darkness and of blood, have quench'd 
 Throughout thy chosen land the sacred fires, 
 And dash'd thy proud pyr^eia to the ground. 
 While on each sacred hill, renown'd in song, 
 The arch-apostate's crimson'd banner waves, 
 And, for the hallow'd precepts of thy law, 
 Resound the echoes of a barbarous creed, 
 With death and vengeance fraught — legions of fiends, 
 The gloomy progeny of night and guilt, 
 Are from the deep abyss of hell broke loose ; 
 And, on the whirlwind's wasteful pinions borne, 
 Tempest both earth and skies.— Terrific Pow'r ! 
 Resistless in thy kindled vengeance, rise ; 
 Send forth thy flaming ministers of light, 
 And drive them back to their impure abode ; 
 There, bound in chains of adamant, to wait 
 The awful hour of nature's final doom, 
 When one vast deluge of consuming fire, 
 In torrents bursting from the blazing skies, 
 Shall purge creation, and consume thy foes ! 
 
 o
 
 98 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 3d Pers. Prophet of God, Zerdusht ! whose 
 
 sacred lips, 
 When, on its sphere of flame from earth upborne, 
 Thy soul the highest empyraeum sought, 
 On our adoring Magi's prostrate train 
 A portion of thy mighty spirit breath'd — 
 Oh ! thou whose mystic volumes, brought from 
 
 heaven, 
 By Deity's immortal pen inscrib'd, 
 The secrets of the hoary deep disclose, 
 Through heaven the zodiac's mighty circle trace, 
 The dazzling galaxy's resplendent path, 
 And all the wonders of revolving spheres 
 Unveil to raptur'd man's exploring eye — 
 
 Genius of Persia, hear ! inspire ! avenge ! 
 
 How are thy sacred oracles revil'd, 
 
 Her holiest rites by infidels profan'd ! 
 
 While scarce an altar blazes to the Sun 
 
 Through all yon ravag'd realm ; each circling year 
 
 Some new oppressor brings, some direr scourge, 
 
 More black with crimes, more deeply stain'd with 
 
 blood. 
 Docs not thy spirit, from its lofty sphere 
 Surveying earth, with indignation glow. 
 That, high on Media's mountains/ blaze no more 
 The radiant columns of ascending flame ;
 
 A TRAGEDY. 9& 
 
 Nor in her mystic caves' profound recess 
 
 Are seen the glimmerings of the hallow'd fires, 
 
 That brightest, purest, at the midnight hour, 
 
 Shot forth to M ithra's praise their ardent beams ? 
 
 On Baku's plains the consecrated springs 
 
 Of burning naphtha, gleaming from afar, 
 
 No longer tempt, from Ganges' distant flood, 
 
 The hoary pilgrim at their shrines to bend ; 
 
 Where ever-wakeful Magi once ador'd 
 
 The gushing fountains of ethereal fire, 
 
 For ever flowing, like the parent stream. 
 
 When will Time's mighty cycles, rolling round, 
 
 Our nameless sufferings close ? — shall never more 
 
 The choral warblings in those rocks resound, 
 
 Those mountains rear their summits wrapt in flame ? 
 
 Tremendous morn ! by Destiny decreed 
 
 For Nature's grand catastrophe, approach ; 
 
 When, as our antient holy legends tell, 
 
 Baleful and black, the planetary train, 
 
 In redd'ning Cancer's burning vortex met, 
 
 Shall rain down plagues on this distracted globe. 
 
 Then, mid the storm of fire, 'mid nature's wreck, 
 
 To earth upon a radiant sun-beam borne, 
 
 Again, Zerdusht, shall thy dread form appear, 
 
 Rescue thy followers from the flaming mass,
 
 100 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 The shades of night disperse, extinguish guilt, 
 And ope the portals of a brighter world. 
 Till that dread hour arrive — at mom, at eve, 
 Let our united prayers to Mithra rise, 
 And ceaseless songs of praise the concave rend ! 
 
 End of Act IV
 
 A TRAGEDY. 101 
 
 ACT V. SCENE I. 
 
 The inner court of the palace, with a view of the 
 setting sun* 
 
 Mahommed solus. 
 
 At length thy sun,, oh Hindostan ! is set ; 
 
 And, like yon blushing orb, whose ev'ning beam 
 
 Sheds its deep crimson o'er the western hills, 
 
 It set in blood — but not, like that, to rise 
 
 With brighter glory and rekindled fire ! 
 
 For, in thy darkened hemisphere, no more 
 
 Shall dawn the splendour of imperial greatness : 
 
 Deeper and deeper grows the central gloom, 
 
 And universal chaos spreads around. 
 
 Hark ! in that groan, so dismal and prolong'd, 
 
 A thousand of my faithful subjects pour'd 
 
 Their souls to heaven. Death stalks with ample 
 
 strides 
 Through all the streets of this vast capital, 
 And seems to reign upon the throne of Delhi. 
 
 Enter hastily Zumani and Solima. 
 
 Sol. Where, midst the tenfold horrors of this day,
 
 102 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Where is the hope and object of my soul, 
 The solace of my grief, my love, my Hamed ? 
 
 Zum. Attendant angels ever hover near him, 
 And guard his footsteps through th* unnumber'd 
 perils 
 
 That threaten round ! 
 
 Mali. With thine united, rise 
 My fervent pray'rs. Guide of the faithful, hear 
 The pious vows thy own vicegerent pours ; 
 And may they, like a grateful off'ring, mount 
 To heaven's high throne ! 
 
 Sol. Alas ! to me it seems 
 As though the skies were hostile to our cause. 
 And all the treasures of its hoarded wrath 
 Discharg'd on India and its royal house. 
 
 J\Iali. To wait, resign'd, its absolute decrees 
 Our duty bids, and may avert its vengeance ; 
 While impious doubts and murmurs must incense it. 
 Sol. Ah ! who shall rescue from impending death 
 The dear devoted youth my soul adores ? 
 The pressing danger of his fate absorbs 
 All other thoughts ; distracts my hurried mind, 
 And scarce leaves room for virtuous meditation. 
 
 Mali. Soon as I heard from fame his rash resolve, 
 To rush in furious onset on the foe, 
 A strong selected band of veteran troops
 
 A TRAGEDY. 103 
 
 Were instantly dispatch'd, by fraud or force, 
 Through ev'ry danger and at ev'ry risque, 
 To bring him back and snatch him from perdition. 
 Methinks yon thick'ning tumult speaks him near. 
 Enter Hamed, disarmed ami guarded. 
 
 Ham. Off, dastards ! parricides ! Restore my 
 sabre. 
 The tyrant breathes, and I'll not quit, my prey. 
 All other triumph 's mean : his life alone 
 Can satiate my keen appetite for vengeance. 
 
 Sol. 'Tis he! 'tis he himself! my long-lost Hamed ! 
 
 Ham. What voice, harmonious as celestial music, 
 With cherub sweetness vibrates on my ear ? 
 
 Sol. A voice that bids you pause upon the brink 
 Of instant ruin 
 
 Ham. Loveliest oracle ! 
 For ever dear, and sacred still as dear ! 
 
 Sol. A voice with frequent sighs and wailings spent ; 
 A voice that welcomes you to love and safety. 
 
 Ham. To spotless love and rapture in these arms. 
 
 (tluy embrace.) 
 But there 's no safety while this Persian lives. 
 The very temples are no longer safe : ' 
 The haram's rights, by savages rever'd, 
 Are trampled on and spurn'd by brutal lust. 
 Justice and Faith have wing'd their flight to heav'n, 
 \nd licens'd daemons desolate the globe
 
 104 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Why are my arms detain'd ? Or does indeed 
 A father's stern command disarm his son, 
 Burning with filial love and patriot zeal ? 
 
 J[Jah. Th' attempt were madness, and would rob 
 my life 
 Of its main prop — 
 
 Zum. And mine of its chief boast. 
 ■ Sol. But what, alas ! must be my wretched fate ? 
 How black the years of complicated woe 
 That o'er my head must roll ! 
 
 Ham. ' T was this that fir'd 
 My tortur'd mind, and steel'd against th' event. 
 Trusting by one decisive blow to end 
 Thine and my country's woes, through slaughter'd 
 
 hosts 
 I mow'd my way, and thrice my sabre fell 
 Not far remote from the pale tyrant's plume ; 
 When these base myrmidons rush'd in between, 
 Check* d my revenge, and robb'd me of my glory. 
 
 JYlali. 'Twas said his army from without the walls 
 Were in full march to join their fierce commander, 
 And pour his wrath on these devoted towers. 
 
 Ham. We met the ruffians, but my hands were 
 bound : 
 And now yon city, like a mighty wreck 
 That long has been the sport of raging tempests, 
 Floats in an overwhelmine* sea of blood.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 10$ 
 
 The shrieks and groans of her expiring sons, 
 Giv'n up to spoil, and slaughter unrestrain'd, 
 Chill'd me with horror as I pass'd along, 
 And rent ray soul with grief and indignation. 
 For mercy pleads in Vain the lisping babe, 
 Pale with affright, and clinging to the breast : 
 Women of noblest rank, to kings allied, 
 Are from the haram's chaste recesses dragg'd 
 To wanton massacre.— -/Thousands, to shun 
 The stern destroyer's violating rage, 
 Plunge in devouring flames — a milder foe ! 
 Or down the dark abyss of yawning pits, 
 Or wells unfathomably deep, they rush, 
 Headlong, if haply they may 'scape his fury. 
 
 Man. Oh, horrible to hear ! 
 
 Zum. Where sleep thy bolts, 
 AU-rigbteous Heav'n ! 
 
 Ham. More horrid still to see — 
 So high were pil'd the slaughter'd carcases ; 
 Such crowds of wounded, maim'd, and bleeding 
 
 objects, 
 With stagg'ring step and wild distorted features, 
 In frantic terror rush'd across our path — 
 Scarce could these abject vassals of your will, 
 Who tore me from the fight, force back their passage 
 {Ajiourish of trumpets is heard at a distance. ) 
 p
 
 106 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Zum. Defend us, Heav'n ! This way th* usurper 
 bends — 
 Death in his voice, and ruin in his train. 
 How will my Hamed shun his raging ire ? 
 
 Sol. Destruction ! whither wilt thou fly for 
 shelter ? 
 The dreadful crisis of our common fate 
 Seems now arriv'd ; and righteous Providence, 
 In mercy to intolerable woes, 
 Allows, at length, the catalogue to end. 
 
 Ham. Talk not of flight, my soul disdains the 
 thought ; 
 I'll stay and brave the tyrant to his face. 
 My sabre, villains ! render it, or die — 
 Or bring some deadlier weapon to dispatch him, 
 Keen as my hate, and cruel as his guilt. 
 
 (A second flourish of trumpets nearer.) 
 Mali. I must renounce the father, and assume 
 The monarch's frown. — Hence, on thy duty, hence ! 
 
 Ham. No, slay me, rather ; at a parent's feet 
 Let me expire. 
 
 Mah. No more : bear him away 
 To the remote recesses of the palace. 
 
 (Hamed is forced off the stage.) 
 You, to the haram's most secluded glooms — 
 
 (to Zumani and Solima )
 
 A TRAGEDY. 107 
 
 I feel the deep dead calm despair inspires, 
 And will with firmness meet the vaunting foe. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 After a small internal — Enter Nadir Shah, Mahom^ 
 med Shah, and Nizam al Muluck. 
 
 Nad. Say ye, the Persian honour is reveng'd ? 
 By yon bright orb, not hecatombs of slain 
 Can expiate the bold outrage we haye witness'd ; 
 No : though your Ganges roll'd a purple flood ! 
 My butcher'd soldiers shall have ample vengeance, 
 And their cold limbs, of sepulture depriv'd, 
 Bathe in luxurious tides of Indian gore. 
 
 Niz. So wide the slaughter, and so swift the flames 
 That with combin'd and wasteful fury spread, 
 Ere morning not a palace will remain, 
 And scarce an Indian left through Delhi's bounds, 
 Her antient grandeur to relate, or tell 
 Her sad catastrophe, 
 
 JV ad. Urge me no further. 
 The ruin by their frantic rage incurr'd, 
 Vast as my just resentment shall descend. 
 
 Mali. In deep humiliation, and distress, 
 The wretched prince and subjects of these realms 
 Repentant at thy dread tribunal bend, 
 And, though deserv'd they own thy heaviest wrath,
 
 108 THE FALL OP THE MOGUL, 
 
 Implore thee, Prince, to sheathe th' avenging sabre, 
 Nor quite exterminate their hopeless race. 
 
 Nad. Infatuate monarch ! dost thou plead their 
 cause 
 Whose son led on the bold rebellious throng; 
 Whose treason sought my life ? Wherever found. 
 The bow-string shall reward his ill-tim'd valour. 
 Give that arch-traitor up to public justice, 
 Your suit is granted, and your kingdom sav'd. 
 Vengeance yet waits her noblest sacrifice; 
 But, Hamed slain, shall sheathe her reeking blade. 
 
 Niz. Now, for the full completion of my vow, 
 To make this haughty youth my vengeance feel ! 
 
 ( aside ) 
 This moment through th' interior court he pass'd, 
 Escorted by a num'rous Indian guard. 
 
 Mah. Curse on that forward tongue ! (aside) 
 
 Nad. Let him be seiz'd, 
 And put to instant death. — That hydra crush'd, 
 Let sounding trumpets from yon towers proclaim 
 That wearied Slaughter from her toil repose. 
 
 Mali. Oh ! by the soul of Timur, prince, forbear ! 
 
 Nad. Justice shall have its course. 
 
 Mah. Stay, fierce Nizam ! (to Nizam, going) 
 Nor haste, with fatal speed, to execute 
 The stern command that dooms to swift destruction
 
 a tragedf: 109 
 
 My only son ! the heir of mighty kingdoms ! 
 Born to control the arm thy hatred burns 
 To lift in impious treason 'gainst his life ! 
 
 Nad. In spite of birth or fate, this night he dies. 
 
 Main. Cannot a father's, nor a monarch's tears 
 A little respite gain ? must his gay morn 
 Of life be blasted ; nor another sun 
 Beam on the blooming honours of his youth? 
 
 Nad. Mogul, we will not wholly to thy tears 
 Obdurate prove : — This night we have resolv'd 
 To solemnize our nuptials with the young, 
 The beauteous Solima : we will not stain 
 This festive evening with the blood of Hamed : 
 To-morrow he shall die. 
 
 Mah. Far worse than death, 
 If such thy fixt resolve, this night he suffers. 
 
 Nad. I know it well, and shall enjoy his pangs. 
 To that fair princess be thyself the herald 
 Of the high honour we design thy house ; 
 While Deccan's valiant chief without delay 
 Bears the bright olive to the sons of Delhi. 
 ( Exit Nadir t followed by Mahommed in a 
 supplicating posture. ) 
 Nizam solus. 
 To-morrow he shall die — to-morrow dawns, 
 His pardon .'s seal'd, and my revenge is baffled
 
 110 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 How is this mighty conqueror demean'd 
 By these capricious counsels ! — howunmann'd 
 By love's inglorious toils the dauntless soul, 
 That, towering on ambition's eagle plume, 
 Seem'd to look down on all terrestrial cares, 
 Save Glory's dazzling meed ! To-morrow's sun, 
 By some resembling freak, perchance, may view 
 Hamed enthron'd, and Deccan's chief in chains ! 
 But shall the friend of the great Aurengzebe, 
 Who call'd this rav'ning vulture to the spoils 
 Of India, tamely wait th' ignoble doom ? 
 Or, like the coward Sadi, from the bowl 
 Of deadly drugs extort relief? No more — 
 My soul 's resolv'd; imperial Delhi sav'd, 
 I '11 summon round me my intrepid bands, 
 And on the lightning's wing tow'rds Deccan fly, 
 Seize on the southern provinces that stretch 
 To the vast ocean's verge, and on the wreck 
 Of crumbling empire found a potent kingdom, 
 That, like the fam'd Arabian bird, shall rise 
 Refulgent from its parent's flaming tomb ; 
 Myself give India law, and make ev'n Nadir 
 Tremble on distant Persia's gorgeous throne. 
 
 \_Exit Nizam. 
 Re-enter Nadir, Mahommed. 
 Mali. Dread sir, by all th 'endearing ties of nature
 
 A .TRAGEDY. XH 
 
 That in thy own parental bosom glow, 
 The stubborn purpose of thy soul recall ! 
 Slay not my son, nor to the altar drag 
 Reluctant beauty. 
 
 Nad. Check thy fruitless sorrow. 
 That purpose is irrevocably fix'd — 
 At least with beauteous Solima this night. 
 Before the altar's consecrated blaze, 
 To solemnize the nuptial vow : in haste, 
 Explore the fair, and lead to yonder fane. ., y f 
 
 Mcih. Oh ! yet my agonizing feelings spare : 
 The fatal tidings would convulse her frame, 
 And shake the tott'ring fabric of her reason. 
 
 Nad. Be thine to mitigate the fair one's terrors ; • 
 Win her consent, and Hamed still may live ; 
 That, by my crown I swear, alone slmll save him, 
 
 Mah. What would a doting father not attempt 
 To save from death's dire fangs a darling son ! 
 
 Mid. Tell her, The love with which my soul is fir'd 
 Spurns idle forms and custom's cold constraints, 
 Nor longer brooks the tortures of suspense. . 
 Mark, 't is my will the solemn rite be crown'd 
 With all the splendours of our native East : «.,. .. , 
 The spoils of all my wars shall be display 'd, 
 And Persia's silks with India's glowing gems, 
 Flaming on vanquish'd Night's reluctant -shadow*,
 
 1 12 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Shall through the gloom diffuse meridian day. 
 Let music, manly, martial, and sublime, 
 Roll its deep note, and loud artillery tell 
 Our union with the Royal House of India. 
 
 [Exit Mahommed. 
 
 Enter Tham as, the Persian general. 
 
 Tham. Obedient to your Majesty's commands 
 Our swords are sheath'd, and Persia is reveng'd ; 
 Wide was the slaughter, and immense the spoil ! 
 
 Nad. Of forfeit empire, and a crown restor'd, 
 Is the vast ransom paid ? 
 
 Tham. To the last jewel 
 India's exhausted treasury is drain'd J 
 All her accumulated wealth is ours ; 
 And for more safety to the camp convey'd. 
 
 Nad. Then give a loose to mirth and festive revel : 
 To-night, with high solemnities, we wed 
 A princess of the house of Aurengzebe 
 Renown'd through ev'ry clime. 
 
 Tham. Heaven bless the choice, 
 And send your union happy as illustrious I 
 
 Nad. That rite perform'd, our rapid course we steer 
 Towards Persia, to chastise th' invading Turk. 
 With diligence let Delhi's streets beclear'd 
 Of the dead bodies of the slaughter'd Indians ;
 
 A TRAGEDY. 113 
 
 Let sounding clarions' sprightly notes proclaim 
 
 To all her citizens our wrath appeas'd, 
 
 And not a sigh be heard to damp our joys. [Exeunt. 
 
 - . _ . . . . 
 
 SCENE III. 
 An apartment of the haram. 
 
 ZlJMANI, SOLIMA. 
 
 • 
 
 Zum. Where shall we screen thee from his dark 
 designs ? 
 The emperor has declar'd how firm a tone 
 The tyrant us'd — how resolute, this night, 
 To celebrate the rite thy soul abhors ; 
 And heralds with fresh summons are arriv'd, 
 Who say, the jewei'd circlet for thy brow, 
 Rich with half Asia's wealth, already pours 
 Its sun-like splendours through th' illumin'd fane ; 
 The altar burning, and the priests in waiting. 
 
 Sol. Not all his menaces — nor jewei'd crown, 
 Nor burning altar, nor attending priests, 
 Shall make me quit this spot. 
 
 Zum. Though tortur'd Hamed 
 Lay stretch'd and gasping on the rack before me, 
 Scarce could I urge thee, on such hateful terms, 
 tlis life to rescue from impending fate.
 
 114 THE FALL OP THE MOGUL, 
 
 Sol For Hamed with what transport would I 
 brave 
 Hunger and pain, and all the nameless ills 
 That bow the wretched, and make life a burthen ! 
 But to be wedded to so base a tyrant, 
 The merciless invader of my country, 
 Makes nature shudder, and ev'n death with tortures, 
 Were I alone to bear the vengeful blow, 
 Far more desirable. 
 
 Zum. Why was I plac'd 
 On grandeur's glittering steep to be the sport 
 Of direr pangs ? — in grief alone supreme ! 
 A wretched Queen and a distracted Mother ! 
 
 Sol. Thy anguish pierces through my inmost soul ; 
 While love and terror for the prince confound 
 My wild ideas till they float in madness. 
 
 Zum. Exhausted by these various scenes of woe, 
 - 1 feel, with thee, my stagg'ring reason fail, 
 While all the dawning virtues of my Hamed 
 Rush on my view. 
 
 Sol. Repeat not thatlov'd name, 
 That melts in fatal tenderness my soul ; 
 Nor say how good he was- 1 — how fond, how true 
 He was : for now, perhaps, this fierce avenger, 
 Enrag'd by slighted love, hath seal'd his doom. 
 
 Zum. Alas ! for thee that dreadful task is left.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 115 
 
 Sol. And must I be the murd'rer of his youth ? 
 The baleful cause that, in his loveliest bloom, 
 With ev'ry nobler virtue wide expanding 
 Its radiant blossoms to th' admiring world, 
 He sinks, untimely, to the barren grave : — 
 Or shall I rob him of my pledg'd affection, 
 In infant years betroth 'd, and since confirm'd 
 With mutual vows attested by the skies, 
 And give it to yon fierce unfeeling ruffian? 
 Enter Mahommed Shah in haste. 
 
 Mali. The awful moment, fraught with life or 
 death 
 To Hamed, is arriv'd. 
 
 Sol. Does he still live ? 
 
 Mali. Yet trembling on the verge of fate he stands, 
 And waits his destiny from thy resolve, 
 
 Sol. Indeed ! Methought but now his injur'd 
 shade ( looking wildly ) 
 
 Glanc'd swiftly by, and with low falt'ring voice 
 Bade me be constant to my virgin vow, 
 
 Mali. Oh! would to heav'n that vow had ne'er 
 been plighted! 
 
 Sol. And do you then repent your partial fondness 
 To Aurengzebe's ill-fated progeny ? 
 
 Zum. Doubt'st thou our fondness ? Did we not in- 
 tend thee
 
 1 16 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 The highest boon parental love could grant, 
 Or regal power bestow — our only son ! 
 The very crown we wear ? 
 
 Sol. (after some pause) I know, I feel it, 
 And will my boundless gratitude evince 
 By yielding to the tyrant's hard conditions. 
 What though of India's promis'd throne bereav'd, — 
 Still, Persia's diadem shall deck my brow, 
 While, richly blazing, her imperial plume 
 Waves with more pomp, and flames with brighter 
 gems. 
 
 Mali. And dar'st thou risque th' event to save my 
 son ? 
 
 Sol. If, by that sacrifice, I may insure 
 A life more valued than my own — / dare. 
 
 JVLali. By that most solemn and tremendous oath 
 No mussulman dare break, th' invader swore, 
 If at the altar he received thine hand, 
 Hamed should gain both life and liberty. 
 
 Sol. Then at that'altar shall this handhe jnv'n. 
 My heart, by bands indissoluble bound, 
 Strong as the chain of fate, shall still be Hamed's. 
 
 Zum. Oh, wondrous effort of heroic goodness ! 
 
 JVLali. For this the grateful everlasting vows 
 Of India and her Royal House attend thee ! 
 
 Sol. Conduct me swift, ere thought and reason fail,
 
 A TRAGEDY. 1 17 
 
 And like the sacred victim doom'd to slaughter, 
 
 Adorn'd with festive garlands let me go, 
 
 A willing sacrifice at Hymen's shrine. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 A grand saloon splendidly decorated, with preparations 
 for the marriage. 
 
 Nadir Shah, Thamas Khan, and Officers. 
 
 Nad. Has glory led us to this distant clime 
 To be the sport of women's insolence ? 
 Let other heralds be dispatch'd in haste 
 To urge this stubborn beauty's swift obedience. 
 
 Enter Mahommed Shah. 
 
 Hadst thou but for a moment's longer space 
 Delay'd to bring my tortur'd mind relief, 
 Thy son had died. 
 
 Mali. That sacred faith forbids; » 
 For now success hath crown'd each sanguine hope, 
 And Solima, in bridal vestments deck'd, 
 Hastes to receive a sceptre at thy hands, 
 And with due homage hail her lord and husband. 
 
 Nad. A thousand thousand thanks. The mighty 
 work
 
 118 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Of Love and Glory is at length complete ; 
 
 And yonder, radiant as the star of eve, 
 
 The Queen of Beauty comes. — Angelic sweetness ! 
 
 (to Solirna) 
 
 Enter ZuiMAni, Solima, with Brahmins at a distance. 
 
 The sovereign of this heart thou long hast reign'd ; 
 O'er Persia's realms assume as ample sway, 
 And shine her fairest queen. Let me conduct thee 
 To yon bright altar's blaze. — 
 
 (attempting to seize her hand, she withdraws it.) 
 
 Sol. Hold, sir : this hand, 
 Demanded with such arrogance of triumph, 
 Is not yet thine. 
 
 Nad. How ! — Dost thou then repent ? 
 
 Sol. Ere I resign it, let the terms of union 
 Be rightly understood. 
 
 Nad. The terms are brief: — 
 By yielding to my urgent suit thou sav'st 
 A rival's life, and India's youthful heir. 
 
 Sol. Say by what right thou couldst destroy that 
 life. 
 
 Nad. Th' acknowledg'd right of Kings. 
 
 Sol. Of Tyrants rather. 
 
 J\7id. The right of conquest. 
 
 Sol. Of usurp'd dominion.
 
 A TRAGEDY. 119 
 
 Nad. The right which self-defence and nature 
 give 
 To crush the traitor who our death conspir'd. 
 
 Sol. To lift the sword against the public robber, 
 The spoiler of our country, is not treason, 
 But virtue of that high ennobling sort 
 As certain immortality to stamp 
 On the bold arm that rais'd it. 
 
 Nad. D«ath and fury ! 
 Drag him away to speedy execution — 
 But first with tortures rend each quivering limb. 
 
 Zum. Horror of horrors ! Oh, by bleeding pity — 
 
 Sol. Stern Nadir, yet suspend thy bloody man- 
 date. 
 
 Nad. Name him no more with pity or applause, 
 Nor throw a gloom o'er this bright festive eve, 
 That gives thee, thus reluctant, to my love. 
 Wouldst thou arrest th* uplifted arm of vengeance. 
 Be quick, resolve — 
 
 Sol. I came to thee resolv'd ! 
 And well had weigh'd the terms ; but wounded me- 
 mory 
 Glanc'd o'er past horrid scenes, and from its cen- 
 tre 
 Drove my bewilder'd mind. If thou wilt swear 
 Bv the most awful vow that binds the faithful—
 
 ISO THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 This hand with thine in sacred union join'd, 
 
 Shall rescue him from death, and give him freedom, — 
 
 'Tis thine. 
 
 ( Taking the volume of the kor an from theprie,st, 
 he raises it reverently to his forehead. ) 
 
 Nad. On our koran's most hallow'd page 
 I swear it shall : but wilt thou be most faithful ? 
 
 Sol. The chastest, faithful'st wife that ever plighted 
 Her maiden truth to man ; nor virgin snow, 
 Nor icy Death, that chains our wandering thoughts, 
 And bids the tide of passion cease to roll, 
 Shall be more pure from blemish. 
 
 ( both approach the altar. ) 
 
 Nad. Rapt'rous hope ! 
 Dear beyond fame or sceptres — kneeling thus, 
 Supreme of human blessings, I receive 
 Th' inestimable boon. 
 
 ( The mullah, or priest, here solemnly unites 
 their hands.) 
 
 Sol. ( after some pause. ) Rise, mighty Nadir ! 
 Nor let the conqueror of the world be found 
 Fixt at a woman's feet. 
 
 Nad. 'Tis here, sweet Solima, 'tis here alone, 
 I triumph in the plenitude of glory. 
 
 Sol. This vow perform'd, another still remains.. 
 Of far more awful and momentous nature ;
 
 A TRAGEDY. 121 
 
 A vow whose full accomplishment alone 
 Can seal the firm fidelity I promis'd. 
 
 Mid. What vow more awful can thy soul have 
 form'd ? 
 
 Sol. Thy eager grasp so closely locks my hand 
 It gives me pain — release it forti moment. 
 
 Nad. Ten thousand kisses let me first imprint 
 On its unsullied whiteness. 
 
 Sol. Now be present, 
 Immortal shade of my great ancestor ! {aside.) 
 
 With all thy spirit animate my bosom, , 
 
 And with redoubled vigour nerve this arm. 
 
 Thus — thus, barbarian, I fulfil my promise 
 Of wedded purity and bridal faith ! 
 
 (drawing a concealed dagger, she stabs herself. ) 
 This is that greater hymeneal vow 
 By which my soul most solemnly was bound ; 
 My dearer nuptials these ! 
 
 ( Homed here violently rushing into the apartment is 
 stopped and seized by Nadir's guard. ) 
 
 Ham. What do I see ? 
 What hear " of solemn vows and dearer nuptials ?" 
 Art thou a bride ? 
 
 Sol. The sacred rite is past ; 
 I'm wedded, Hamed 
 
 Ham. Wedded to yon monster ? 
 
 R
 
 122 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Sol. To the cold grave eternally betroth 'd. 
 
 (faints in the arms of Zumani. ) 
 Ham. Bloody, unfeeling ruffian ! this dire act 
 Thy brutal rage compell'd. 
 
 Nad. By Hell I swear, 
 The royal but perfidious house of India 
 Are all in one infernal league combin'd 
 To blast ray hopes. — Whence com'st thou, curst 
 
 intruder ? 
 How, villain, wilt thou now escape my vengeance ? 
 ( Nadir springs forward with his drawn sabre to di- 
 spatch Hamed, hut in the act to strike pauses. ) 
 Ham. When arm'd, I sought thee in the field of 
 battle ; 
 Unarm' d, my soul has firmness to despise thee. 
 Strike, tyrant, strike — my mortal wound is there ; 
 
 (pointing to Solima.) 
 Thy sabre cannot deal a blow so fatal. 
 
 Sol. (raising herself, and looking steadfastly at 
 Nadir) „ 
 Base as he is, and girded as that heart 
 With triple adamant, he dreads the curse 
 Avenging Heav'n has thunder'd on the perjur'd, 
 
 And dares not strike (she is home off the stage. 
 
 ( Nadir , again attempting to strike Hamed, staggers, 
 and drops his sabre. )
 
 A TRAGEDY. 123 
 
 Nad. What potent spell restrains 
 My just revenge, and withers up my strength ? 
 ( With his eyes fixed on the ground. Nadir appears for 
 
 some moments in the deepest mental perturbation.) 
 
 The Brahmins advance a few paces. 
 
 1st Br ah. Brahmins, our prayers are heard ; all- 
 righteous Heav'n 
 Hath struck the phrensied tyrant with dismay. 
 With agony convuls'd his features writhe ; 
 His eyes distracted glare ; while conscious guilt 
 Unnerves his sinews, and his palsied arm 
 Drops the keen sabre, on whose guilty edge 
 Such myriads have expir'd. Before his view, 
 With threatning looks, in terrible array, 
 The spirits of the murder'd Delhians glide ; 
 Point to their mangled carcases that lie 
 Unburied on our Jumna's banks, and ring 
 ^ In his astounded ears a fearful knell. 
 The illustrious princes of the Seffi race 
 Start from their tombs, wave high their gleaming 
 
 crests, 
 And from a base usurper's brow demand 
 
 The ravish'd diadem. That frantic start, 
 
 Those bursting groans proclaim the black despair 
 That preys upon his heart. Ensanguin'd chief.
 
 124 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Daemon in human form ! unpitied groan : 
 'T is music to the ears of raptur'd brahmins, 
 Whose shrines thou hast defiled, whose altars spurn 'd, 
 Whose gods defied. 
 
 Nad. (recovering) What barbarous sounds were 
 those ? 
 Bear from my presence that detested form, 
 In deepest dungeons let him pass his youth, 
 And never more behold the glorious sun. 
 
 ( Hamed is forced off the stage. ) 
 Ye glittering pageants of imperial pomp, 
 
 (to Maliommed and Zumani) 
 Sovereigns of humbled Hind, whose jewell'd crowns 
 And triple chains of gorgeous pearl diffuse 
 All the poor barren lustre that remains 
 To deck the throne where once great Aurengzebe 
 Gave law to half the monarchs of the globe, 
 Shadows of Timur's fallen house, begone ! 
 Lest outraged passion, kindling into madness, 
 Give the dire mandate that shall lay in dust 
 This spacious edifice, these high-rais'd tow'rs, 
 And sweep its worthless tenants from the earth. 
 
 ( Exeunt Maliommed and Zumani. 
 At early dawn let all our trumpets sound, 
 
 (to Ms officers') 
 And the loud burst of cannon through our lines
 
 A TRAGEDY. 125 
 
 Proclaim our march to Persia's capital. 
 
 Let Glory all her banner'd pomp unfurl, 
 
 And the deep thunder of the battle roll 
 
 Towards Tigris' banks, till Bagdad's bastion'd tow'rs 
 
 Reverberate the roar, and haughty Mahmud 
 
 Tremble on Constantine's imperial throne. 
 
 ( Exeunt all but Brahmins. 
 2d Brah. Despair and horror and the curse of 
 India 
 Go with thee, tyrant, through thy blood-stain'd 
 
 course ! 
 Where'er thy banner'd eagles stretch their wings, 
 Discomfiture and shame and death attend thee ! 
 A prophet's spirit rushes on my soul ; 
 I hear thy doom pronounc'd ; I mark thy fall. 
 The blackest treasured vengeance of the skies, 
 Its hottest thunderbolt, incumbent, hangs 
 Ready to burst on thy devoted head 
 And interdicted race. The countless treasures, 
 The wreck of palaces, the spoil of temples, 
 The buried wealth of plunder'd sepulchres, 
 Beneath whose weight the sturdy elephant 
 And bending camels, an unnumber'd throng, 
 Groaning, o'er barren sands their path pursue, 
 Shall in the billowy Sind's devouring stream 
 Be part ingulph'd ; nor shall thy sordid soul
 
 126 THE FALL OF THE MOGUL, 
 
 Revel on what the hungry flood shall spare, 
 Extorted by the rack, by tears, by blood. 
 A thousand furies shall thy bosom wring, 
 The vulture* brood of avarice, that shall plant 
 Eternal daggers round thy couch, and goad 
 To mutual slaughter thy contending race. 
 
 Sd Brcih. Be mine to close the dreadful catalogue— 
 The black detail of aggravated woes, 
 That rise in dire succession to confound 
 The sacrilegious plunderer of the shrines, 
 And murd'rer of the wretched sons of Brahma. 
 In wild Mazenderan's embowering glooms, 
 Fit haunt for brooding treason, what bold arm 
 Lanches the shaft of death ? A darling son, 
 His age's solace, and his empire's heir, 
 Aims at a parent's life the fatal barb 
 That wounds, but not destroys — the stern command 
 Of vengeance issues from a parent's lips; 
 His eye-balls from their bleeding sockets torn 
 Expiate his crime, and leave that sire a prey 
 To anguish and remorse. In vain he seeks 
 In glory's toils, and midst embattled fields, 
 To chase his deep despair — in vain the Turk, 
 The Tartar bend beneath his iron yoke — 
 In vain the tributary Oxus foams, 
 His distant frontier ; and the eternal snows
 
 A TRAGEDY. 127 
 
 Of craggy Caucasus salute him lord. 
 Check, barbarous ravager, thy straining steed, 
 With carnage gorg'd, and drunk with hostile gore, 
 
 Check his dire speed nor with insatiate rage 
 
 Lay waste surrounding realms, while all the bounds 
 
 Of thy vast empire are o'erflow'd with blood. 
 
 Even from the frozen Caspian, black with storms, 
 
 To the wide sea that laves the burning sands 
 
 Of scorch'd Carmania, nought but anarchy, 
 
 Treason, and massacre triumphant reign. 
 
 Thy wretched subjects, frantic with their wrongs, 
 
 On ev'ry side in fierce rebellion rise ; 
 
 Rage fires each heart, and vengeance nerves each 
 
 hand 
 To crush the crimson'd tyrant. — Ali guides 
 The righteous scymitar that drinks thy blood ; 
 Persia is free, and India is reveng'd. 
 
 END OF THE TRAGEDY.
 
 THE 
 
 LOTOS OF EGYPT, 
 
 A POEM.
 
 THE 
 
 LOTOS OF EGYPT. 
 
 Emblem sublime of that primordial Power 
 That brooded o'er the vast chaotic wave*, 
 
 Accept my duteous homage, holy flower ! 
 As in thy tav 'rite flood my limbs I lave. 
 
 From ./Ethiopia's lofty mountains rolPd, 
 Where Nile's proud stream through gladden'd Egypt 
 pours, 
 
 In raptur'd strains thy praise was hymn'd of old, 
 And still resounds on Ganges' faithful shores. 
 
 Within thy fair Corolla's full-blown bellf 
 Long since th' immortals fix'd their fond abode; 
 
 There day's bright Source, Osiris, lov'd to dwell, 
 While by his side enamour'd Isis glow'd. 
 
 * It is the nature of this celebrated aquatic plant to keep its ex- 
 panded leaves perpetually floating on the surface of the water. The 
 flower gradually unfolds itself with the rising, and closes with the 
 setting, Sun. 
 
 f To readers, not conversant with the Linnaean vocabulary, it may 
 be necessary to observe, that, by the Corolla, is meant that more 
 delicate interior covering formed of the flowers of the plant, while 
 its exterior covering, or Calyx, is formed of its leaves.
 
 132 THE LOTOS OF EGYPT. 
 
 Hence, not unconscious to his orient beam, 
 At dawn's first blush thy shining petals spread ; 
 
 Drink deep th' effulgence of the solar stream, 
 And, as he mounts, still brighter glories shed. 
 
 When, at their noontide height, his fervid rays 
 In a bright deluge burst on Cairo's spires, 
 
 With what new lustre then thy beauties blaze, 
 Full of the God, and radiant with his fires ! 
 
 Brilliant thyself in stole of dazzling white, 
 Thy sister- plants more gaudy robes infold ; 
 
 This flames in purple, — that, intensely bright, 
 Amid th* illumin'd waters burns in gold*. 
 
 To brave the tropic's fiery beam is thine, 
 Till in the distant west his splendors fade ; 
 
 Then, too, thy beauty and thy fire decline. 
 With morn to rise, in lovelier charms array'd. 
 
 Thus, from Arabia borne, on golden wings, 
 The Phoenix on the Sun's bright altar dicsf ; 
 
 * The Lotos of Egypt, the proper subject of this poem, has a 
 beautiful white flower. There are fwo other species ; the one bears 
 a bright purple, the other an intensely-yellow flower. 
 
 f The Phoenix was considered, antiently, as a symbol of the 
 Lotos ; both springing to new life from the bed on which their ashes 
 were deposited.
 
 THE LOTOS OP EGYPT. 133 
 
 But, from his flaming bed, refulgent, springs, 
 And cleaves, "with bolder plume, the sapphire skies. 
 
 What mystic treasures, in thy form conceal'd, 
 Perpetual transport to the sage supply ; 
 
 Where Nature, in her deep designs reveal'd, 
 Awes wondering man and charms th' exploring 
 eye. 
 
 In thy prolific vase, and fertile seeds, 
 Are trac'd her grand regenerative pow'rs* ; 
 
 Life, springing warm, from loath'd putrescence 
 breeds, 
 And lovelier germs shoot forth, and brighter flow'rs. 
 
 * Th'13 plant, says a great mythologist, grows in the water ; and, 
 amongst its broad leaves, puts forth a flower, in the centre of which 
 is formed the seed-vessel, shaped like a bell or inverted cone, and 
 punctuated on the top widi little cavities or cells, in which the seeds 
 grow to maturity, decay, and again shoot forth : for, the orifices of 
 these cells being too small to let the seeds drop out, when ripe, new 
 plants germinate in the places where they were formed, the bulb of 
 the vessel serving as a matrice to nourish them, until they acquire 
 such a degree of magnitude as to burst it open and release them- 
 selves j after which, like other aquatic weeds, they take root 
 wherever the current deposits them. This plant, therefore, being 
 thus productive of itself, and vegetating from its own matrice, with- 
 out being fostered in the earth, was naturally adopted as the symbol 
 of the productive power of the Deity upon the waters. See Mr. 
 Knight's Phallic Worship, p. 85.
 
 13 i THE LOTOS OF EGYPT. 
 
 Nor food to the enlightened mind alone; 
 Substantial nutriment thy root bestow'd* ; 
 
 In famine's vulture fangs did Egypt groan, 
 From thy rich, bounteous, hornf abundance flow'd. 
 
 Hence the immortal race in Thebes rever'd 
 Thy praise the theme of endless rapture made, 
 
 Thy image on a hundred columns rear'd, 
 And veil'd their altars with thine hallow'd shade. 
 
 But, far beyond the bounds of Afric borne, 
 Thy honours flourish'd 'mid Thibetian snows ; 
 
 Thy flow'rs the Lama's gilded shrines adornj, 
 And Brahme and Budha on thy stalk repose. 
 
 * The Egyptians fed on the roots, which are said, by Herodotus, 
 to grow to the size and form of an apple ; and they made a kind of 
 bread of the seeds, dried in the sun, and afterwards baked. Herodot. 
 Euterpe, cap. 92. 
 
 f The stalk and seed-cup together nearly resemble a cornucopia, 
 and might possibly have furnished the antients with their first idea 
 of that sculptural ornament : it is far more likely to have done so 
 than the horn of Amalthea, a more recent Greek fable. 
 
 £ The principal deity in Thibet, Mr. Turner informs us, is the 
 same as the Buddha of Bengal. The Hindoos make frequent pil- 
 grimages to the sacred places in Thibet, and the Thibetians regard and 
 visit, wiih holy reverence, Benares and other sacred cities of Hindo- 
 stan. In the ninth Indian Avatar, Buddha is represented sitting in 
 the expanded calyx of the Lotos, as Brahma, in the Hindoo cosmo-
 
 THE LOTOS OF EGYPT, 13b 
 
 Where'er fair Science dawn'd on Asia's shore, 
 Where'er her hallow'd voice Devotion rais'd, 
 
 We see thee graven on the glowing ore, 
 And on a thousand sparkling gems emblaz'd. 
 
 Child of the Sun, why droops thy with'ring head 
 While high in Leo flames thy radiant sire ? 
 
 With Egypt's glory is thy glory fled, 
 And with her genius quench'd thy native fire ? 
 
 Ah ! direr than her desert's burning wind, 
 Gaul's furious legions sweep yon ravag'd vale; 
 
 Death stalks before, grim famine howls behind, 
 And screams of horror load the tainted gale. 
 
 Nile's crimson'd waves, with blood polluted roll, 
 Her groves, her fanes, devouring fire consumes ; 
 
 But mark, — slow rising near the distant pole, 
 A sudden splendour all her shores illumes. 
 
 gony, is also pourtrayed on those sculptures that represent what' is 
 directly denominated the Lotos creation, to distinguish it from 
 other creations in their extensive system of the formation and de- 
 stiuction of worlds. The sacred plant of the Ganges, however, in 
 6ome respects differs from that of the Nile. Still the object of vene- 
 ration is the Lotos. Whence has arisen this marked resemblance 
 in the theological opinions of two nations, so remote from each 
 other; whence, but by tradition from their common ancestors ?
 
 136 THE LOTOS OP EGYPT. 
 
 Fatal to Gaul, 'tis Britain's Rising Star 
 That, in the south, the bright ascendant gains, 
 
 Resplendent as her Sirius shines from far, 
 And with new fervours fires the Libyan plains. 
 
 A race, as Egypt's antient warriors brave, 
 For her insulted sons indignant glows, 
 
 Defies the tropic storm, the faithless wave, 
 And hurls destruction on their haughty foes. 
 
 Exulting to his source old Nilus hears 
 The deep'ning thunder of the British line, 
 
 Again its lovely head the Lotos rears, 
 Again the fields in rainbow glories shine. 
 
 Still wider, beauteous plant, thy leaves extend, 
 Nor dread the eye of an admiring muse ; 
 
 In union with the rising song ascend, 
 Spread all thy charms and all thy sweets diffuse ! 
 
 Of that bold race, beneath the Pleiads born, 
 To chant thy praise a northern bard aspires, 
 
 Nor with more ardour, erst, at early dawn, 
 The Theban minstrels smote their votive Ivres.
 
 THE LOTOS OF EGYPT. 137 
 
 For, oh ! can climes th* excursive genius bound ? 
 No, — 'mid Siberia bursts the heav'n-taught strain ; 
 
 At either pole the muses' songs resound, 
 And snows descend and whirlwinds rage in vain. 
 
 Four thousand summers have thy pride survey'd., 
 Thy Pharaoh's moulder in thy marble tombs ; 
 
 Oblivion's wings the pyramids shall shade, 
 But thy fair family unfading blooms. 
 
 Still, 'mid these ruin'd tow'rs, admir'd, rever'd, 
 Wave high thy foliage, and secure expand; 
 
 These vast but crumbling piles by man were rear'd, 
 But thou wert form'd by an Immortal hand. 
 
 With Nature's charms alone thy charms shall fade, 
 With Being's self thy beauteous tribe decline ; 
 
 Oh ! living, may thy flow'rs my temples shade, 
 And decorate, when dead, my envied shrine.
 
 GENIUS, 
 
 A POEM.
 
 GENIUS, 
 
 A POEM; 
 
 CONTAINING AN APOLOGY FOR ITS 
 
 ERRORS AND ECCENTRICITIES: 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE 
 ANNIVERSARY OF THE LITERARY FUND, MAY 8, 1806*. 
 
 Recited by Charles Twee die, Esq. 
 
 When Man's majestic form, at Nature's birth, 
 Rose, newly fashion'd, from the teeming earth, 
 Pleased with his noblest work, th' Eternal Sire 
 A portion of his own etherial fire 
 Breathed on the senseless mass : — the kindling clay 
 Felt the pure flame, and bounded at the ray. 
 But Life with myriad humbler forms he shared. 
 For Man a nobler boon his hand prepared ; 
 
 * These verses having been considerably curtailed, for the purpose 
 of recitation, are here given at length ; and on that account they may 
 possibly appear more connected and appropriate than when spoken, 
 though delivered with all that peculiar energy and spirit which di- 
 stinguish the gentleman who undertook the kind office of recitation.
 
 143 GENIUS, A POEM. 
 
 He gave him Reason's powers, and thro* his soul 
 Bade the warm current of the Passions roll : 
 Almighty Genius, then, that hand bestow'd, 
 And all his features with the Godhead glow'd. 
 
 Uninjur'd, unimpaired, by age or clime, 
 Bright as the Sun, and as its source sublime, 
 While Time's uncounted cvcles roll away, 
 Fervid, immortal, flames its hallow'd rav. 
 
 Soul of the daring thought, and glowing lyre, 
 What shall repress its rage, or damp its fire ! 
 Unchanged by climate — at the burning line, 
 With warmth congenial glows the Spark divine ; 
 Mid Scythia's snows the tropic heat displays, 
 And pours through Lapland glooms its ardeut blaze. 
 Now, where parch'd Afric's burning sands extend, 
 And raging Cancer's glowing beams descend, 
 In dauntless Hannibal its fires behold, 
 Who o'er proud Rome the Punic thunder roll'd ; 
 'Twas Gcuius o'er the Alps his standard here, 
 And purpled Cannse with patrician gore ! 
 Now, mid the darkness of the frozen pole, 
 Behold those fires inflame great Peter's soul. 
 With daring schemes of high ambition fraught, 
 What vast conceptions fill his labouring thought !
 
 GENIUS, A POEM. 143 
 
 Of boundless empire midst a trackless wild, 
 
 The haunt of savages, with blood defiPd ! — — 
 The stern Lycurgus forms the mighty base, 
 And glows to civilize a barbarous race ; 
 In barren swamps bids tow'ring cities rise, 
 And Science bloom beneath Siberian skies ; 
 With verdure clothes the rock's incumbent brow, 
 While at his feet th' eternal forests bow ; 
 O'er half the Arctic circle spreads his reign, 
 And with new navies crowds th' astonish'd main. 
 
 E'en Slavery's bonds its radiant beams illume, 
 And penetrate the dungeon's deepest gloom ; 
 Hear laughing Terence pour his comic strains, 
 Hear fabling iEsop warbling in his chains ; 
 By Genius fired, Columbus spreads his sails, 
 And a new world the adven'trous chieftain hails. 
 By Genius led along the stormy shore, 
 Where round the Cape the thund'ring surges roar,. 
 And raging hurricanes its surface sweep, 
 Undaunted Gama ploughs the Indian deep. 
 How bright in Nelson glow'd its ardent flame ! 
 What splendours blaze, round Pitt's unrival'dnamc ! 
 Immortal patriots ! o'er whose honour'd bier 
 Virtue and Britain shed th' unceasing tear !
 
 114 GENIUS, A POEM. 
 
 O'er subject earth and seas 'tis Genius reigns, 
 And rolls the plauets through yon azure plains. 
 
 No grov'Iing native of this nether sphere, 
 The radiant child of HeavVs eternal year ! 
 Beyond the flight of vulgar thought he springs, 
 Nor human laws restrain his eagle wings ; 
 But chief the Critic's frigid rules he spurns, 
 And with his own immortal ardour burns. 
 
 To all his bold eccentric darings kind, 
 The proud excesses of a lofty mind, 
 Those errors that from burning feelings flow, 
 When high the spirits, warm the pulses glow, 
 Nor wholly overlook, nor nicely scan — 
 And for his Godlike talents spare the Man. 
 Oh ! in no mean terrestrial balance weigh 
 The good or ill that marks his brilliant day ; 
 But in that lofty balance hung on high, 
 For ever blazing in his native sky ! 
 'Tis only in celestial Libra weigh'd, 
 Genus, thy dazzling merits are displa)'d. 
 
 Reflect — through all the radiant march of time, 
 Whatever great) or daring, or sublime.
 
 GENIUS* A POEM, 145 
 
 Fills the vast volume of recording fame, 
 
 From GENIUS sprang, and hallow'd be its flame ! 
 
 As the bright Phcenix at the solar beam 
 Drinks life and vigour from its parent stream, 
 The Phcenix Genius at a fount more bright 
 Quaffs the pure blaze, and beams reflected light. 
 Like watchful Magi guard the virgin fire, 
 Nor let its blaze in penury expire ! 
 
 Would daring mortals check his bright career, 
 And chain to earth a native of the sphere ? 
 Go, the sweet influence of the Pleiads bind, 
 Bid their mild radiance cease to bless mankind ; 
 Or vast Orion with thy nod control, 
 And loose Arcturus from the gleaming pole ; 
 The madd'ning whirlwind of the South restrain, 
 And with thy plummet sound the unfathom'd main,-; — 
 When Nature thus obeys thy ruling hand, 
 Then bend proud Genius to thy 6tern command. 
 
 Think'st thou that he, whose soul delighted 
 strays 
 In the bright tract where circling planets blaze, 
 Who richer treasures than Peru can boast, 
 Or glow on wealthy India's rubied coast, 
 
 u
 
 146 GENIUS, A POEM. 
 
 Will bend his spirit of immortal birth, 
 
 To heap the treasured dross of shining earth ? 
 
 Perish the thought ! — Who sings the rolling sphere, 
 
 And paints the beauties of the vernal year, 
 
 Should taste, uribought, those bounties which it brings, 
 
 And all the sweets his muse enraptur'd sings ; 
 
 For him, with Nature's richest dainties stored, 
 
 Let pamper'd Grandeur spread the sumptuous board; 
 
 For him the Summer's golden fruits should glow, 
 
 And the rich torrent of the vintage flow : 
 
 Who to the banquet gives its genuine zest, 
 
 For 1dm, Mm only should the grape be prest. 
 
 Yours is the sacred charge, by Heav'n assign'd, 
 On earth to cherish this proud Child of Mind. 
 That charge how glorious ! how sublime the trust ! 
 To Heav'n be faithful, — and to Man be just. 
 Guard this rich gem of the celestial mine, 
 And bid its light to latest ages shine. 
 Behold, with all the glow of Genius nYd, 
 For letters with unbounded zeal inspir'd, 
 That Prince — whose heart beats high for Britain's 
 
 fame, 
 And bounds at Liberty's transporting name, 
 On Heav'n-born Talent sheds a cheering ray, 
 Auspicious promise of a brighter day !
 
 GENIUS, A POEM. 147 
 
 Nor unrequited shall his bounty stream — 
 Genius rolls back the bright reflected beam ; 
 For cherish'd fires confers sublime renown, 
 And with new glories gilds the British Crown. 
 Foster'd by You, — beneath these frozen skies, , 
 I see new Shakespeares, Spensers, Miltons rise. 
 I hear new Drydens, but in manlier strain, 
 Resound some future George's glorious reign J 
 And other Jones's, if the Fates are kind, 
 With all their talents, all their fires combin'd, 
 In Orient climes uphold the British name, 
 And bless the FUND that nurs'd their rising flame.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Author intended to have added to the preceding 
 effusions the Elegiac Verses, which, at the desire of 
 friends too partial to his Muse, he is composing on the Death 
 of the late Right Honourable WILLIAM PITT, who has 
 had fewer tributes of that kind paid to his memory than so 
 illustrious a Character deserved. The reason is obvious. To 
 do full justice to the distinguished virtues, the exalted genius, 
 the vast political projects of such a man as Mr. Pitt, re- 
 quired no common labour and exertion, and is the real cause 
 that they are not now presented to the reader. In the intended 
 Poem, however, of RICHMOND HILL, those verses will 
 be inserted with peculiar propriety ; when the Muse on her 
 wide-expanded wing, traversing the delightful county of 
 Surry, after visiting the monastic ruins of Merton, and 
 paying her respects to the memory of the immortal NELSON, 
 shall reach the environs of Putney, where, alas! too soon 
 succeeding his friend, the illustrious PITT expired. Of that 
 production, which is intended to be on a magnificent scale, 
 the annexed Account and Prospectus are respectfully submitted 
 to the indulgent Public.
 
 Shortly will he Published, by Sulsciiptioiiy 
 
 DECORATED WITH ENGRAVINGS, 
 
 RICHMOND HILL; 
 
 A 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE AND HISTORICAL POEM 
 INTENDED TO BE ILLUSTRATIVE OF 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL OBJECTS VIEWED FROM 
 
 THAT BEAUTIFUL EMINENCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF INDIAN ANTIQUITIES, 
 
 CONDITIONS. 
 
 I. Richmond Hill will be printed at the Press of \V. Bdl- 
 mer and Co. in a similar manner with Grove Hill* 
 
 II. The pucient Palace at Piichmond, erected by Hen. V1T- 
 and engraved by Hollar, will form the Frontispiece j and one 
 other plate at least will be given in the course of the work. 
 
 III. Subscriptions at One Guinea will be received 'by- 
 Mr. Buhner, Shakespeare Printing-Office; Mr. White, Fleet- 
 street ; and the Author, at the British Museum.
 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The tumult of war, and the ravages caused by ambition, contrasted 
 with those images of rural tranquillity and abundance suggested 
 by the subject. — Apostrophe to the Genii who may be presumed to 
 guard the haunts of Britain's departed Kings. — Dedication of the 
 Poem to Lord Viscount Sidmouth, resident in Richmond Park. — 
 General view of objects from Richmond Hill, including the Royal 
 Gardens — compared with the most celebrated hills of antiquity. — 
 Richmond the Parnassus, and its vale the Tempe, of Britain. — 
 Poets who have preceded the Author in describing their beauties, 
 and those of the adjoining districts — Denham — Pope — Thomson — 
 Collins — Gray, — Historical retrospect on the glorious actions of 
 those ancient princes who were born, or flourished, at Richmond — 
 Henry the Third, the Fifth, and the Seventh ; the last of whom 
 erected the ancient palace, of which an engraved plate from Hol- 
 lar forms the Frontispiece — Elizabeth — the ancient Palace of 
 Richmond described — its gaudy decorations in painting and 
 sculpture, descriptive of the wars and triumphs of its early 
 princes, and the athletic games of the ancient Britons. — The 
 ancient and renowned Monastery of Sheen, founded by Henry V. 
 described. — Gothic Architecture.' — Painted windows, roofs, and 
 walls. — Grandeur of the Roman Catholic worship, especially in 
 the circumstance of music. — The neighbouring convent and beau- 
 tiful groves of Sion. — Henry VIII. — his sanguinary atrocities 
 stigmatized — Induced by his boundless profusion, rather than any 
 real zeal for religion, he seizes on the monasteries, and con- 
 fiscates their immense treasures — The distractions and distress
 
 C 151 ] 
 
 consequent among an order of men who, in many instances, however 
 reprehensible their superstition, were the patrons, and their abodes 
 the depositaries, of Science — Those at Sheen and Sxon more 
 particularly described. — The glory of Sheen revived when it 
 became the residence of the illustrious Temple — Swift— Stella— 
 and of Sion, when inhabited by the noble families of Percy and 
 Marlborough. — The evening prospect from Richmond Hill— -» 
 Wimbledon, Earl Spencer — Chiswick, Duke of Devonshire— 
 Merton Abbey, Lord NELSON— Putney, Mr. PITT— with 
 appropriate elegiac lines on the death of that great statesman, who 
 expired at Putney in January 1806 — Hampton Court, Cardi- 
 nal Wolsey — Windsor Castle. — The whole concluding with a 
 view of the New Palace, erected by his present Majesty — and 
 a fervent address to the Deity for the restoration of the blessings 
 of Peace to desolated Europe. 
 
 SHEEN. 
 
 In times when barbarous Superstition reign'd, 
 And Rome's resplendent rites the soul enchain'd, 
 At Sheen, in all its bright insignia drest, 
 Where prostrate kings the hallow'd pavement prest, 
 And mitred priests, while rapt Devotion gaz'd, 
 On high the consecrated chalice rais'd;
 
 How radiant blaz'd the altar's cherish'd fire I 
 How grand the Music of the swelling quire J 
 Now o'er some valiant chief, in battle slain, 
 Syniphonious flow'd the solemn dirge-like strain, 
 While o*er his dust, with funeral pomp inurn'd, 
 The glimmering lamp of midnight vigil burn'd. 
 Now, in resounding chorus, rcll'd along 
 The full o'erflowing tide of sacred song ; 
 A hundred burning censers breathe perfume; 
 A hundred tapers light the blazing dome. 
 On wings of fire the fervid soul ascends, 
 And tow'rds its parent source enraptur'd bends. 
 The beaten cymbals and deep-chorded shell 
 Sound to the sacred trumpet's solemn swell ; 
 Their powerful aid unnumber'd voices join. 
 And loud Hosannas rend the vaulted shrine. 
 
 Refulgent blaz'd the pictured roofs, array d 
 In all the dazzling pomp of light and shade, 
 While gold and azure charm'd th' admiring eyes. 
 And cherubs floated in cerulean skies. 
 A master's hand had sketch'd the bold design, 
 The fire of genius mark'd each glowing line, 
 Devotion's radiant symbols flam'd above, 
 The dazzling wonders of Redeeming Love —
 
 C 153 ] 
 
 The star that, sparkling with unrivall'd rays, 
 
 O'er humble Bethlem * shed its hallow'd blaze — 
 
 The Dove, refulgent with the silver wings, 
 
 That hovering paus'd o'er Jordan's sacred springs, 
 
 And, settling on the Saviour's lowly head, 
 
 Bright as ten thousand suns, its glories shed — 
 
 All that in faith transports, in virtue charms, 
 
 All that iti guilt the shudd'ring soul alarms, 
 
 Heaven's awful visions, bursting on the sight, 
 
 In rays that glow'd insufferably bright, 
 
 From the proud roofs and pictur'd windows stream'd, 
 
 And through the dome in rainbow glory beam'd. 
 
 * The Monastery of Sheen was denominated by the founder, 
 Henry the Fifth, " The House of Jesus of Bethleem at Sheen;" 
 (see Dugdale:) these emblematic devices, therefore, though the 
 invention of the poet, may well be presumed to have formed a part 
 •f its decorations. 
 
 R. TuijIot ;5~ Co. I'rinteis, 38, Shue-Lane. 
 
 X
 
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