Akbar Was Wont, Upon Taking Any
Displeasure At One Of His Grandees, To Give Them Pills To Purge Their
Souls From Their Bodies, And Is Said To Have Come By His Death In The
Following Manner.
Intending to give one of these pills to a nobleman who
had incurred his displeasure, and meaning to take
At the same time a
cordial pill himself, while he was cajoling the destined victim with
flattering speeches, he, by mistake, took the poisoned pill himself, and
gave the cordial to the nobleman. This carried him off in a few days, by
a mortal flux of blood.[244]
[Footnote 244: Neque enim lex justior ulla est, quam necis artifices
arte perire sua. - Purch.]
The character of Jehanguire, the reigning Mogul, seems strangely
compounded of opposite extremes. He is at times excessively cruel, and
at other times extremely mild. He is himself much given to excess in
wine, yet severely punishes that fault in others. His subjects know not
what it is to disobey his commands, forgetting the natural bonds of
private life, even those between father and son, in the fulfilment of
their public duty. He daily relieves numbers of the poor; and often, as
a mark of his filial piety, is in use to carry the palanquin of his
mother on his own shoulders. He speaks with much reverence of our
Saviour, but is offended by his cross and poverty, deeming them
incompatible with his divine Majesty, though told that his humility was
on purpose to subdue the pride of the world.
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