BOOKS.

ERSKINE'S HISTORY OF INDIA UNDER HABER AND IITJMAYIIN.*

THE necessity of association or sympathy to excite interest in a reader, is clearly shown by the little regard paid to Asiatic and more especially to Indian history. The events were as great in the sense of magnitude as those of any European ;era except per- haps the Roman and French revolutions; the changes of fortune were more various and surprising than anything in Europe; the courage and capacity of the actors were as remarkable as those of our Northern heroes. But they were employed in actions which do not concern us, and did not so directly, in our opinion, influence the progress of mankind. The geography, if not unknown, is not familiar; the names of men, puzzling in themselves, are made more so than they need be, by the pedantry of the writers. Instead of ex- plaining the difference between the personal name, the sobriquet, and the titles, (for they are often combined,) selecting once for all the most appropriate or usual name, and adhering to it, the historian frequently applies two or three different names to the same indi- vidual, and that in the compass of a page or two. There is, how- ever, a more substantial cause for the indifference with which the ancient history of India is regarded, to be found in the nature of the facts and the manner in which they are recorded. Of Hindu history before the first Mahometan invasion we really know little more than what the Greek writers on Alexander's expedition have related. The authorities for the Mahometan period are fuller, es- pecially as regards the house of Timour or the Great Moguls. But in the narrative of events they are often partial and vague, the definite being too often overlaid by inflated panegyric or virulent accusation. However rapid the events or great the revolutions, there is no permanence ; as if conquerors wanted the capacity to found a state, or the materials defeated the purpose of the builder. The five hundred years which intervened between Mahmoud of Ghazni and Baler witnessed at least half a dozen different Ma- hometan dynasties, and some of them hardly to be called dynas- ties, for the monarchs were not really of one family.

A. C.

1. Mahmoud of Ghazni 1001 .. 1186.

2. Muhammed of Ghur 1193 .. 1288.

3. The Khiljis . 1288 .. 1321.

4. The Toghlaks 1321 .. 1412.

5. Invasion of Timour the Tartar, who

placed a Viceroy on the throne, which was assumed by his descend-

ants, and called the Scycd dynasty 1412 .. 1450.

6. The Behlol or Lodi dynasty, an Af-

ghan race, supported by Affghans 1450 .. 1526.

The dynasty of Baber lasted from the battle of Panipat, in 1526, till it was finally overthrown by Wellesley ; though nominally it still endures, the Company being in theory the vassals of the Great Mogul. This period is undoubtedly the most interesting of the native Indian annals. The authorities are fuller and better; European observers come in at intervals to add precision and variety of view to the native historians or memoir-writers ; several of the Moguls were men of great capacity ; and towards the close, English interests are blended with the state of the empire if not with the character of the Emperors. Still the prosperous pe- riod of this dynasty was brief for an empire. Baber died before he had thoroughly established his government. His son Humayun was driven from his throne, and remained an exile for many years. It was not till the reign of Akber, who as- cended the throne in 1556, that the Mogul dynasty was really settled ; and it was actually overthrown in 1735 by the invasion of Nadir Shah. Even in its palmiest days, it is the biography of a sovereign, not the history of a nation, with which we have to deal. Unless the monarch was a man of vigour and capacity, confusion ensued ; the governors of the larger provinces acted as if they were Independent; banditti, in large or small bodies, infested the coun- try; enemies on the frontiers made marauding incursions ; the peaceable inhabitants were robbed, oppressed, and subjected to vio- lence, by whemsoever had a passing power. The wonder is, not that India should have been poor—for such the people at large really seem to have been, in spite of the popular notions of its riches—but that they should have existed in such numbers after eight hundred years of almost unceasing war and anarchy.

The work of which the two posthumous volumes before us form the beginning was to have been devoted to a history of the Great Moguls, on a scale which, for the reasons already given, we think excessive. The complete history of these sovereigns of a remote empire, extending at the very utmost over less than four hundred years, and as regards their free agency not exceeding three hun-

• A History of India under the two first Sovereigns of the House of Taimour, 114her and Hamayun. By William Erskine, Esq., Translator of "Memoirs of the Emperor Haber." In two volumes. Published by Longman and Co. dred years, would have equalled in length any history of England, of Greece, or Rome, by standard authors. Mr. Erskine, we con- ceive, adopted a wrong plan. Partly, as we have said, from its remoteness from European associations, and partly from inherent peculiarities, the history of India and Tartary has little at- traction. This remark, however, does not apply to individual character, to national manners, and to information on the insti- tutions, religion, arts, and literature of the people. The trans- lator, and indeed the introducer to Europe of that delightful and unequalled work the autobiography of the Emperor Baber, was not likely to overlook the personal traits of his hero, or lose sight of the gifted, genial, unaffected man, in the emperor ; nor does he do so in the case of other eminent personages. But the hook is planned too much on the old received mode of composing history ; where bat- tles, sieges, and the actions of a few great men, are the topics of the narrative. The personal traits, not forming an essential feature of the design, lose somewhat of their effect coming in as it were by the by.

The question whether an actual knowledge of India is bene- ficial or otherwise to the historian, has been mooted without being decided. -Unless in the case of a man of genius, Indian expe- rience does not conduce to the production of a popular book. The writer is likely to become more infested with forms than occupied with essentials, and to acquire a puerile habit of showing his know- ledge. Mr. Erskine exhibits some of this in an introduction and episodes on the history of the Tartars and the various races which lie between Tartary and India. Some knowledge of all this was indeed necessary to explain the history of India ; but he tells the story as if it were of moment for itself. When it is considered that his work professes to be a history of the Emperor Baber, his earlier fortunes are too fully dwelt upon. The temptation, no doubt, was great; but it should have been remembered that those who wanted a life of the man could refer to Mr. Erskine's trans- lation of the autobiography. Those readers who will give their minds to the task of studying at large the Indian events of the first half of the sixteenth century, and the causes which led to them, will find in these volumes ample means of doing so. For general purposes, Mr. Elphinstone's remains the " History of India."