sidered as the lawful Imaun, was then elevated to the throne; of whom the fifth in descent, Kaher Shah, fell, after a weak and ineffectual struggle, under the power of Hoolakoo Khan, the grandson of Chengiz; who, while his brothers led on their Moguls into Europe and China, overran, in a single campaign, at the head of 150,000 cavalry, all Persia, Mesopotamia, and Syria.

The Moguls ruled Persia something more than a century. During this time they were for the most part in so close an alliance with the Christians against their common enemy, the Soldans of Egypt and Syria, that many of them were suspected of having privately received baptism, and to this source many of the wild tales of Prester John may be with great probability referred. One of these monarchs, Key Katou, is also remarkable in history as the first who introduced a paper currency into his dominions,--a measure which had been already tried by the Mogul monarchs of China, but was hitherto as little known in Persia as in Europe. It completely failed in both instances.

The last of the descendants of Chengiz Khan gave way to the younger fortunes of Timour, or Tamerlane. The history of this warlike barbarian, who, after founding an empire more extensive than the life of any other man has sufficed to traverse, was arrested, like a tyrant of later days, in his schemes of universal sovereignty by the rigours of a premature winter, which prevented his march to China,* is sufficiently known to most of our readers.

*The description of this event in Jbn Arabshah, which Sir J. Malcolm has given, almost naturally slides into poetry.

Emirs and Khans in long array

To Timur's council bent their way:
The lordly Tartar vaunting high,
The Persian with dejected eye,
The vassal Russ, and, lured from far,
The German's mercenary war,-
But one there came, uncall'd and last,
The Spirit of the wintry blast!
He heard, as wrapt in mist he stood,
The purpos'd track of spoil and blood;
He mark'd, unmov'd by mortal woe,
That old man's eye of swarthy glow,
That tameless soul, whose single pride
Was cause enough that million's died:-
He heard, he saw, till envy woke,
And thus the voice of thunder spoke.
"And hop'st thou thus, in pride unfurl'd,
To bear thy banners through the world?
Can time nor space thy wrath defy?
Oh king, thy fellow-demon I!
Servants of Death, alike we sweep
The wasted earth, or shrinking deep;
And on the land and o'er the wave
We reap the harvest of the grave.--

But it is not so generally known that the extraordinary perseverance which was the feature most remarkably displayed in his character, during a fifty years' continued series of battles, was excited first by an incident almost similar to that which in a better cause encouraged Robert Bruce to similar exertions.

""I once," said Timour, "was forced to take shelter from my enemies in a ruined building, where I sat alone many hours. Desiring to divert my mind from my hopeless condition, I fixed my observation on an ant that was carrying a grain of corn larger than herself up a high wall. I numbered the efforts it made to accomplish this object. The grain fell sixty-nine times to the ground; but the insect persevered, and the seventieth time it reached the top of the wall. This sight," said Timur, gave me courage at the moment; and I have never forgotten the lesson it conveyed."'

After the death of Timour his empire was torn in pieces by the quarrels of his children and grand-children;-and Persia, though fortunate in the wise and benevolent reign of Shah Rokh, was ravaged by the internal feuds of the Turkomans of the White and Black Sheep,' so called from bearing the figure of this animal on their standards. The talents of Uzun Hussun, the most successful of these chieftains, were unable to leave an undivided power in the hands of any one of his descendants; and their dissentions not only accelerated their own ruin, but prepared the way for a dynasty of a very different character from any which had yet governed Persia.

There had resided for many years at Ardebil a family who, though in a private station, had enjoyed very considerable influence by their descent from Moossâh, the seventh imaum, and by an hereditary reputation of sanctity. It was one of these, Suffee-udeen, who, when Timour paid him a visit and desired to know what favour he could confer on him, obtained immortal honour by the disinterested and humane request that the conqueror would set at liberty his wretched Turkish captives.

The conqueror complied; and the grateful tribes, when they regained their liberty, declared themselves the devoted disciples of him to whom they owed it. Their children preserved sacred the obligation of their father, and the descendants of the captives of Timour became the sup

And thickest then that harvest lies,
And richest carnage taints the skies,
And few the mourners that remain,
When Winter leagues with Tamerlane!
But on, to work our Chief's decree,
Then, tyrant, turn and cope with me;
And learn, though far thy trophies shine,
How deadlier are my blasts than thine;
Nor cities burnt, nor blood of men,
Nor thine own pride shall warm thee then."

porters of the family of Suffee.-History does not furnish us with a better motive for obedience, or a nobler origin of power.'

The increasing fame of Juneyd, (the great grandson of this benevolent imaum,) and the crowd of disciples by which he was always attended, provoked the jealousy of the Turkomans of the Black Sheep, and Juneyd was banished from his native province. His son, Hyder, who first assumed the title of Sultan, had recourse to arms to avenge his father; and after many reverses, during which Hyder obtained what was, in the estimation of his followers, the crown of martyrdom, Sultan Ismail, his third son, was acknowledged king of Persia. His success was mainly attributable to the seven Turkish tribes whose ancestors Suffee-u-deen had redeemed from slavery; and who, as the most attached and trusty followers of the king, were distinguished by the privilege of wearing a red cap, and by the name of Kuzel-Bash, or 'Golden Heads,' which has descended to their posterity.

Though defeated in a pitched battle by the cannon of the Turkish Sultan Selim, the reign of Ismail, on the whole, was prosperous. His descendants sat on the throne for more than two hundred years; and their family name of Suffee, corrupted by European writers into Sophy, was long identified in the west with the idea of Persian royalty and magnificence. The change, however, which he introduced was not confined to the erection of a new family of kings. The pious ancestors of Ismail had always cherished a remarkable veneration for Aly, the nephew and son-in-law of Mahomet, in preference to Abuhehen, Omar, and Osman, by whom he was excluded from the Caliphate; and it is from the increase of the Suffavean power that the establishment is to be dated of that great schism which has divided the greater part of Persia from the faith of the orthodox or Sunnite Mahommedans. The stimulus of these new opinions, and the religious zeal with which they were adopted, appear to have been beneficial to the national character: and there is no period in modern times during which the kingdom of Persia has been more distinguished, than under the authority of these fortunate saints.

In the reign of Tâhmasp, the son of Ismail, the first English embassy was sent to Persia, by our Queen Elizabeth, and this king was more favourably distinguished as the protector of Hoomâyoon, emperor of Hindostan, whom he received, in his exile, with magnificent hospitality, and to whom he furnished the most prompt and efficacious succours in enabling him to regain his throne. Ismail and Mahomed, two debauched and wicked princes, not a little tarnished the sanctity of their race; but all was retrieved by the magnificence, good fortune, and superior holiness of Abbas the Great, the friend of the two brothers Anthony and

Robert Shirley, the chastiser of the Turks and Uzbegs,-and the last of all her rulers under whose authority Persia enjoyed unmixed prosperity. The foreign exploits and domestic magnificence of this prince are familiar to Europeans. His liberality to foreigners even of a different religion-his public works and vigorous administration-were undoubtedly of the greatest service to his country; and it is certainly possible that many of those severities which in the estimation of western historians have branded his memory with the name of tyrant, may have been rendered necessary by the mis, rule in which Persia was thrown at his accession, and have been rendered more apparent to the foreign visitants of his court by that invariable custom of the East, which makes the sovereign the personal administrator of justice, and the court of his palace the usual place of execution. Like Peter the Great, under similar circumstances, Abbas found it necessary to begin his reform with the ruin of those bodies of armed men on whom his ancestors had chiefly depended, but who now, like the janizaries of Turkey, and the Muscovite streletzi, were become the enemies to all reform and improvement, and the most arrogant controlers of their sovereign. In the formation of a standing army, to supply the place of this factious soldiery, he appears to have derived very considerable advantage from the European tactics of Shirley; but one of the expedients to which he resorted is singularly characteristic of the country in which he lived.

'He formed a tribe of his own, in opposition to those of the Kuzelbash; which he styled Shah Sevund, or "the king's friends ;" and he invited men of all tribes to enrol themselves in a clan, which he considered as devoted to his family, and therefore distinguished by his peculiar favour and protection. Volunteers could not be wanting at such a call; and we have one instance of ten thousand men being registered by the name of Shah Sevund in one day. This tribe, which became remarkable for its attachment to the Suffavean dynasty, still exists in Persia, though with diminished numbers. It could once boast of more than a hundred thousand families.'

But it was only in his public and official character that Abbas can be praised.-Constantine, Philip II. the Czar Peter, Amurath, Herod himself, all who have been most infamous for unnatural cruelty to their offspring, must give place in that hideous eminence to this saintly monarch! who, while he affected to preserve his hereditary character of devotee, murdered his heir, and confined his two remaining sons in dungeons, having first deprived them of sight, One of these, Khoda-bunda, took a horrible vengeance on his oppressor,

'Shut out from the light of day, the Prince became gloomy and desperate, He had two children, of whom the eldest, Fatimah, a lovely

girl, was a great favourite of her grandfather, over whose mind she had acquired the most astonishing influence. Abbas appeared miserable when little Fatimah was not near him, and her voice alone could soothe him when ruffled by those violent passions to which he every day became more subject. The prince learned, with savage delight, how essential his daughter had become to the happiness of his father, and seizing her, as she came one day to fondle upon his bosom, with all the fury of a maniac, he in an instant deprived her of life.—The rage and despair into which Abbas was thrown gave a momentary joy to his son, who, glutted with his terrible vengeance, concluded the scene by swallowing a dose of poison.'-vol. i. p. 564.

This was not the only punishment which visited the declining years of Abbas. His son was no sooner lost than he became the object of the incessant regret and tears of his unnatural father, who vainly sought for comfort in putting to death, one after the other, all those sycophants who had poisoned his mind against a prince who bid fair to have been an ornament to the throne. For Beh-bood Khan, the immediate instrument of his guilt, he reserved a more inhuman punishment.

"I

He commanded that obsequious lord to bring him the head of his own son. The devoted slave obeyed. As he presented the head of the youth, Abbas demanded, with a smile of bitter scorn, how he felt?am miserable," was the reply. "You should be happy, Beh-bood," said Abbas; "for you are ambitious, and in your feelings you are at this moment the equal of your sovereign.'

The descendants of Abbas had his vices without his talents; they were addicted to drunkenness to a degree astonishing in Mahommedans, and continually wavering between a childish fondness for different worthless favourites and freaks of cruelty only paralleled in Europe by the worst Roman emperors. They were tolerant, however, to Christians; and though the Persian character, under such masters, rapidly lost what little of inherent value and dignity it had previously possessed, the country, on the whole, continued prosperous, and free from internal dissentions, till the Affghans, who, being of the Sunnite persuasion, had been severely oppressed by the bigotry of their Sheah masters, revolted from Sultan Hussein, the last of the Suffavean dynasty who enjoyed any real power; and, after a long and bloody war, distinguished by more than an usual share of the horrors incident to rebellion, succeeded in placing their leader, Mahmood, on the throne of Ispahan. But this revolution was only the beginning of sorrows. The internal dissentions of Persia were a signal to her neighbours to invade her territory. Peter the Great of Russia besieged and took Derbund and Baku; the Turks invaded Curdistan; the citizens of Casveen rose in despair against the savage avarice of their new sovereigns; and the