It could not be expected that in the absence of the art of printing such a work should be correctly transmitted for any length of time. The mere copyist is a person whose principal duty is to write a fair hand; to acquire which forms the whole business of his life. The method and preci­sion that are necessary in this occupation are for the most part obtained by sedentary habits. The transcriber despairs of becoming a scholar, and his avocation prevents his being a traveller; yet who but a traveller and a scholar, in countries where maps are unknown, can be acquainted with the various proper names of persons and tribes per­vading a work of this nature, or with the correct titles and positions of places which occur through­out?

Of all the languages in the world, the Persian character is, perhaps, the most difficult to de­cipher with accuracy, and the most liable to ??r-thographical errors. In writing it, the diacritical points, by which alone any thing like certainty is attainable, are frequently omitted; and in an alphabet, where a dot above a letter is negative, and one below the same letter is positive, who shall venture to decide, in an obscure passage, which is correct? or how is it possible that a person unacquainted with the true orthography of proper names can render a faithful transcript of a carelessly written original? These obstacles occur in every page of Ferishta; and unlike a work of fancy or taste, the reader of history is rigidly bound to adhere to the letter of the text. It would be useless and unprofitable to enumerate all the difficulties that arise in attempting to collate a work of this nature, for I am persuaded that such a task can only be properly accomplished by some public institution. Fortunately the person who was my first assistant in 1812 remained with me till I left India in 1827, and his whole life had been devoted to the study of Indian history. At my request, he travelled for several years successively throughout the Deccan, and made copies of every Persian inscription on stone to be found in all the towns of note in that country. These inscriptions have been chiefly useful in de­termining dates, whether of persons deceased or of buildings erected; and the result of his labours enabled me to add marginal notes to the ori­ginal. In addition, a glossary of obsolete words found in Ferishta has been formed, and appended to the Persian text. The individual to whom I feel myself bound to say I owe so much is Meer Kheirat Ally Khan, commonly called Mooshtak, a person of good family in Akburabad (Agra), and who is at present the Persian secretary, or moonshy, at the residency at Satara.

It has been observed by Dr. Spelman, in his translation of Xenophon, “that there is not a more “difficult, a more discouraging, (but he adds) or a “more useful task than that of a translator;” and Pope, in the preface to his Iliad, remarks, “that “there have not been more men misled in former “times by a servile, dull adherence to the letter, “than have been deluded in ours by a chimerical, “insolent hope of raising and improving their “author.” It has been my wish to avoid both these errors by giving Ferishta to the public in the very words he would probably have used, had he, as a native of the East, written in English.

I have ventured to make no alterations, but have endeavoured to render obscure passages clear, by explanatory notes. In some places I have omitted the poetry that occasionally intervenes, as it seems rather to clog than elucidate the subject; and the chapter on the Saints, which has no relation to the history, has been altogether excluded. In the arrangement of the work I have followed the order of the original, which appears to have been modelled with great good sense and correct taste, and it seems to me preferable to that adopted in the History of modern Europe by Russell. Had Ferishta preserved in mere chronological succession the events of the several different monarchies, and represented them in the order they occurred, it would have been extremely difficult to follow the thread of the entire history. He has, therefore, given the account of every kingdom separately, and has a chapter for each complete in itself. By way of convenience to those who peruse the translation, I have affixed at the beginning of every dynasty a short genealogical table of each royal family, which makes it easy for the reader to refresh his memory, at any period of the history, with the relation the several princes of the blood bear to one another. This idea suggested itself to me many years ago in studying the wars of the houses of York and Lancaster, and I have since usually adopted the plan in the perusal of other histories. In addition to this aid, a chronological synopsis of the events which were simultaneously occurring in Europe and in India is also appended.

In the third volume, instead of a recapitulation of the events of Europe, I have added an ab­stract of the Portuguese annals in Asia, from Faria-é-Souza, as belonging to the period and the histories of the kingdoms with which the Europeans came in contact in the sixteenth cen­tury. To prevent, as much as possible, the con­fusion which would otherwise have occurred, from princes bearing the same name being engaged in war with each other (as is sometimes the case even in European history), I have been careful to preserve to each family some distinguishing appellation. Thus, for instance, in the first volume, the kings of Ghizny bear the title of Sooltan, which was bestowed on Mahmood the Great by the Caliph of Bagdad. The several other dynasties or families of Ghoory, Eibuk, Altmish, Bulbun, Khiljy, Toghluk, Syud, and Lody, have their fixed designation, and cannot well be confounded. In the second volume, the title of Padshah, assumed by Babur, belongs exclu­sively to the whole race of the Great Mogul. The intermediate Afghan family has its peculiar name of Soor, while the first dynasty of the kings of the Dec-can is entitled Bahmuny. In the third volume will be found the kings of the minor Deccany monarchies, with their especial affixes of Adil Shah of Beejapoor, Nizam Shah of Ahmudnuggur, Kootb Shah of Gol­conda or Hydrabad, Imad Shah of Berar, and Be-reed Shah of Bidur. Ferishta laments that he was unable to procure any history of the kings of Gol­conda or Hydrabad; but begs if such a work should ever appear, that it may be included in his. This deficiency I have been able to supply, and it is added as an appendix in the body of the third volume. In the fourth volume, the title of Shah is affixed to denote the kings of Guzerat, while that of Sooltan is prefixed to distinguish those of Malwa. The Kandeish princes of the race of Farook were content to assume the title of Khan, and may be thus known. The Jam dynasty of Sind, the Lunga family of Mooltan, and the Chuk race of Kashmeer, has each its peculiar denomination; while the titles of Shurky and Poorby serve to mark the kings of Joonpoor and Bengal.

The perusal of this history cannot be otherwise than instructive, if it be merely to show the certain effects of good and bad government among a people whom our ignorance disposes us to consider as de­void of moral energy, and who are prone to submit without resistance to the grossest oppression. It is not my intention to dilate on the origin of this misconception of the Indian character, and a vo­lume would not suffice to point out all the instances to the contrary with which the work abounds. The rapid success of Akbur in subjugating the greater portion of India, by a policy which elevated all classes of his subjects, whether newly subdued or otherwise, and of whatever creed or country, to the level to which their rank in society entitled them; and the rapid downfall of the government of Aurungzeeb, who oppressed the Hindoo popu­lation by a poll-tax, and by disqualifications from public employ, are the most striking which occur in the Mahomedan history. The early success of the Portuguese under Albuquerque and Nuno de Cunha may be chiefly ascribed to the confidence they reposed in the natives; and the decline of their power may be dated from the time when, under the name of religion, they persecuted them on account of their national tenets. These events form prominent land-marks in history which our own rulers seem prudently to have avoided.

It was the wisdom, or, perhaps, the good fortune, of the ruling administration in England, to select such governors as Clive and Hastings, in the early part of our Eastern career, who formed the ground­work of our gigantic dominion in the East; and it is to the great men who have subsequently ruled those possessions that they owe their present pros­perity.

This is not the place to discuss a question of such magnitude. The present form of administration has arisen out of circumstances foreign to the ob­jects contemplated in the original institution of the commercial body which now presides over it, but it stands pre-eminent among all the political pheno­mena in the annals of history. To appreciate this engine of government fully, it is necessary, not only to view it as a whole, but to observe the course of its action; and the more it is examined, the more one is struck with the magnitude of its power, and the energy and efficiency of its operation. It is a subject for deep speculation, how, if it were re­moved, its place could be supplied; but we may, I think, pronounce with confidence, that whosoever shall venture to do so, either by changing its con­stitution, or even by violently disturbing its mo­tion, will incur the risk of involving in ruin the British power in India.