The Akbar-náma enjoys a much higher reputation in India than in Europe. The passage above quoted from the Ma-ásiru-l Umará is a fair and temperate expression of Oriental judgment. Sir Henry Elliot, whose opinion coincides with that expressed by Elphinstone, and adopted by Morley, gives an unfavourable verdict. He says, “The authority of the Akbar-náma is not rated very high in Europe, and Abú-l Fazl is not for a moment to be compared, either in frankness or simplicity, with Comines, Sully, Clarendon and other ministers who have written contemporary history; for though he was a man of enlarged views and extra­ordinary talents, yet, as Elphinstone remarks, he was a professed rhetorician, and is still the model of the unnatural style which is so much admired in India. He was, besides, a most assiduous courtier, eager to extol the virtues, to gloss over the crimes, and to preserve the dignity of his master and those in whom he was interested. His dates and his general statements of events are valuable; but he requires constant attention, not so much to guard against his barefaced partiality, as against the prejudice which he draws on his favourites by his fawning and fulsome adula­tion of them, and against the suspicions which he excites by his dishonest way of telling a story, even in cases where the action related was innocent or excusable. His narrative is florid, feeble and indistinct, overloaded with commonplace reflections and pious effusions, generally ending in a compliment to his patron. ‘Every event that had a tendency to take from his goodness, wisdom, or power, is passed over or mis-stated, and a uniform strain of panegyric and triumph is kept up, which disgusts the reader with the author, and almost with the hero. Amidst these un­meaning flourishes, the real merits of Akbar disappear, and it is from other authors that we learn the motives of his actions, the difficulties he had to contend with, and the resources by which they were surmounted. The gross flattery of a book written by one so well acquainted with Akbar's disposition, and submitted, it appears, to his own inspection, leaves an impression of the vanity of that prince, which is almost the only blot on his other­wise admirable character.’”*

A careful examination of the whole of the book, and the translating of many passages, compel the Editor of this work to withhold his assent from this unqualified condemnation. It is true that in certain passages Abú-l Fazl attributes to Akbar a prescience which approaches to prophecy and powers almost supernatural; but, as Price observes, his veneration for the Emperor amounted almost to adoration. Apart from these oc­casional blemishes, his faults are those of the rhetorician rather than of the flatterer, and his style ought to be judged by an Oriental standard, not by a contrast with the choicest of Euro­pean memoirs. But though the Editor had arrived at this judg­ment, he might have hesitated to express it here, had it not been confirmed by the independent opinion of a competent authority. In the preface to his Áín-i Akbarí but just arrived in England, Mr. Blochmann says: “Abú-l Fazl has far too often been accused by European writers of flattery, and even of wilful concealment of facts damaging to the reputation of his master. A study of the Akbar-náma will show that the charge is absolutely unfounded; and if we compare his works with other historical productions of the East, we shall find that while he praises, he does so infinitely less, and with much more grace and dignity, than any other Indian historian or poet. No native writer has ever accused him of flattery; and if we bear in mind that all Eastern works on Ethics recommend unconditional assent to the opinion of the king, whether correct or absurd, as the whole duty of man, and that the whole poetry of the East is a rank mass of flattery, at the side of which modern encomiums look like withered leaves, we may pardon Abú-l Fazl when he praises because he finds a true hero.”