The translation which he executed of the Memoirs of Bābur is extremely close and accurate, and has been much praised for its elegance. But, though simple and concise, a close adherence to the idioms and forms of expression of the Tūrki original, joined to a want of distinctness in the use of the relatives, often renders the meaning extremely obscure, and makes it difficult to discover the connexion of the different members of the sentence. The style is frequently not Persian, and a native of Persia would find it difficult to assign any sense to some of the expressions. Many of the Tūrki words are not translated, sometimes because they had no corresponding term in Persian, and sometimes perhaps from negligence, or, it may be, because they were then familiar to the Tūrki nobility of the court of Agra. But the whole is uncommonly valuable, and probably there are few persons now living even in Mālweralnaher, who could give an accurate translation of the original Tūrki of Bābur’s Memoirs without the aid of Mirza Abdal-Rahīm’s Persian translation. To account for this fact, it must be recollected that the study of the language of past ages is peculiar to that antiquarian refinement which exists only in highly improved times, and may be regarded as one of the last luxuries of liter­ary curiosity. The learned Langlés, in the article ‘Babour’ of the Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Moderne, affirms that the Commentaries were translated into Persian by Abdal-Rahīm after being enlarged by Jehāngīr. I know not on what authority he hazarded this assertion, which is certainly erroneous. The Prince Selīm, who was afterwards Emperor under the name of Jehāngīr, was indeed twenty years of age when the translation was published; and, at a former period, Abdal-Rahīm, who was his Atālik or Governor, may have prescribed to him a perusal of the Memoirs in the original as an exercise in the language of his forefathers; but the coincidence of all the copies, the marginal notes of Humāiūn, and the nature of the work itself, may satisfy us that the other assertion is unfounded, and we certainly possess the Memoirs of Bābur, whatever their value may be, in the state in which they were originally written by their imperial author.

The English translation now presented to the public was begun by the late Dr. John Leyden, a man whose inquisi­tive mind left no department of literature unexplored. He found, I am uncertain whether in the Library of the College of Fort William, or in the collection of the Honour­able Mountstuart Elphinstone, a copy of the original Tūrki. Being delighted with the novelty and merit of the work, he began translating it with all his characteristic ardour. He soon, however, found difficulties which his instructor, a Persian Tūrk of Ganj, could not solve. I had fortunately some time before procured at Bombay a copy of Mirza Abdal-Rahīm’s translation, which is found in several of the public libraries of Europe, but of which Dr. Leyden had been unable to meet with any copy in Bengal. At his desire, I had begun sending him the sheets of a transcript which I caused to be made, when he was called to accompany the late Earl of Minto in the expedition against Java. This interrupted his labours, and his premature death followed soon after in August 1811.

Feeling a warm interest in the preservation of his manu­scripts, and desirous that nothing which could add to his reputation should be lost, I wrote to our common friend, Dr. James Hare, junior, of Calcutta, in whose possession his papers then were, offering my assistance in completing the translation of Bābur, which I knew was imperfect. Perhaps I engaged too rashly in the undertaking. At that time I happened to have in my service the Persian who had assisted Dr. Leyden in his translation, and who had become pretty well versed in the language of the Memoirs. But before my letter reached Calcutta, Dr. Leyden’s papers and manuscripts had been sent home to Mr. Richard Heber, his principal literary executor, and I relinquished all idea of seeing the work completed, at least in India. Some years before, I had translated a small portion of the Memoirs from the Persian, and was now strongly urged by General Sir John Malcolm and the Honourable Mountstuart Elphin­stone, who were struck with their merit as a literary curiosity, to complete an English translation of the whole from the Persian alone. As both of these gentlemen had been on missions into the countries described by Bābur, and were peculiarly versed in the manners and history of the Tūrki dynasties, more competent judges could not be found, and their advice had its natural weight with me. I accordingly undertook the task, which I had brought to a close, when, in the end of the year 1813, I was surprised by receiving from London a copy of Dr. Leyden’s translation, which, in consequence of my letter to Dr. Hare, had been procured and forwarded by the kindness of that gentleman, who was then in England.

This acquisition reduced me to rather an awkward dilemma. The two translations differed in many important particulars; but as Dr. Leyden had the advantage of trans­lating from the original, I resolved to adopt his translation as far as it went, changing only such expressions in it as seemed to be inconsistent with the context, or with other parts of the Memoirs; or such as seemed evidently to originate in the oversights that are unavoidable in an unfinished work. This labour I had completed with some difficulty, when Mr. Elphinstone sent me the copy of the Memoirs of Bābur in the original Tūrki, which he had pro­cured when he went to Peshāwer on his Embassy to Kābul. This copy, which he had supposed to have been sent home with Dr. Leyden’s manuscripts from Calcutta, he was now fortunate enough to recover.

The discovery of this valuable manuscript reduced me, though heartily sick of the task, to the necessity of com­mencing my work once more. Being now possessed of the original, it was necessary to compare the whole translation with it. It appeared to me that, in many instances, Dr. Leyden’s translation was less accurate than the Persian, a fact not to be wondered at, as he had only recently begun the study of the Chaghatāi Tūrki, and no part of the transla­tion had received his last corrections, or perhaps been twice gone over. I therefore examined the whole with minute attention, comparing it with the Tūrki and Persian texts, and made such alterations as I was persuaded my friend would not have disapproved of, had he assisted in the labour. The rest of the Memoirs I then completed by the aid of the Tūrki original, of my own copy of the Persian translation, and of another copy, which Mr. Elphinstone, with that readiness with which he invariably lends his aid to whatever has the semblance of forwarding useful knowledge, procured for me from Delhi, through Mr. Metcalfe, the British Resident at that Court. From this last copy, though much less accurate than the other, I was enabled to correct many errors, and to supply several chasms in the Persian translation which I previously possessed. The Tūrki original, which is very correct, is unfortunately incomplete. The continued narrative closes before the great battle in which Sultan Ibrahīm of Delhi was slain, and there is only one short fragment of a later period. Mr. Metcalfe’s copy of the Persian translation, though the most incorrect, is the most perfect of the three. It contains the whole Memoirs, with such errors and omissions alone as arose from the negligence of the copyist. My own copy has lost three leaves in different parts of the work, and is defi­cient in the journal of several months at the end. This last period is filled up on the authority of Mr. Metcalfe’s manuscript alone.

I ought to observe, that my own knowledge of the Chaghatāi Tūrki would not have enabled me to complete the translation from the original, and that I relied principally on the Persian. The Persian Tūrk, on whose assistance I had at first relied, had unfortunately left Bombay before I received Mr. Elphinstone’s Tūrki copy. With the assistance of some natives of Uzbek Tartary, who happened to be in Bombay, but chiefly aided by the patience and skill of my worthy friend Mulla Firūz, so well known to all who have made the antiquities of ancient Persia their study, I went over the Tūrki text, and compared it with the trans­lation. I hope that few errors have escaped. But this long account of the origin and progress of the translation, which at first sight may seem needless, was rendered neces­sary in order to account for any want of uniformity that may probably be discovered in its various parts, and for any errors that may have crept in, in the course of the different transmutations it has undergone. The Memoirs of Bābur would undoubtedly have appeared to more advantage if clothed in the simple picturesque style, and illustrated by the varied erudition of Dr. Leyden, whose success in the study of languages has rarely been equalled, and whose industry was indefatigable. My aim in the following work has been limited to exhibiting that part of the translation which he executed, as much as possible in the state in which he would have wished it to appear, had he been spared to revise it; and to completing what he left unfinished. Dr. Leyden’s translation is without notes, except occasionally verbal explanations; nor am I aware that he made any historical or geographical collections for completing or illustrating the Memoirs. The translation is close and literal to a degree which many will think faulty, and which few works written in an Eastern language would admit of; but such closeness is not without its use, as the style of a people generally exhibits in some degree the dress of their mind, and often leads to more just conclusions regarding their habits of thinking, than can easily be attained in any other way.