Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/458

 450 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July detail Irvine relates the murderous fratricidal strife on each accession to the throne, the incompetency, the baseness, the cruelty of the com- batants. The story of the long battle waged by the Sayyid brothers who were at least men of courage and resolution against the timid treachery and fatuous ingratitude of Farrukh-Siyar has a certain dramatic interest, but for the most part we can only feel how unprofitable, com- pared with a similar period of European history, is this dreary welter of bloodshed and guile. The element of constitutional growth, adminis- trative experiment, and legal science is almost entirely absent. The course of Oriental history often appears curiously and disconcertingly haphazard. Human effort and human will seem to flicker and fade as in the unsubstantial world of dreams. A life of systematic crime is shattered by an hour of inconsistent virtue. Men fling away the spoils of long- calculated treasons by a childish trust in the loyalty of those whom they have every reason to suspect. It is this seeming inconsequence and irrationality that fatigues and alienates the mind. But just as countries have to be explored, even though the only useful result of the explora- tion is to warn off those who would attempt in the future to pass the frontier, so these repellent historical periods must be studied, and from such study valuable lessons may be drawn. Can we, for instance, deduce from this utter break-down of decent government the nature of the forces that buoyed up the Mughal empire from the time of Baber to the death of Aurangzib, and made it, at least in appearance, one of the great powers of the world ? The truth seems to be that in the East character and personality are everything. There was no real constitutional framework to maintain the rigidity of the state under a weak sovereign. Purpose and will when found in a ruler cut their way through the perils, the treacheries, the turmoils of Oriental politics as the prow of a great ship cleaves the waters of an angry sea. When purpose and will ceased to be characteristic of the house of Taimur, the empire became the mere spectral shadow of its former greatness. It only remains to add that Mr. Sarkar has done his editorial work as admirably as his own valuable contributions to Indian history would lead us to expect. Probably no living historian had as good claims as he, both on the score of knowledge and sympathy, to present Irvine's work to the world and to complete his task. A great deal of the matter which will go to form the second volume lacked the author's revision and correction ; the editor's task will be correspondingly onerous and responsible. We are confident it could not be in better or more skilful hands. P. E. EGBERTS. British Museum. Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections. By Sir GEORGE F. WARNER, D.Litt., F.B.A., and JULIUS P. GILSON, M.A., successive Keepers of the Department of Manuscripts. Four volumes. (London: Printed for the Trustees, 1921.) A GREAT library has a history of its own, in some ways independent of the value of its contents. That of the English royal library may be com- pared with that of the library of the kings of France, but it is less broken.