Page:Mádhava Ráo Sindhia and the Hindu Reconquest of India.djvu/12

6 highways, that there was never any occasion to put any man to death for robbery.' A hundred years later it was observed that ‘The country was torn to pieces by civil wars and groaned under every species of domestic confusion. Villainy was practised in every form; all law and religion were trodden under foot, the bonds of private friendship and connection, as well as of society and government, were broken; and every individual, as if in the midst of a forest of wild beasts, could rely upon nothing but the strength of his own arm. (Dow; quoting native authority.) Such was the moral chaos that had followed the decline of the Empire; and, if the British rule has obliterated those marks of ruin and brought back civilisation, it is in some degree to Sindhia that the subjects of that rule are indebted for the first preparatory step.

Short as is the narrative, it has been found impossible to avoid the introduction of some extraneous matter. A mere biographical memoir, even if the materials of such were forthcoming, would not convey much instruction or pleasure to the reader. The French historical doctrine of the milieu may have been somewhat over-indulged of late years. In Mr. Russell Lowell’s Essay on Milton we have an amusing account of a learned Professor’s biography of that poet; in which historical pages are rarely diversified by occasional appearances of Milton: and the accomplished critic says that the reader is only reconciled when he calls to mind that this fair-haired stranger