' [W. H. S.] The
passage quoted is from Gladwin's translation, vol. ii, p. 318 (4th
ed., London, 1800). The wording varies in different editions of
Gladwin's work. A better version will be found in Jarrett, transl.
_Ain_ (Calcutta, 1894), vol. iii, p. 8.
There is no substantial foundation for the author's statement that
Abul Fazl learned his charity and toleration from the Hindoo mother
of Jahangir. The influences which really moulded the opinions of both
Abul Fazl and his royal master are well known. When Akbar and Abul
Fazl are compared with Elizabeth and Burleigh, Philip II and Alva, or
the other sovereigns and ministers of the age in Europe, it seems to
be little less than a miracle that the Indian statesmen should have
held and practised the noble philosophy expounded in the above
quotation from the 'Institutes of Akbar'. No man has deserved better
than Akbar the stately eulogy pronounced by Wordsworth on a hero now
obscure:
A meteor wert thou in a darksome night;
Yet shall thy name, conspicuous and sublime,
Stand in the spacious firmament of time,
Fixed as a star: such glory is thy right.
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