DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5827#0017
PREFACE. VU
I have, therefore, endeavoured to divest the subject
of much of its natural perplexity and dryness, in
order to render it intelligible to the many, and not
a sealed book accessible only to the few.
It must necessarily happen that the lives of men
whose days have been devoted to conquests, will afford
less variety than the lives of those whose existence has
been distinguished hy a more diversified field of action,
and a more varied tenour of circumstances: for the
conqueror, however extended the sphere of his opera-
tions, is always, so to speak, in the same element,
and discloses therefore, at all times, pretty nearly the
same, or at least similar, moral features under every
aspect of his career. Nevertheless, there is much to
arrest the reflections of thinking men, in viewing the
issues resulting from the ambition of heroes, whose in-
satiable thirst for glory causes them to look upon the
ruin of countries and the subversion of empires with a
bounding heart and a sparkling eye. Their actions are
often the embryos of great moral revolutions:—this
might be strikingly illustrated by the Mohammedan
conquest of Hindostan, if here were the place to pur-
sue such an inquiry.
There will, in truth, be found much salutary food
I have, therefore, endeavoured to divest the subject
of much of its natural perplexity and dryness, in
order to render it intelligible to the many, and not
a sealed book accessible only to the few.
It must necessarily happen that the lives of men
whose days have been devoted to conquests, will afford
less variety than the lives of those whose existence has
been distinguished hy a more diversified field of action,
and a more varied tenour of circumstances: for the
conqueror, however extended the sphere of his opera-
tions, is always, so to speak, in the same element,
and discloses therefore, at all times, pretty nearly the
same, or at least similar, moral features under every
aspect of his career. Nevertheless, there is much to
arrest the reflections of thinking men, in viewing the
issues resulting from the ambition of heroes, whose in-
satiable thirst for glory causes them to look upon the
ruin of countries and the subversion of empires with a
bounding heart and a sparkling eye. Their actions are
often the embryos of great moral revolutions:—this
might be strikingly illustrated by the Mohammedan
conquest of Hindostan, if here were the place to pur-
sue such an inquiry.
There will, in truth, be found much salutary food