CfiAP. VI. J EEIGN OF AKBEll. 13!)
he carried so far that it had assumed the form of open revolt, from which, how- ad. ioo6 ever, second and better thouglits induced him to desist. Another crime which stains his memory, is the share he had in the murder of Abulfazl, who had long been his father's favourite minister, and is still celebrated cis the his- torian of his re'vnx. Abulfa^sl was returning from the Deccan when he fell into Assassina- an ambuscade, which Narsing Deo, Rajah of Orcha, in Bundelcvmd, had laid for "',lif,^_i him, at the instigation of Prince Selim, and fell fighting valiantly. Had Akber been aware of the share which his son iiad in this atrocity, he would probably have taken effectual steps to disinherit him ; since, without this additional aggravation, the tidings so affected him that he wept bitterly, and ])assed two days and niglits without sleep. This first paroxysm over, he vowed revenge, and took it by inflicting on Narsing Deo siud all his race severities of which his reign happily affords few examples.
In the south Akber's usual good fortune had attended him ; his arm.s, though Akiwrs not uniformly, were so generally successful, that most of the princes hastened to i„ t'ho make their submission; and he retui-ned to Agra in 1602, so satisfied with the ""'^'^"'• result, that in a proclamation wiiich he issued, he tissumed, in addition to his other titles, that of Prince of the Deccan. While thus at the head of a mighty emj)ii'e, of which he had himself been the main architect, and surrounded by a magnificence which few if any sovereigns have ever eiiualletl, Akber, in his declining years, was far from happy. He had scarcely cesised to mourn for his second son, when his third son, Piince Daniel, whose marriage in 1601< he had celebrated with great festivities, died within a twelvemonth, the victim of his own drunken habits. But his sorrow for the dead members of his family was His domestio not so distressmg as the shame and agony produced by the misconduct of the living. Selim, his only surviving son and destined successor, after a promise of reform, had sunk deepei- than ever in his vicious courses, acting habitually with the caprice of a madman and the cruelty of a tyrant. A (|uarrel with his own soi Khosroo had such an effect on that youths nxother, that she destroyed her- self by poison Akber, who had through life manifested the gi-eatest decision, seems now to have hesitated as to his future arrangements. He shuddered at the thought of being succeeded by Selim, and yet in Khosroo, Selim's eldest son, he beheld the very passions which disgraced Selim himself There wtis a third son, Khurram He had entwined himself around the heart of his grandfather, but the fearful consetiuences of a disj)uted succession appear to have deterred him from making any tlestination in his favour. Amid these distressing trials and per{)lexities, his health began visibly to give way, and after an illness, during the last ten days of which he w;is confined to bed, and employed much of his time in giving good counsels to his son, he expired (m the 13th of nisUeatu. October, 1 605. Of the sixty-foiu" years of his life, fifty-one had been spent (jn the throne. He was l)uried near Agra, in a tomb consisting of a solid pyramid, surrounded by cloisters, galleries, and domes, and of such innnense dimensions,
