leader. Who so fit for such a post as the representative of the Mughal, the descendant of that illustrious Akbar, who had accomplished the union of India? From such a position it was impossible that Bahádur Sháh should recoil. Had he desired ever so much to hang back, and there is reason to suppose he was by no means eager to assume the foremost post, with its dangers, its responsibilities, its humiliations, he had a family the members of which were resolved that he should bind round his head 'the golden round.' There was the ambitious Queen, whose projects two Governors-General had in succession thwarted; her son, young, handsome, and full of ambition; her step-sons, the eldest of whom knew that, though in a certain sense the English would allow him to succeed his father, he would be shorn of all that had made succession desirable, even of the royal title. In these, and in the ambitious nobles by whom they were surrounded, and in whose bosoms dwelt the traditions of a past which had not been without glory, the 'irresponsible frivolity' of which I have spoken loudly asserted its influence. Under the pressure of that influence Bahádur Sháh agreed to assume the responsible position forced upon him. The revolted soldiery throughout India were called upon to fight for the restoration of the Mughal. The 'cry' was not altogether a happy cry for the revolters. Though it might conciliate and bind together many Muhammadans, it could scarcely fail to alienate the Maráthá princes who had contested empire with the Mughal family. The result proved that the princes of Central India preferred the safe position they held under British suzerainty to aiding mutinied soldiers to restore a dynasty which they had been the first to trample under foot. Such thoughts did not, in those early days, present themselves to the minds of the 'irresponsible chatterers.' They believed that the
