Tempo:
HISTORY OF THE SIKHS
V»2 1845-6.
chap, ix
ascendancy she must be ever prudent and circum&pect; and -to leave a lasting impress she must do more than erect palaces and temples, the mere material monuments of dominion. Like Greece and Rome, she may rear edifices of surpassing beauty, she may bridge gulis and pierce mountains with the wand ot wealth ai d science. Like these ancient peoples, she may even give birth in strange lands to such kings as Herod the Great and to such historians as Flavius Josephus; but, like imperial Rome, she may live to behold a Vortigern call in a Hengist, and a Syagrius yield to a Clovis. She may teach another Cymbeline the amenities of civilized life, and she may move another Attains to bequeath to her another Pergamus. These are tasks of easy achievement; but she must also endeavour to give her poets and her sages an immortality among nations unborn, to introduce laws which shall still be in force at tical
the end of sixty generations, and to tinge the faith and the minds of the people with her sober science and just morality, as Christianity was affected by the adoptive policy of Rome and by the plastic philosophy of Greece. Of all these things England must sow the seeds and lay the foundations before she can hope to equal or surpass her great exemplars.^ But England can do nothing until she has rendered her dominion secure, and hitherto all her thoughts have been given to the extension of her supremacy. Up to this time she has been a rising power, the welcome supplanter of Mughals and Marathas, and the ally which the remote weak sought against the neighbouring strong. But her greatness is at its height it has come to her turn to be feared instead of courted, and the hopes of men are about to be built on her :
but they cannot give themselves a place in the hearts of their subjects, while those whom reason can convince are neither numerous nor influential in political affairs. Sir H. M. Elliot, in the Introduction (p. xxix) to his important and interesting volume on the Muhammadan Historians of India, admits *the many defects inherent in a system of foreign administration, in which language, colour, religion, customs, and laws preclude all natural sympathy between sovereign and subject'; but he at the same time declares the English have, nevertheless, done
more in fifty years for the substantial benefit of the people, at least of Upper India, than the Musalmans did in ten times that period an opinion that requires to be supported to a more
—
extended comparison of material works than is given by the learned writer. [The author's gloomy prognostications have been rudely shaken by the events of 1914-15, and the spontaneous loyalty shown by all classes during the great European
War.—Ed.] 1
See Appendix XV.
V»2 1845-6.
chap, ix
ascendancy she must be ever prudent and circum&pect; and -to leave a lasting impress she must do more than erect palaces and temples, the mere material monuments of dominion. Like Greece and Rome, she may rear edifices of surpassing beauty, she may bridge gulis and pierce mountains with the wand ot wealth ai d science. Like these ancient peoples, she may even give birth in strange lands to such kings as Herod the Great and to such historians as Flavius Josephus; but, like imperial Rome, she may live to behold a Vortigern call in a Hengist, and a Syagrius yield to a Clovis. She may teach another Cymbeline the amenities of civilized life, and she may move another Attains to bequeath to her another Pergamus. These are tasks of easy achievement; but she must also endeavour to give her poets and her sages an immortality among nations unborn, to introduce laws which shall still be in force at tical
the end of sixty generations, and to tinge the faith and the minds of the people with her sober science and just morality, as Christianity was affected by the adoptive policy of Rome and by the plastic philosophy of Greece. Of all these things England must sow the seeds and lay the foundations before she can hope to equal or surpass her great exemplars.^ But England can do nothing until she has rendered her dominion secure, and hitherto all her thoughts have been given to the extension of her supremacy. Up to this time she has been a rising power, the welcome supplanter of Mughals and Marathas, and the ally which the remote weak sought against the neighbouring strong. But her greatness is at its height it has come to her turn to be feared instead of courted, and the hopes of men are about to be built on her :
but they cannot give themselves a place in the hearts of their subjects, while those whom reason can convince are neither numerous nor influential in political affairs. Sir H. M. Elliot, in the Introduction (p. xxix) to his important and interesting volume on the Muhammadan Historians of India, admits *the many defects inherent in a system of foreign administration, in which language, colour, religion, customs, and laws preclude all natural sympathy between sovereign and subject'; but he at the same time declares the English have, nevertheless, done
more in fifty years for the substantial benefit of the people, at least of Upper India, than the Musalmans did in ten times that period an opinion that requires to be supported to a more
—
extended comparison of material works than is given by the learned writer. [The author's gloomy prognostications have been rudely shaken by the events of 1914-15, and the spontaneous loyalty shown by all classes during the great European
War.—Ed.] 1
See Appendix XV.
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