Slipper_) from thief to thief, until at least forty thieves
had possessed them for a few weeks or months. All the forty are now
dead; and at this moment the _summit of glory_, possibly never once
worn by one of them, is a derelict in the hands of the latest murderer
at Lahore, of course attracting by its light all hands towards his
interesting throat.

[1] "_Dillecrout_."--This is the traditional dish of royalty at our
English coronation banquet in Westminster Hall.

We have thus sketched a slender memoir for the leading family of saints
amongst the Edinburgh reviewer's holy Suddozyes. Great must have been
their sanctity amongst the Affghans. The reader will judge for himself
whether that _aureola_, or supernatural glory about their heads, was
altogether sufficient to guarantee the throne of King Soojah. And it
must not be quite forgotten, that on the roll-call of legitimacy
Penultimate Soojah did not stand next for promotion. Prince Caumraum,
who commanded at Herat, stood before him equally in active qualities,
and in precedence of title; for he was the son of Mahmood. The sons of
Zemaun had a still higher precedency.

However, the Affghans, who are essentially democratic by the necessities
of their turbulent condition, often make a compromise in their choice of
khans between strict primogeniture and personal merits, where they
happen to be appropriate. And they might have done so here. But we are
now going, in conclusion, to bring forward one remark, which utterly
prostrates Lord Auckland's scheme as a scheme of hope for Affghanistan,
or of promise for his own purpose. It is this--no legitimacy of title,
and no personal merits, supposing both to have met pre-eminently in the
person of Soojah, had a chance of winning over the Affghans to a settled
state. This truth, not hitherto noticed, reveals itself upon inspecting
the policy of all the Suddozye shahs from Ahmed downwards; and probably
that policy was a traditional counsel. Ahmed saved himself from domestic
feuds by carrying away all the active, or aspiring, or powerful spirits
to continual wars in the Punjaub, in Persia, or India. Thus he sustained
their hopes, thus he neutralized their turbulence. Timour next, and his
son Zemaun after _him_, pursued the very same policy. They have been
both taxed with foolish ambition. It was not _that_: the historian has
not perceived the key to their conduct:--it was the instinct of
self-preservation. No otherwise than by exh