[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Mughals (1526–1857)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal) › [Later Mughals (1707–1857)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later) › [Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirīn](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin) › [A Translation of the Seir Mutaqherin (Haji Mustafa)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa) › 42.29 # Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 42.29 A Translation of the Seir Mutaqherin (Haji Mustafa) 42.29 - **Language:** English ### [42.29.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29.1) I have been obliged, Sir, to run over all that detail, in order to shew you a succession of men of parts, who never have objected to my English, whether in letters or in a pamphlet; and also in order to ask how it happens, that this same man in writing a book of history in eighteen sections, that is, in binding together eighteen pamphlets, should have chanced at once to write so very ill, that no less than twenty persons at table have declared that there was no reading two pages of it. Are not all those solecismes, and all those faults of grammar and syntax, owing to the carelessness of the impression? Or is it necessary that, in a cause which so deeply affects not only his credit, but very deeply his fortune, he should stand up to speak in his own praise, or at least to oppose to the opinion of twenty men, the testimonies of not twenty men, indeed, but of five men of parts, and a nameless one, who think advantageously of the work? The latter in particular, in writing to a friend at Patna, (and I saw his letter by mere chance) tells him that it is in good language, and that it does not read like a translation. Were I to add a few illustrious names, such as General Carnac's, Colonel Murray's, Mr. Chapman's, Mr. M'Kenzie's, and several others, Lucan's verse of Adversas-que Aquilas, et pila minantia pilis, might find its place here; and a file of Englishmen might be opposed to a file of Englishmen. ### [42.29.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29.2) All these people, whether in Europe or in India, never suspected that I wrote quite like a foreigner, (and indeed they soon would have told me so, had they thought it) and it is no less certain that it is only since I have wrote history, that is, since I have thrown away the mask, and given myself for what I was, that I have been taken for a foreigner, and have been thought so greatly defective in language. Let us examine then, whether this be not owing to this incident, that a translation, although ever so excellent, must unavoidably look like a translation, that is, like something foreign. But if this be the case with the Greek and Latin writers, whose ideas, notions, religion, ways of speaking, Gods, terms of war, terms of eloquence and arts and sciences, with a infinity of simple and compound words, have been naturalized in the languages of Europe, what must be the case of a translation from the Persian into the English or any other European language, where there is as much diversity in those articles, as there is similarity in the European ones ? Is it not natural enough to suppose, that some anomalies, and some out of the way expressions must unavoidably become the result of that insurmountable diversity ? Is it not natural to suppose, and would it not be generous to think, that were a translation in as fine a language as that of the best English historians, it would unavoidably deviate from the genuineness of the text ? ### [42.29.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29.3) But is it not mortifying enough that so much beauty of style should be required of an accidental writer, who at most is but a semi-Englishman, and who unquestionably had views of his own, quite foreign to the vanity of turning author ? Is it not exceedingly hard that so much exactness should be required of a man under such a singular predicament, at a time that England, England as it is, cannot boast of a single tolerable historian earlier, than the times that have produced the Humes, the Littletons, the Robertsons, the Gibons, and the Juniuses, &c. ? Go through all the writers of Henry the Eighth's reign, and through all those of the times of Queen Elizabeth, and of James the first ; they are become obsolete, will you say. Indeed, they are so as to the words, and arrangement, and the rounding of the periods, but they are so also as to the style. Look throughout all that immensity of writings published in King Charles the First's reign by the Parliament and by its adversaries ; you shall find solid reasoning, but conveyed in coarse, homespun, indeed in clownish language ; and I cannot except one single writing from that censure, save the answers penned by King Charles himself, or by his Secretary, Lord Falkland. Throughout that witty reign of Charles the Second, I see good language enough in some authors, and flowing verses in Waller, but very harsh writings every elsewhere, and some solecismes and faults of grammar even in Acts of Parliament. ### [42.29.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29.4) (Look at Blackstone's Commentaries). But would any man choose to write as did Hobbes and Harrington? (I except Algernon Sydney). And would an historian take the long winded, although very sensible, periods of Clarendon's for his model? Would the unequal and inexact Burnet, or the very sensible, but now and then scurrilous Swift, be taken for a pattern in these days in that kind of writing? And shall Harte's History of Charles the Twelfth be reputed legible, although supported by no less a man than a Chesterfield? No, indeed, no. So long as people shall have such books as those that have done so much honor to England — books in which the English have taken the lead of all Europe these forty years, without being equalled by any nation of the world to this day — no one will think of those early authors for his models. Even Dryden, the great Dryden, of whom Pope himself used to say with regret, Virgilium tantum vidi; even Dryden is strangely neglected in an infinity of places; and excepted in his ode to St. Cæcilia, he seems inferior to Pope almost everywhere. It is then in a nation which has soared but of late, that they expect a soaring style, and a soaring performance in a man who never pretended to be a writer, who has translated only from the Persian, and who has translated from it, barely because his purpose could not have been answered any otherwise. ### [42.29.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29.5) Let us then drop that invidious subject. Independently of that, it is also highly disagreeable; the more so, as I have lately seen two pages of a translation of the Seir-el-Mutaqherin, made in India, and of twelve made in Europe; and although it would be deemed vanity to talk here of my own, yet, as I cannot after all divest my ownself of consciousness, I shall only desire you to remember the saying of a certain Earl of Warwick of old, called the King-maker, who was a tall, stout man, and an old warrior. A friend of his was whispering into his ear, that a certain man, highly discontented, had thoughts of assassinating him. At that very moment the man chanced to pass by in the street. The Earl, who only cast a look at him, said immediately: This man will never kill me. These two translators, then, will never kill me; and I appeal, Sir, to your own future knowledge in five years hence. So positive a prediction in my own behalf is very daring, will you say. Sir, it is; but still it is out of my power to divest myself of consciousness. However, here is another prediction, still stronger, and full as precise. Please, Sir, to mark my words. You have, (and undoubtedly you spoke both by echo and by report, as well as upon your own judgment), you have spoken slightly of my large pamphlet of 90 pages, and have added that a Governor-General had nothing to do with a quarrel of mine with Mahmed-reza-qhan, or in other words, that such a pamphlet would never kill any man. I inform you. ### [42.29.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29.6) Sir, full two years beforehand, that it will make a great deal of noise, and will kill some one at least. Mark my words; mark the boldness and precision of the prediction. It is none of those predictions that have made so much noise in the world, and which being written in the most imperfect, and most uncouth, and most barbarous language in the world, (a language that does not discriminate betwixt the perfect and future tenses, so that the predictions written in it may be translated rightly in a past tense as well as in a future one). It is in English I make that prediction, in one of the most perfect languages that ever existed: The pamphlet infallibly shall kill some body. But when? When jaded myself with scribbling, and oppressed by age, as well as become averse to motion, I shall coldly look at the corpse without being inclined to get up, and stoop down, to strip it of some of its clothes. But since the subject of that pamphlet is come of itself at the end of my pen, and we differ so widely as to its matter and future fate, and indeed, as to its very intent and purport, allow me, Sir, to set you to rights on those two last heads, which upon a cursory view, you have doubtless misconceived. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.later.siyar-al-mutaakhkhirin~en-mustafa.42.29) · Pramāṇa