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404 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. cast on the floor, stripped and tied. The veins in both his arms and his legs were then opened, and he was allowed to linger for several hours in mortal agony. He bore his cruel fate with a resignation which was in keep- ing with the consistent greatness of his life. The youthful princess, his wife, being alarmed at the absence of her husband, was told by Haji Ali Khan that he had gone to the bath, in order to be prepared to put on a robe of honour which the Shah had sent to him by his hands. When she awoke from her delusion, the heart of her husband had for ever ceased to beat. Thus perished, by the hands of Persians, the man who had done so much to regenerate Persia : the only man who possessed at the same time the ability, the patriotism, the energy and the integrity required to enable a Persian Minister to conduct the vessel of State in safety past the shoals and rocks which lay in her course. Those who, with a living imperial author, see in every remarkable man, such as Caesar, Charle- magne, or Napoleon, a special instrument in the hands of Providence for tracing out to peoples the path they ought to follow, must be at a loss to account for the design of Providence in raising up Meerza Teki Khan, and permitting his fall, ere he had accomplished in a few years the labour of centuries and stamped with the seal of his genius a new era for his country. Had he lived to accomplish what it was his intention to do, he would no doubt have been ranked with the men who are held by some people to have been specially raised up by God for a particular mission. But his premature death, before he had lived long enough permanently to benefit his fellow-men, must prevent us from having recourse to