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must have been implicated in many of its scenes: and his delicacy would have induced him to suppress them, as he has done in the life of Mr. Garrick.

Mr. Foote, however, was a very extraordinary man, who had a fund of wit, humour, and sense; but he did not make a good use of his talents, though he got money by them, which he very idly squandered. He was too fond of detraction and mimickry, which were blemishes in his conversations, though you were entertained by them. He was ridiculously vain of his family, and of his classical knowledge, which was superficial, and boasted of his numerous relations amongst the old nobility. He was very extravagant, but by no means generous: though he spared no expense in his entertainments, nor in wine, yet he did not understand a table. He affect ed to have disguised cookery, and French dishes, and never eat plain meat. He was not clean in his person, and was disgusting in his manner of eating: but he was so pleasant a fellow, and had such a flow of spirits, that you forgot his faults, and pardoned his want of elegance and decency. He always took the lead in conversation, and was generally the chief or sole performer, and he had such a rage for shining, and was so delighted with applause, that he often brought to my mind those lines of Pope, in his character of the Duke of Wharton:

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with yourself; but you paid for his civility the moment you went out of company, and were sure of being made ridiculous; yet he was not as malignant as some men I have known; but his vanity, and the desire he had of showing his wit, made him run into satire and detraction. He loved titled men, and was proud of their company, though he gave himself airs of treating them with scorn. was licentious and profligate, and frequently made a jest of religion and morality. He told a story very well, and added many pleasant circumstances of his own invention to heighten it. He had likewise a good choice of words and apt expressions, and could speak plausibly on grave subjects; but he soon grew tired of serious conversation, and returned naturally to his favourite amusement, mimickry, in which he did not excel; for he was coarse and unfair, and drew caricatures. But he entertained you more than a closer mimick. If he had applied to the bar, and taken pains in the profession of the law, it is probable he would have succeeded in it; for he was very quick and discerning, and could relate the material circumstances of a trial or a debate in parliament with wonderful precision and perspicuity.

He was a bad actor, and always ran into farce, and in tragedy he was detestable; for whenever he aimed at expression, he was distorted. His voice, face, and figure, were equally disagreeable; yet, under all these disadvantages, he much better than those who have acted many parts in his own plays appeared in them since his death

such as Major Sturgeon, Cadwallader, the Nabob, &c.; these

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ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF HYDER ALLY, from Colonel Wilks's History of Mysoor.

The first of the family of whom any tradition is preserved was Mohammed Bhelole, a religious person, who came from the Penjab to the south, accompanied by two sons, Mohammed Ali, and Mohammed Wellee, an dsettled at the town of Alund, in the district of Calburga, about one hundred and ten miles west, and by north, from Hydrabad. He is said to have founded a small mosque, and fakie's mokan, by charitable contributions, and to have accumulated some property by this religious speculation. He married his son Mohammed Ali to the daughter of one of his servants of the celebrated mausol eum at Calburga,

and Mohammed Wellee into ano❤ ther family in the same neighbourhood. After some time, the expenses of this augmented family being greater than the saint was able to defray, the two sons proceeded to the south in search of any service by which they could procure a subsistence; and were engaged at Sera, in the capacity of revenue Peons, in the department of the collection of the town customs. Futtè Mohammed, the son of Mohammed Ali, and the father of Hyder, was born at Sera.

In the course of duty, or for some cause not explained, the two brothers came to Colar, where Mohammed Ali died, and Mohammed Wellee, seizing on all the domestic property, turned Futtè Mohammed and his mother out of doors.

A Naick of Peons in Colar, commiserating their destitute condition, received them into his house, brought up Futtè Mohammed, and at a proper age enrolled him as a Peon in his own command.

While Derga* Kooli Khan was Soubadar of Sera, or affected to be so named, Futtè Mohammed had an opportunity of attracting his attention. The service was the siege of Ganjecottah, near to Balipoor, then the strong hold of a refractory Poligar. The troops were repulsed in a general assault, when Futtè Mohammed seized a standard, and planted it once more on the breach: the assail. ants rallied, and the place was taken; and the young man, who had so gallantly restored the fortune of the day, was brought before the Soubadar, and rewarded with

* He was appointed in 1729.

the command of twenty Peons as a Naick.

Futtè Mohammed, now Futtè Naick, continued to distinguish himself in the service of the Soubadar, and was gradually advanced in rank and consequence. His first wife was Seydanee Saheba, the daughter of Burra Saheb, a religous person at Colar, who bore him three sons, Wellee Saheb, Ali Saheb, and Behelole Saheb. It was on the death of this lady at an early age that he began the mausoleum, mosque, tank, and gardens, at which the authors of the manuscript, which is chiefly followed in this statement, now officiate the buildings are said to have been finished several years afterwards, when he was appointed Foujedar of the district; but in whatever manner these dates may be arranged, the buildings themselves, although far removed from architectural grandeur, exhibit unquestionable evidence that the founder, at the time of their erection, had attained a very respectable degree of rank, property and consideration. Of the second marriage of Futtè Naick the following account has been communicated to me by several authorities, and confirmed by the written narrative of Budr ù Zeman Khan, for one of whose relations the lady was intended. A Nevayet,* of respectable family, from the Concan, was travelling across the peninsula with his wife, one son (Ibrahim Saheb), and two daughters, to Arcot. At Tarrikera, near the borders of Bednore, he was robbed and murdered; and

his family, in the greatest misery, begged their way to the eastward, until their arrival at Colar, where their distresses induced the widow to listen to the proposal of Futte Naick to be united to one of her daughters. After this marriage, the rest of the family, relieved from their difficulties, proceeded to Arcot.

Derga Kooli Khan of Sera soon afterwards died, and was succeeded by his son Abdul Russool Khan. The new Soubadar or Nabob, and Futtè Naick, for some reason not mentioned, were unfavourably disposed to each other; and the Naick accordingly prepared to seek another master, the Nabob Saadut Oolla Khan, at Arcot. The terms of his service, with fifty horse and fourteen hundred Peons, by whom he was ac companied, were nearly adjusted, when a difficulty arose with regard to his being received with the tazeem, or the compliment of other officers rising to salute him when he approached them in the Durbar: a mark of deference which is usual towards persons of rank, but at that period was reserved for officers of horse, who, like the ancient cavaliers of Europe, looked down on the pretensions of an officer of infantry. The Naick could not procure the tazeem, and being resolved not to serve without it, departed to Chittoor, where he was better received by the Foujedar, or provincial commander, Tahir Khan.

The mother-in-law of Futtè Naick had been ill received at Arcot, on account of her connec

* Nevayet, generally supposed to be a corruption of the Hindostanee and Mahratta terms for new comer.

tion with the Naick; and the family into which she expected to marry her other daughter declined the alliance for the same cause. She therefore joined her son-inlaw at Chittoor, and he having in the mean time lost his second wife without issue, took to himself her younger sister as a third.

Tahir Mohammed Khan was soon afterwards recalled to court at Arcot; but the Naick, still remembering the tazeem, declined to accompany him. He negociated for the service which he had formerly rejected, and was received by Abdul Russool Khan of Sera as Foujedar, or provincial commandant of Colar, with Boodicota as his Jageer, and the title of Futtè Mohammed Khan.

His two sons by the Nevayet lady, the younger of the sisters, were born at Boodicota; viz. 1. Shabaz Saheb; 2. Hyder Saheb.

When Nizam ul Moolk formed the design of establishing a separate and independent empire in the south, the removal from subordinate commands of all persons who either retained any principle of fidelity to the house of Timour, or had indulged in views of independent authority for themselves, was essential to his success. The money and influence of Saadut Oolla Khan had long been employed to obtain the office of Soubador of Sera for a dependant of his own; and it was chiefly through his interest that Tahir Khan was appointed to that office, and aided by Saadut Oolla to fight for its possession. He found the standard of his former Naick marshalled on the side of his opponent Abdul Russool, who was slain in

a well contested battle, with most of his officers of rank. Futte Mohammed, and his son Wellee Saheb, fell on this sanguinary field; and the bodies being removed by the pious care of their attendants, their tombs are now shown in the mausoleum of the family at Colar.

Great Balipoor was the Jageer of the deceased Abdul Russool, and previously to the battle, the families of all his principal officers, and among the rest that of Futtè Mohammed, were, according to the routine of suspicion customary in similar cases, thrown into that fort.

Abbas Kooli Khan, the son of the deceased, was not disturbed in the personal Jageer of his father maternal feeling, combined with good sense, suggested to his mother, who in a few short years had seen the mangled corpses of her husband and father-in-law, the expedient of securing the Jageer on the condition of a formal renunciation of the office of Soubadar or Nabob, and a solemn promise to exert the influence of the family at court for the confirmation of Tahir Mohammed and Saadut Oolla Khan, who directed in all things the proceedings of Sera, readily perceived the policy of acceding to this moderate proposition.

Abbas Kooli Khan, however, did not neglect to avail himself of the circumstances in which he was placed, to plunder to the extent that he durst the families deposited in the fort; and that of Futtè Mohammed was not among those which escaped. The pretext was a balance due from the deceased while Foujedar of Colar. The sons, Shahaz Saheb, and

Hyder Saheb, the former about nine, the latter seven years of age, were called upon for payment. The usual methods were resorted to and succeeded; but not before the torture, in its most cruel and ignominious forms, had been applied to both the boys, and probably to their mother. This inhuman conduct was not forgotten; and it will be seen in the sequel that Hyder, in his prosperous fortune, sought his revenge after the lapse of thirty-two years, with all the virulence belonging to the. memory of a recent injury.

The family, plundered of its property, was permitted to depart, and the mother, after the loss of every thing but her children and her honour, proceeded to Bangalore to seek the protection of her brother Ibraham Saheb, who was in the service of the Killadar of that place, with a small command of Peons. When the elder brother Shabaz Saheb had attained a sufficient age, his uncle procured for him a recommendation to a Hindoo officer of rank at Seringapatam, and he was received into the service as a subordinate officer of Peons, in which situation he distinguished himself, and gradually rose to the command of two hundred horse and one thousand Peons, which he now held in the army before Deonhully. Hyder, although twenty-seven years of age, was not in the service; and as he remained through life unacquainted with the first elements of reading or writing, it may be inferred that the misfortunes of his family prevented an attention to this object during his

early age, and that his subsequent temper was not found fitted to bear the control of a pedagogue. When approaching maturity of age, he had shown a greater disposition to the pursuit of pleasure and the sports of the chase, than to the restraints of a military life; and would frequently absent himself for weeks together, secretly immersed in voluptuous riot, or passing with facility, as was the habit of his whole life, to the opposite extreme of abstinence and excessive exertion; wandering in the woods while pursuing, not without danger, his favourite amusements. In the siege of Deonhully he began to pay attention to the profession of arms, first appearing as a volunteer horseman in his brother's corps, and afterwards occasionally intrusted with the command of parties of infantry in the trenches. He was observed on every service of danger to lead the way, and to conduct himself with a coolness and self-possession seldom found in a young soldier. This bungling and unskilful siege, directed by a man who had neither seen nor studied the profession of arms, and possessed no quality, of a soldier but headlong courage, was protracted for nine months, when the Poligar consented to evacuate the place on the condition of being permitted to retire unmolested with his family to his relation the Poligar of little Balipoor. In the course of this service Hyder was distinguished by the particular favour of Nunjeraj; and, at its close, was raised at once to the command of fifty horse and two

• The exact phrase of the original Suttaun ù Towareekh by Tippoo Sultaun,

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