The kingdoms of Transoxiana and Persia were the proper field which he labored to cultivate and adorn as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labors were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. The public and private injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigor of inquiry and punishment; and we must be content to praise the “Institutions” of Timour, as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was the ambition of his children and grandchildren--the enemies of each other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after _his_ decease, the scene was again involved in darkness and blood, and, before the end of a century, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbecks from the north, and the Turkomans of the black and white sheep. The race of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbeck arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors (the great Moguls) extended their sway from the mountains of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire has been dissolved, the treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber, and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the northern ocean.[23] JEANNE D’ARC. BY JOHN RICHARD GREEN. [A French heroine, otherwise known as La Pucelle and the Maid of Orleans, date of birth uncertain, burned at the stake by English influence as a sorceress at Rouen in 1431. Her enthusiasm and the belief in the supernatural mission so inspired the French and daunted the English as to turn the tide of war against the latter, and was a main cause of ending that series of English invasions which had imperiled the national existence of France.]