After a tragedy, it was formerly the custom to play a farce. One might almost suppose that the principle involved in this theatrical usage had influenced the mind of Lord Ellenborough in a certain exploit which he performed, in a very demonstrative spirit, shortly after the conclusion of the Afghan war. When Sultan Mahmoud took the Hindoo city of Somnauth, in 1025, he carried away with him the gates of the vast temple dedicated to the god Soma, the idols of which he had shattered and cast down. These trophies were taken to the Imperial city of Ghizni, from which Mahmoud ruled his wide possessions; and there they had remained, or something like them had been preserved, during a period of more than eight hundred years. Lord Ellenborough was a man of great ability, but of somewhat grandiose and theatrical tastes, even in the management of practical affairs. He therefore determined to bring back the so-called Gates of Somnauth to the place whence they had been originally removed. The act would have been foolish enough, even had the genuineness of the gates been entirely beyond dispute, which was very far from the case. The Mohammedans could not but have felt insulted by the restoration of anything connected with a gross idolatry, formerly destroyed by one of the most illustrious of Moslem sovereigns; while the Hindoos were simply reminded of their ancient disgrace and humiliation. These considerations, however, were absent from the mind of Lord Ellenborough, or disregarded by him; and on the 16th of November, 1842, he issued a sonorous proclamation to all the princes, chiefs, and people of India. “My brothers and my friends,” he said, “our victorious army bears the gates of the Temple of Somnauth in triumph from Afghanistan, and the despoiled tomb of Sultan Mahmoud looks upon the ruins of Ghizni. The insult of eight hundred years is at last avenged. The gates of the Temple of Somnauth, so long the memorial of your humiliation, are become the proudest record of your national glory,--the proof of your superiority in arms over the nations beyond the Indus. To you, princes and chiefs of Sirhind, of Rajwarra, of Malwa and Guzerat, I shall commit this glorious trophy of successful war. You will yourselves, with all honour, transmit the gates of sandal-wood through your respective territories to the restored Temple of Somnauth.” On the 14th of January, 1843, the gates were carried into Delhi in state, under a canopy of crimson and gold; but the proceedings afterwards created great annoyance in England, and were made the subject of animated Parliamentary debates.