red him unpopular, and that the priests, whom he
peculiarly oppressed, endeavored to spread disaffection. This made him
suspect those who still adhered to the tenets of the Shiah sect, or, in
other words, almost all the natives of Persia. The troops in his army
upon whom he placed most reliance were the Afghans and Tartars, who were
of the Sunni persuasion. Their leaders were his principal favorites; and
every pretext was taken to put to death such Persian chiefs as possessed
either influence or power. These proceedings had the natural effect of
producing rebellion in every quarter, and the spirit of insurrection
which now displayed itself among his subjects changed the violence of
Nadir into outrageous fury. His murders were no longer confined to
individuals: the inhabitants of whole cities were massacred; and men, to
use the words of his historian, left their abodes, and took up their
habitations in caverns and deserts, in the hope of escaping his savage
ferocity. We are told--and the events which preceded render the tale not
improbable--that when on his march to subdue one of his nephews who had
rebelled in Sistan, he proposed to put to death every Persian in his
army. There can be little doubt that his mind was at this moment in a
state of frenzy which amounted to insanity. Some of the principal
officers of his court, who learned that their names were in the list of
proscribed victims, resolved to save themselves by the assassination of
Nadir. The execution of the plot was committed to four chief men who
took advantage of their stations, and, under the pretext of urgent
business, rushed past the guards into the inner tents, where the tyrant
was asleep. The noise awoke him; and he had slain two of the meaner
assassins, when a blow from Salah Beg deprived him of existence.

FIRST MODERN NOVEL

A.D. 1740

EDMUND GOSSE

"Let me make the ballads of a nation," said Fletcher of Saltoun,
"and I care not who makes the laws." The place which the ancient
ballads held in forming the characters of the people is in our day
more than filled by the novels. Everybody reads them, especially in
the younger generation, and every character is more or less moulded
by the sentiments and teachings they contain.

The novel has been almost entirely a modern English development. Two
centuries ago our ancestors did not read fiction: they had
practically none to read. So that the production of the