"حياة ومراسلات اللواء السير جون مالكوم، قائد فرسان وسام الطُهر، المبعوث السابق إلى بلاد فارس وحاكم بومباي؛ من رسائل ومذكرات غير منشورة. في مجلّدين. المجلد II." [‎٥‎٥‎٢] (٦٥٤/٥٦٩)

^52 THE BOMBAY GOVERNMENT.
by the Asiatic Society, the members of which were eager
to express their sense of his high " literary qualifications,
his constant and sedulous devotion to the cultivation of
literature, and to the promotion of true knowledge, and
the removing of error;" and by the Christian Mission
aries, who bore public testimony to the " facilities which
he had granted for the preaching of the Gospel in all
paits of the Bombay territories, his honorable exertions
in the abolition of Suttees, and to the kind manner in
which he had countenanced Christian education." He
did not lay down the reins of office without the utterance
by all classes of expressions of sincere regret at his de
parture, and many earnest prayers for his continued hap
piness and prosperity.
He had now done his work in India; and he might
well be content with such a career. But he had not
achieved all that he had desired: he had aimed at the
Governor-Generalship, and he had fallen short of the
mark. It was a noble ambition; and nobly was it pro
secuted.
We get so near—so very, very near.
Tis an old tale—Jove strikes the Titans down,
^ot when they set about their mountain-piling,
But when another rock would crown their work.
Great as is this truth, the lesson to be derived from
the contemplation of such a career as Sir John Mal
colm s is not that which the poet would inculcate. We
arc to be instructed by the Much accomplished, not by
the Little unattained. He had gone out to India as a
cadet of infantry at the age of thirteen, with no better
prospect of promotion than lies before any other scantily-
educated boy who leaves his paternal homestead to make
his way as best he can for himself amidst thousands of
competitors on a vast theatre of action; and he left th^ ||
country of his adoption, having attained, if not its highest ?
place, the highest ever attained by one who set - out