the end of which time, A. D. 1722, the Afghans of Cabul and, Caudahar revolted, and, under their chief, Meer-Mahmood, routed the Persians at Goolnabad, and invested the Persian capital, Ispahan, which, after enduring the horrors of famine for seven months, was obliged to capitulate. Hussein, the last of the family of Ismael Sooffee, resigned his crown to the conqueror, and Persia fell under the yoke of the Afghans.

But the tenure of the Afghans also was brief in Persia. The crown prince, Tahmasp, with his great general, Nadir-Kooli, after a struggle of eight years, exterminated the invaders, and regained the throne of Persia. The real power, however, remained in the hands of Nadir, who dethroned Tahmasp, A. D. 1732, and placed his infant son, Abbas III., thereon, in whose name he governed as regent for four years, when the young monarch dying, Nadir declared the Seffavean dynasty at an end, and himself assumed the crown under the title of Nadir Shah.

This great man raised Persia, by his conquests, to a high state of prosperity; but his barbarities and avarice led to his destruction by the hands of his own subjects, A.D. 1747. Persia was now without a ruler, and anarchy and confusion prevailed every where. The Uzbek states threw off the yoke, and Afghanistan became an independent and powerful kingdom, while the crown was contested by several competitors, and the kingdom distracted by civil wars.

The successful competitor was Keerem-Khan, of the Zand family, who possessed himself of supreme power, A. D. 1759, which he held under the title of Wakeel, or Administrator, till his death, A. D. 1779. At the death of Keerem-Khan, fresh disorders prevailed in Persia.

During the period between 1779 and 1789, six chiefs ascended or claimed the sovereign authority; while Russia, in her insatiable thirst for do

minion, encroached on the northern provinces, and added Georgia to its widely extended empire. At the end of this time, the candidates for royalty were reduced to two, Lutf Ali Khan Zend, and Aga Mohammed Khan Kajar, the latter of whom prevailed, A. D. 1795, and founded the Kajar, or reigning dynasty. This ruler was assassinated by his own attendants, whom he had provoked by his severities, and he was succeeded by his nephew, the late Shah Futtah Ali, who reigned from A. D. 1797 to A.D. 1834.

At the death of this prince, who ceded most of the Caspian provinces, with Eriwan and the country to the Araxes, to the Russians, after two disastrous wars, a struggle commenced for the crown among his descendants; but it was speedily terminated, by the influence of England and Russia, in favour of the present Shah Mohammed, grandson of Futtah Ali, by his son Abbas Mirza, who died before his father, and while yet the crown was in his view.

Who next will ascend the throne of Persia, or how long the reigning dynasty shall sit thereon, the progress of time can alone unfold. Its situation between the two great Asiatic empires of England and Russia, and its manifest internal weakness would lead to a conclusion that it will never regain its former rank in the scale of nations. Of this, however, the reader may be assured, that, whether the Persian rulers still hold rule on the earth, or their power is absorbed in either of these great empires, all will be under the control of the great Disposer of human events-God. By his mandate

All regions, revolutions, fortunes, fates,
Of high, of low, of mind, and matter, roll
Through the short channels of expiring time,
Or shoreless ocean of eternity,
In absolute subjection.

YOUNG.