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and few realised that the writer was the same man who
as Nizamuddin Ahmed, had been noted at Trinity
College, Cambridge, for his interest in English Poetry,
antiquities and history, and his gentle but firm cham-
pionship of ' the good, the true and the beautiful.'
His English friends, perhaps, had hardly realised what
strength of purpose and intellect underlay his air of
leisurely contemplation ; and it was with some surprise
that they learnt how the poetically-minded student
(who had been called to the Bar in London, but had
seemed more engrossed in Spenser's " Faerie Queene '*
thaix in the,Statute Books) had nevertheless risen to be
Chief Justice in the independent State of Hyderabad,
Deccan. Ultimately he was to be Political Secretary
to His Exalted Highness the Nizam, the head of the
Moslem World. (The Nizam writes poetry himself,
and so has never supposed appreciation of the graces of
life to be a handicap in practical affairs).
The publication of c India to England ' aroused a
demand for other poems from the same pen ; and a
selection from the sonnets of Nizamat Jung Nizamuddin
Ahmed was issued in 1917, His Majesty the King
accepting a copy. The Editor of the Sonnets, ap-
parently writing from personal knowledge, laid stress
upon the inference that far from a poetic spirit hamper-
ing this poet in the service of mankind, he, on the
contrary, had drawn from his love of great literature
a steady inspiration to embody in life the constructive
qualities he admired in the past. Commending ' the
comprehensive way in which he, in a few words, would
indicate his impressions of poets and heroes long dead
but to him ever-living,' the critic added : " His appre-
ciation was both ardent and just; he could swiftly re-
cognise the nobler elements in characters which at first
glance might seem startingly dissimilar; and he could