Dutt, Romesh Chunder: The literature of Bengal: being an attempt to trace the progress of the national mind in its various aspects, as reflected in the nation’s literature from the earliest times to the present day ; with copious extracts from the best writers (Calcutta, 1877)

• INTPpDUCTION. xxl
• . ■

and medi Sates. The emotion raised by this image is one
of desolation of the most dreary character, unmingled
and untempered by grief. t
Macbeth—What is that noise 1
Seyton—It is, the cry of women, my good lord.

Macbeth— »I>have almost forgot the taste of fears :

» The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To he*ar a night-shriek ; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir,
As life were in't: I have supped full with horroj-s ;
Dhfeness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
• Cannot once start me.—Wherefore was that cry ?

Seyton—The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth—She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and'to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pac,e from cSiy to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time ; *

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.* Out, out, brief candle ! »

Life's but a walking shadow ; a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more : it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

We are now in a position to judge what are the
necessary qualifications of a poet. Who is a poet 1

He is a poet who can raise an image or a string
'o*f ideas calculated to rouse our finer emotions. In
order to be able to do so he must have keen sensibilities
himself. The composition which would move our-enac-
tions must itself take its birth in deep emotions.
Language is but the channel for the communication o2~