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)

54: LITERATURE OF BENGAL. (

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poqtry there is intense feeling and deep pathos ; Bidya-
pati combines these qualifications with a quick fancy, a
varied imagery, an exuberance of grace and ornament.
The faults'of the two poets are also characteristic. Chan-
didas is cloying, and sometimes monotonous, Bidyapati
too artistic, too abstract, in his images and ideas. At
the same time both display the profoundest knpwledge of
the workings of a lover's heart, both sympathise deeply
with, and pourtray feelingly and minutely its various
phases, the^. first troubled impressions of love, its resist-
less force as the tide increases, the bitter pangs of sepa-
ration and the bitterer woes of jealousy, the fond work*
ings of hope, the ghastly effects of despair.

We ifegJJ try to illustrate our remarks with a few
extracts. There is no English version of either Bidya-
pati or Chandidas, \md we have therefore for our English
headers ventured ^.o renderrinto English verse the extracts
made from the poets. We need scarcely remark that our
version will very often fail to convey the deep feeling
which characterizes the poems.

■

We make an extract,—quite at random from Bidya-
pati,* which we thus venture to render into English." It

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^ citfj\, ^nfStal, #t^=r ^<tfa i

^ *W> lt% <i?^, ^ ^t?^ ^fa II
jf«pf *tt"^»> fsprtw, 1^ ¥^ ^ ^tfs i