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)

134 LITERATURE OF "BENGAL.

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rescues Srimanta after beating back the whole %ce of
the fling. The King at \ast discovers Chandi, worships
her, and honors her protege, Srimanta, and promises to
bestow his daughter Susila on him. But Srimanta is dis-
consolate, and will not marry till he sees his father. At
kis request the King rescues all the prisoners, and they
are one by one provided with money and things and
sent home. The heart of the child throbs at the sight
of his father whom he had never seen before, and the old
man gives a (true account of himself to the young
Srimanta, little knowing that it is his own son he is
speaking to. Srimanta still remains incognito, and handi
over the last will and testament which his father had left
with Khullona before leaving home. Affecting indeed is
the passage in which the old man on seeing the letter
suddenly recollects his distant home and wives and for-
mer happiness, ^and cries( out in bitter grief. The son
discovers himself ar.fr1 eia&y both return home to the
embrace of their family.

We shall conclude this'chapter with a very few re-
marks about the poetry of Maku'nda Earn. The first
thing probably that strikes the modern reader is the
very unsatisfactory plot of the poems written by the
author. There are scarcely any heroes or heroines in the
modern sense of the word, scarcely any display of extra-
ordinary courage, skill or virtue, such as might catch
hold of the imagination ; scarcely any feats accomplished
by the valour and virtue of men and women. It were
easy to explain this defect by a few jaunty sentences with
reference to the defective taste of those times &c, &c,—