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)

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literature op bengal.

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One great charm of his poetry consists in the simple
h'omely similes,'always drawn from familiar objects of lowly
village life. The cultivated rice-field, the ferry boat, the
village market, the oil-mill, such are the objects of his
similes about life and this world, round which he eri-
twinesrhis feeliwg songs with the most touching effect.

CHAPTER XIV,
l

Bharat Chandra Rai.

Contemporaneously w'tth Ram Prasad Sen and equal-
ly favoured by Raja Krishna Chandra Rai lived a
greater poet, the talented ( Bharat Chandra Rai,—a
"mine' of talent" (Gunakar) as the Raja called him.

Bharat Chandra Rai was the fourth son of Raja
Narendra Narain Rai, a wealthy Zemindar of Burdwan.
The seat of his zemindari was at Pandua in the Purgana
of Bhursoot, and his kingly residence was surrounded
on all sides by a moat, traces of which are .visible to
the present day. We have elsewhere seen that in those
days zemindars were all but feudatory princes, armed
with complete civil and criminal powers over their sub-
jects, and bound only to send their quota of revenue to