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)

164 LITERATURE OF BENGAL.

which we look upon as so much labor, talent and ingenuity
lost in torturing words into alliteration, was probably
regarded as a gem of poetry by the Pandits of Krishna
Chandra*'s court. The descriptions of the loves of Bidya
and Suudav which we have so often condemned as noxious
and unhealthy, were probably for that very reason learned"
'by rote and admired beyond measure by the courtiers of
a luxurious and immoral court. Poetry aud liter/tture
reflect the times, and the poetry of the court .of a luxu-
rious and effete zemindar during the last days of Mahonle-
an oppression tfould not be of a very healthy or a very
sublime character. All this we can understand. What
we do not and cannot understand is, that men in our
days, with English education and pretensions to powers of
judgment, should still repeat the obsolete criticism of au
age of ignorance, or should still speak in raptures of the
poetical powers ol' Bharat Chandra Rai.

We quote some of the. most characteristic passages of
Bharat Chandra's poetry. As language is the forte of
Bharat Chandra's poetry, an Eaglish garb would convey
no idea of the beauty of the "original, and we refrain from
rendering them into English :—

Uma in Disguise.

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