THE PERIOD OF EUROPEAN INFLUENCE. 173

sickly, but indefatigable worker at bis 'desk swayed for a
number of years tbe tbougbts and opinions of tbe think-
ing jportion of the people of Bengal. Discoveries of
European science, moral instructions, accounts of different
■nations and tribes, of tbe animate and inanimate creation,
all that could enlighten the expanding intellect of Bengal
and dispel darkness and prejudices, found a convenient
vehicle fa tbe Tatioabodhini Patrika. Akkhai Kumar
worked indefatigably bard, and gave himself scarcely
any recreation. Nature could sustain no longer, he was
prostrated by a head disease which still* prevents him
.from doing any work. All Bengal laments the loss of
this great man, for though living, he is lost to literature.
Reprints from his paper in the shape of ^t^^Hi (3 parts),

^tW^TtH ^tl^ ^s^tH, &c, form the best text books for
students all over Bengal, and among the best specimens
of Bengali prose.

Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, without enlisting himself
in the cause of Brahmais^ has virtually set before him-
self the same aims which actuated his colleague Akkhai
Kumar, viz., the moral instruction of the people, the re-
form of social abuses, the development of Bengali Prose.
His noble attempt to introduce widow marriage (dis- *
allowed by the rules of Bengali society) is but too well
known to need a detailed description. The failure of
' the attempt shew^ tolerably well the deplorable prejudices
and ^ moral cowardliuess which still mark our society.
Another attempt of a similar nature, viz., to abolish the
system of polygamy by penal legislature is, we must Hay,