according to their condition, without a smile in their faces unless fever or cholera is rife. * * * *
‘Pundits from the toles and pujaris are going to bathe in the river with a change of clothes in bundles under their arms. They are in a hurry to-day because they must be with their jajmans early. Rheumatic middle-aged gentlemen are out in their morning walks. Oorya bearers, with tooth-stick in hand, are off like the rest to the waterside. The Englishman, the Hurkaru and the Phœnix, are being distributed to their subscribers. Native papers are like venison; they are kept for a day to get a flavour. It is different with English papers; they must be distributed before the sun is up.’
So much for Hutam.
One of the best masters of a pure and vigorous Bengali style—neither characterized by the somewhat pedantic purity of Vidyasâgar, nor rough and homely like Tekchand and Hutam—one of the best masters, we say, of Bengali style is Babu Bhudeb Mukerjî. He has, unfortunately, written little, except works of a technical character, but his little volume of historical tales, from which we have not space to quote, is enough to show that he might have done a great deal more than he actually has done.
The next author to be considered is Mr. Michael Madhusudan Datta, a most prolific writer of poems and plays. There is probably no writer whose merits are more variously estimated—some enthusiasts thinking him fit to compare with Kalidása, while others regard him as a mere poetaster. For ourselves we agree with neither, and while admitting his considerable merits, we are not prepared to rank him among great poets. He has incurred much hostile criticism by his innovations in language, and by his introduction into Bengali of the use of blank verse, but his rightful place in Bengali literature is perhaps the highest.
His poetical works are the Meghnada Badh, the Tilottama Sambhava, the Birangana and the Brajangana. The two former are what in Europe would be called epic poems, and in India mahakavyas. Both are written in blank verse—the first instances of the kind in Bengali. Of the two, the Tilottama was the earliest, but the Meghnada Badh is Mr. Datta’s greatest work. The subject is taken from the Ramayana, the source of inspiration to so many Indian poets. In the war with Ravana, Meghnada, the most heroic of Ravana’s sons and warriors, is slain by Lakshman, Rama’s brother. This is the subject; and Mr. Datta owes a great deal more to Valmiki than the mere story. But, nevertheless, the poem is his own work from beginning to end. The scenes, characters, machinery and episodes, are in many respects of Mr. Datta’s own creation. In their conception and development, Mr. Datta has displayed a high order of art, and to do justice to it, or even to give a suitable idea of it, would
