30 BENGALI LITERATURE is needless to recapitulate details: but it may be noted that hardly any of the worthies of this period, whether Hindu or Mnsalman, could ever show, both in their public and private life, a perfectly clean record. One can easily understand from this the degenerate tone in the writings of the period, which sprang up chiefly round the courts of these rajas or zemindars who were the dispensers of the daily bread of the poets. Even the work of the devout Ram-prasad or of the illiterate Kabiwalas was not entirely free from this almost universal taint. Next to the zemindars, came the class of learned Brahmans, the other important factor of the social fabric, who suffered no less from these political and social changes. Even in this period of anarchy and oppression, the priestly class, however fallen or cried down in modern times, was recognised as the head of society, as the spiritual guide and enlightener of the race. Whatever damaging influence their much-too-decried exelusiveness might have produced, it cannot be denied that as a class they hardly ever fell below this high expectation. The occupation of the Brahmans, although on the decline, had not yet lost its ancient lustre and dignity and The humiliation of iia 75 there were men among them still who were, as of yore, capable of fear- less acts of self-sacrifice for the good of the community. The Brahmans were not only the educators of the nation but also its lawgivers, its judges, and at times its acknow- ledged head and dictator in social matters. Although literature was not their profession, their sphere of usefulness consisted in their interest in mental and spiritual culture. But a change of the deepest kind was coming over the spirit of this ancient and honoured class. After the political storm of the century had blown over, the Brahmans found themselves utterly neglected, nay, humiliated and
