42 BENGALI LITERATURE whom were good scholars, intellect and fancy predominated over sentiment and passion, ingenuity took the place of feeling, and poetry lost its true accent. On the one hand, arose around the court of Krsnachandra the artificial school of Bharat-chandra, whose poetry, more fanciful than delicate, more exquisite than passionate, first turned the tide in favour of ornate and artificial standards of verse- making: on the other hand, under The existing schools of Bengali literature by their excesses gave Raja Raj-ballabh, flourished a more unmistakable proof of ; ‘ decadence and fore- Serious, though less poetical, group of shadowed the close of the literary age. the patronage of the rival court of writers who exhibit the same tendency to ornate diction and luxuriant style and the same weakness for frigid conceits but whose profundity, allegorical fancy, didactic taste, and consequent monotony present a striking contrast to the more voluptuous and attractive school at Nadiya. Both these schools, by their excesses, marked the close of the literary age. In spite of the exquisite quality of his phrase and _ his numbers, that exalt him to a_ place all his own, Bharat-chandra was a far greater artist than a true poet. He was a sure and impeccable master of his own craft, yet we must confess here, as everywhere, a fall of the true poetic spirit, the neap of inspiration, the preference of what catches the eye to what touches the heart. Bharat-chandra is not very The school at Nadiya ৮১৪ ই of which Bharat-chan- Often original: yet when he imitates, হি the literary he does not choose the best models but only tries to improve upon the very second-rate works of later artificial Kavya poets like Magha aud Sriharsa, or even worse things from a class of degenerate Mohammedan tales of dubious taste and excellence. Poetry is increasingly regarded as a means of the display of elaborate conceits till
