INTRODUCTORY RETROSPECT 59 contemporary events are two inseparable aspects of national history. It is true that during the period between 1800 and 1825, with which more specially the present enquiry is concernel, these tendencies did not come into such bold relief as in the period immediately following upon it, yet for the understanding of the general drift, the historian of literature must from the beginning keep in view the relation of literature to the political and social history of the time; and this, apart from all reference to the theory of the insensible moulding of the literary mind and art by the considerations of race, time, or cireumstance, will sufficiently make clear the necessity of devoting tedious pages to a general description of the state of this country at the outset of our literary history, The immediate effect of the political and _ social vicissitudes of the second half of the eighteenth century was depreciating in the extreme. The old Bengali literature, which had been subsiding gradually into decrepitude and deeay, practically disappeared. The Kabiwalas, the few isolated writers in the old style, the authors of Painchali, and the host of inferior imitators of Bharat- chandra had no doubt kept up the continuity of literary history and maintained, even with Absence of literary declining powers, the ancient trend রাত 8৮9৫ thought and feeling. But it was period of our history : how to be explained. gn age not conspicuous for the appreciation of high ideas nor for any great enthusiasm for literary ventures. The decadence, inspite of these belated efforts of an inferior, if not an insignificant, band of writers, was rapidly hastened and the necessity of an external stimulus, which alone could have given a new lease of life to the declining literature, was urgently felt. Such an external stimulus was not forthcoming until sometime had elapsed and tranquillity
