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 SOME GENERAL CHARACTERTSTJCS lOi panied certain works, there is very little else till we come to the time of Lallu Ji Lai. Even commentaries were often in the form of poetry. The system of versification was very complicated, but all authors seem to have found it more natural to write verse than prose. When prose was first employed, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, writers at first found it more awkward and difficult to manage than poetry. Even text-books on such subjects as veterinary surgery, astronomy or lexicography were written in verse. 3. From about the middle of the sixteenth century the literature became self-conscious, and from the time of Ke^av Das onwards an enormous number of works have appeared dealing with the rules of prosody and the art of poetry generally. Apart from verse of a directly religious character this was indeed the favourite subject of composition amongst Hindi poets. The tendency to lay great stress on the form rather than the substance, and to develop a certain amount of artificiality could not, under such circumstances, be avoided. It is considered a mark of a writer's ability if his words are capable of more than one meaning, and ingenuity of phrase, whether by way of double entendre, or alliteration, or any other literary device, is greatly admired. Even nowadays there seems to be a tendency to appraise poets more on account of their technical skill than on account of the message which they have to give. But even so the writers on the art of poetry, who include some of the best Hindi writers, have produced a great deal of verse which is very graceful and artistic, and it must be said that the strict rules as to versification, and their great elaboration, have helped to make Hindi poetry almost unrivalled for melody and rhythm. 4. Conve7itionality in the use of metaphors is another feature of Hindi poetry. Some of these metaphors do not correspond with the facts of nature, but Hindi poets are never tired of repeating them. The separation of the chakwd bird from its mate at 8