Page:A Hundred Years Of Bengali Press.pdf/5

Rh Idler and the Rambler. Prompted by the struggle with which the name of John Wilkes and the author of the Letters of Junius are connected, the Press soon claimed and secured the right of criticising the actions of Government. A taste for literary criticism gave birth to the famous Edinburgh Review under Jeffrey and Sidney Smith ; and so on with other branches of knowledge. In the glorious age of French literature, under Louis HIV, the French Press ﬁrst became a vital force in the national life, and it still looms large in all the great activities of that people.

Different, however, are the circumstances under which the Bengali Press ﬂourishes. The Augustan Age in Bengali. literature has not yet fully dawned. Few and limited are the resources of its literature. Cultured men in a far-off age may have taken delight in reading the few books available, which included the Vaishnava lyrics of Vidyapati, Chandidas, and the immortal works of Kritibas, Kasiramdas, Ram Prasad and Bharatohandra. These were the few books from which the men of the time drank deep and in