Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/1084

 8 OPINIONS. we hope, of Bengali literature under British rule; a literature broadened and enriched by European culture. In this literature, Babu Dines Chander Sen’s History will itself occupy a high place as an outcome of European methods of scholarship applied to Eastern learning. Extract from the Calcutta Gazette of March 24, 1897. ‘Vangabhasa O Sahitya’’ is perhaps the most noteworthy book of the year. It is the outcome, as the author says, of six years’ patient labour and research. In it the history of the Bengali language and literature has been traced from the earliest times down to 1838 A. D. The writer has, for the first time, brought to light a number of minor Bengali poems, the discovery whereof will greatly help the cause of linguistic re- search in Bengal. He has remarkably succeeded in utilising the materials at his command. The book is perhaps the first systematic and accurate treatise on the subject, showing a. great improvement in this respect over its predecessor, the late Pandit Ramgati Nayaratna’s book. The chapters of the book on case-suffixes and verbal inflexions in Bengali may be regarded as perhaps the first systematic and the most success- ful attempt at the solution of a very knotty problem.” The Englishman devotes two leaders of its two successive issues of the 24th and 25th December, 1897, to the review of the book from which the following short extract is taken :— ‘The work which under the above title (Bangabhasha O Sahitya) has been recently published by Babu Dinesh Chandra Sen, Head Master of the Victoria School at Tipperah, is one of the most valuable contributions to the history and growth of the language and literature of Bengal that have yet appear- ed, and will have the result of modifying several previously accepted conclusions on the subject. It is based chiefly on researches made throughout Eastern Bengal, with the object of discovering the numerous ancient manuscripts which have