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398 Kaḍṅa Sen of Maynāgar whose resignation was as great as her austerities that stripped even death at the stake of its natural horrors. The name of a ShellyShelley [sic], a Victor Hugo, or an Alfred de Musset evokes in the minds of enlightened Bengalis feelings of great admiration, but they do not care to know who were Chandi Dās, Mukundarām and Krittivāsa. The ears charmed by the beauty of Iambic and Trochaic measures would not stoop to favour the Payāra and the Tripadī Chhandas of the old Bengali poems. Yet it is their own literature which contains elements that they are naturally best fitted to appreciate, and their appreciation of the romantic motives of European literature is apt to be fraught with disastrous results to our society which, under its peculiar constitution, leaves no room for the betrothed pair to have the slightest share in the mutual choice.

As a natural consequence of this neglect, a large number of valuable manuscripts has been allowed to be eaten by worms or destroyed by fire, unknown and unheeded. The Battalā Printing Agencies of Calcutta, which have undertaken to minister to the literary wants of a rustic folk, have preserved a considerable portion of them by printing them on paper of very inferior quality, the printer’s devil having freely distorted and tampered with the readings.

Yet, though meagre in number and poor in execution, the Battalā Presses have preserved what otherwise would have met with a certain destruction, and though late we have now risen to a consciousness of the gratitude which we owe to them for this invaluable service.