Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/801

 VI. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 759 sentiment. Ig¢var Chandra Gupta was the idol of the educated Bengali Hindus of his period. He was a great figure,—in fact the most remarkable literary personality of hisage. It was his encourage- ment that inspired Bankima Chandra, Rangalala, Dinavandhu and other young aspirants to literary fame who all served their first apprenticeship His life. in Bengali by writing in the monthly Prabhékara edited by I¢var Chandra. Curiously enough, this writer was no scholar, though his voice was so authoritative in the Bengali literature of his time. In his early years he neg- lected his studies, and was given up for a lost child. Ic¢vara Chandra was born in 1811 at Kafichrapara in the district of Twenty-four Parganas. His father Hari Mohan Gupta was not a man of means; he earned the small pittance of Rs. 8 a month as clerk in an indigo factory at Selidaha ; but he had some small landed property in his native village, and the family was mainly dependent upon this. I¢vara Chandra showed courage, so early as five years of age. One night the lad was passing through a place supposed to be haunted by ghosts ; it was a dark night, and a tail man, passing by, tumbled over him. The child was not daunted by what others of his age would certainly have taken for a ghost, but he boldly stood up and asked ‘ Who are you, my man?.’ When he was ten years old, his mother died. His father lost no time in taking a second wife. The step-mother was introduced to young I¢vara Chandra, who threw a brick at her by way of first greeting, expressing his great indigna- tion at the conduct of his father. His uncle was