Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/852

 810 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. Long after Bharata Chandra, Valadeva Palit, a poet who wanted to revive the old taste for artistic poetry, which had, however, in his time grown to be a thing of the past, employed in his Bengali poem called Bhartrihari Kavya, all the chief metres of Sanskrit. He was a true student imbued with a refined classical taste and his Sanskrit vocabulary was immense. With all these qualities, however, at he failed to make any impression in the literature of his period. Bharata had been essentially a poet of his age which had demanded in Bengali poetry a close conformity with the rules of Sanskrit rhetoric; alliteration and other figures of speech were pro- minent characteristics of the period, and the school begun by Bharata Chandra served as a model to a host of writers; he had besides been a born poet, who adorned all that he touched, and if he em- His at- ployed Sanskritic metres, it was because a keen 9 pis ৪৮ appreciation of the beauty of their sound so com- চস pletely possessed his soul that he could not resist ' their flow in his Bengali poetry. Valadeva, however, wrote with the pedantic object of showing himself learned, andhe succeeded in this end, for his readers certainly gave him acertificate that his ingenuity elicited their admiration; but the laurels which adorn the brow of atrue poet were not reserved for a writer of his conceit and pedantry. I quote below two extracts from the writings of Valadeva Palit to illustrate the metres M&linivritti (containing fifteen letters in each line) running thus: James500 (talk) ~+-—-— -»—--—-»s-+-—) and Vamgasthavila (containing 12 letters’ in’ each) running tius:s +44 is Se সি gti oem respectively,