Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/857

 VI.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 85 In all the earlier works we find Tripadi adopted in Bengali verses for the purpose of conveying senti- ments of grief ; it was considered to be the fit metre by the poets of old school for giving expression to feelings of mourning or of any dire loss, and it was called atsts} which is no doubt a corrupt form of the word লহরী. The artistic school of Bharata Chandra greatly improved the resources of our language, and con- tributed to that elegance for which it has now won universal praise ; but their attempts often produced abortive results also in the craze for alliteration, evinced not only by poets but by writers of prose during this period. Alliteration and puns on words became a notorious literary folly, many writers having carried them to abnormal excesses. One can hardly imagine how a sane man could have produced a composition like the following ;— $ “রে পাষণ্ড ষণ্ড, এই প্রকাণ্ড ব্র্গাগকাণ্ড দেখিয়াও কাওজ্ঞান শুন্য হইয়া বকাণ্ড প্রত্যাশার ন্যায় লগ্ডভও হইয়া ভণ্ড সন্যাসীর ন্যায় তক্তি-ভাণ্ড ভগ্ন করিতেছ এবং গবা- পণ্ডের ন্যায় গণ্ডে জন্মিয়া গগুকীস্থ গগ্ডশিলার গণ্ড না বুঝিয়! গঞগ্গোল ঝরিতেছ .'* Even gifted writers like I¢vara Chandra Gupta were not free from the great folly of the age, and we find his prose writings often disfigured by too much indulgence in alliteration. In the Cigu Vodhaka, an elementary book for children, that used to be read in the Pathagalas half a century ago, there is much useful and instructive information for the boys to which no one can take objection, but there is an atrocious model letter in it which must have been contributed by a pedantic Sanskrit Folly in alliteration and puns.