Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/901

 VII.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 857 True love never spends itself in a single chan- nel. Dr. Carey and-his colleagues did not con- sider their work done by merely propagating the truths of Christianity. They wanted sincerely to Dr. Carey’s give our countrymen education, according to their ~ Bengalf own standards, in all departments of knowledge ; ৯০৮০৪, and the wonderful activity displayed by them in their labour of love draws forth our greatest ad- miration, when we consider that the Government of the East India Company, afraid of disturbing the conservative views of our people in the earlier stages, did not assist but often obstructed them. There is not a. subject in which.these Europeans did not come forward to write books in Bengali in order to spread education amongst the masses. Dr. Carey wrote the following books in Bengali besides numerous treatises on Christianity and the translation of the Bible. 1. A Dictionary of the Bengali language in three volumes, quarto size, containing 80,000 words —the work of thirty years. The original price was Rs. 120. This book came out in 1815—25. 2. A Bengali Grammar published in 1801. It had passed through four editions before 1855. 3. Kathopakathana or Colloquies, published in August, 1801. 4. Itihasamala, or garland of stories, published in 1812. It contains 150 short stories at that time current in Bengal. The last two books form a rich mine of idioms of the spoken dialect of Bengal, from which Tek 108