Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/933

 | — VII.) BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 889 Next to Mrityunjaya, we find Rama Rama Vasu— Rama Rama a Kayastha held in high esteem by the Europeans at Vase Fort William College, for his great learning in different oriental languages. Says Dr. Carey about him ‘a more devout scholar than him I did never see.’ Rama Rama Vasu was_ born towards the end of the 18th century at Chinsura. He got his early education in a pathaca/a at the village of Nimta, a place in Twenty-four Parganas already noted as the birth-place of the old poet Krisna Rama. ‘ Rama Basu” writes Dr. Carey “before his 16th year became a perfect master of Persian and Arabic. His knowledge of Sanskrit was not less worthy of note.......... He was of a peculiar turn of mind. Though amiable in manners and honest in dealings he was a rude and unkind Hindu ১ if any body did him wrong.’’ Rama Vasu was ap- pointed as a Pundit in the Fort William College in 1800, but owing to difference of opinion, resigned his post shortly after. Rama Vasu’s Pratapaditya Charita published in 1801 at Cri Rampur was one of the first works written in modern prose. ‘Its style, a kind of Mosaic, half Persian half Bengali, indicates the pernicious influence which the Mahomedans had exercised over the Sanskrit-derived languages.” * We find the following account of the book in the descriptive catalogue of books by the Rev. J. Long. “The first prose work and the first historical one that appeared was the life of Pratapaditya, the last king of the Sagara island by Rama Vasu, (page [50). The Rev. J. Long also condemns this style [1৫
 * Calcutta Review 1850.