Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/941

 VII.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 8০97 gradually decayed in importance from the time of the foundation of Haileybury College in 1807, till-its final extinction in 1854. The Bengali prose works written by various authors early in the roth century, though occasion- ally encumbered with compound words and quaint and high flown style, often show great erudition, as the writers were all learned Pundits. They enriched the prose literature by translations either from English or from the Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian languages. These works were gene- rally compiled with great care; and considering the disadvantages from which the early labourers in any field must always suffer, we may excuse many of their inevitable short-comings. Perso- nally, we have hitherto neglected the literature of this period being repelled, on the one hand, by the quaint bombastic style of our learned countrymen, and by the errors in idiom, on the other, into which European writers of Bengali have so frequently fallen. But this was an age in which Bengali prose had been taken up in earnest by men who spared no pains to contribute to its development; and there is surely much in these writings which will repay careful perusal by the writers of Bengal, at the present day. 0 (c) The Rev. K. M. Banerji and other authors who followed in the wake of European writers. A jist of their publications. Foremost amongst those who laboured in the field of Bengali prose under the influence of Eng: 113