Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/944

 goo BENGALI LANGUAGE & LItERATURE. [Chap. 10. Moral tales. 11. Watt’s On The Mind Vol. I. 12. Do. do. Vol. IL. 13. Life of Galileo. The Encyclopzedea contains much useful informa- tion for the enlightenment of the Bengal public who had hitherto had no knowledge of the outside world, but it shows no original research in any field by the compiler, consisting, as it does, mainly of tran- slations from standard European writers. The Vidya Kalpa Druma by Dr. K. M. Banerji and the V7w- dhartha Samgraha by Dr. Rajendra Lal Mitra (started in 2857) 26 two monuments of patient labour giving that up-to-date information in Science _ and Art which was so essential for the dessimina- tion of useful knowledge amongst our countrymen in the earlier half of the roth century. A list of There was at the time quite a legion of Bengali publica- ee works on the aforesaid lines, most of which have sunk into oblivion, after their brief day of usefulness in enlightening the masses of Bengal; and we can only name some of them to show in what direction the wind blew in our literature, For the list furnish- ed below we have had to depend mainly upon the | descriptive catalogue of Bengali books by the Rev. J. Long published in 1855. 1. A Dictionary by Rama Kamala Sen (Grand Vocabulary hae রর টি father of the ilustrious Kegava Chandra Sen) pp. 1534. ‘A work of great research—the result of 15 years’ labour—a translation of ‘Todd and Johnson containing the meanings in Bengali of 5800 English words—a perfect chaos of materials lor future lexicographers and a work of great