Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/103

 HARLIEST EUROPEAN WRITERS 79 an able scholar, who had already achieved some literary reputation and had been a friend of sani tickeinsoy Sheridan’s,' came out to Bengal as a civilian and applied himself with great assiduity to the study of the Uengali language. He is said t» have attains! so much proficiency in the language, both in its colloquial and literary aspects, that he had ben kaoowna to disguise himself in native dress and pass as a Bengali in an assembly of Bengalis.? Nathaniel Brassey Hilhed wis born on May 25, 1751, at Westminster. His father, William Halhed, descended from an old Oxfordshire family, was for eighteen years a Director of the Bank of England. Young Halhed was —— — — সস এ » “We also learn that Nathaniel Brassey Halhed Esq. either himself or in collaboration with Richard Brinsley Sheridan translated the Epistles of Aristaenetus into English metre in I771”. (Gentleman's Magazine, |xxxii. pt. 2, 1812. p. 132) p. 20; Calcutta Review, 1850, p. 134: Good Old Days of Hon'ble Company vol. i, p. 235. But this story of Halhed’s proticiency in Bengali seems to be doubtful: in the Friend of India (Aug. 1838) we read this, not of him, but of his nephew Nathaniel John Halhed (787-1838), a Judge of the Dewani ‘Adalat. John Halhed, we are informed, had such command over the linguage that he is said to have joined a jatra party at Burdwan and passed there for a Bengali. See also R. G. Sanyal, Reminiscences and Anecdotes, vol. ii, p.9. John Halhed, in Sanyal’s work as well as in the Bengal Obituary (p. 204) is said to have been a son of the grammarian Halhed, which is clearly a mistake: for, N. B. Halhed the grammarian who married (before 1784) Helena Rebaut, a daughter of the Dutch Governor of Chinsura, died without any issue. See Impey’s Memoirs by his son, p. 360 footnote. Also Dictionary of National Biography, Art. Halhed. That Halhed possessed a high degree of proficiency in the language and brought the scientific study of Bengali within easy reach is undoubted and justifies Colebrooke's high eulogy (Asiatic Researches, vol. vii, 1799, p., 224): and to this is due the attribution of all sorts of apocryphal stories to his credit. For Nathaniel John Halhed, see Ramchander Doss, Genera! Register of Hon. B. I. Co.'s Civil Servants on the Bengal Establishment. Cal. 1844, p. 155.
 * Rev. James Long, A Descriptive Catalogue of Bengali Books, 1855,