Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/106

 82 BENGALI LITERATURE the people, for it is undoubted that without this useful art of printing the general education of the people under modern conditions is almost impossible. Charles Wilkins was born at Frome, Somerset, in 1750, son of Walter Wilkins of that town. Sir Charles Wilking. He came to Bengal in 1770 in the 11771576 service of the East India Company as a writer and became superintendent of the Company’s Factories at Maldah. “About 1778”, he writes, his “curiosity was excited by the example of his friend Halhed” to commence the study of Sanscrit and Persian ; the vernaculars he had previously studied. He left India for health in 1786 and re-entered the service of the Company in 1800 as Librarian and Custodian of Oriental Manuseripts, taken at the Fall 91 Seringapatam and elsewhere. He was also attached to the Haileybury College from its foundation in 1805. While in India he co-operated with Sir William Jones in the foundation of the Asiatie Society of Bengal and was a valuable contributor to the earlier volumes of the Asiatic Researches. He was an F. R. 9. (1788) ; a D. C. L. of Oxford (1805) ; an Associate of the Institute of France ; and the Royal Society of Literature awarded him its medal as ‘‘princeps litteraturae Sanseritae”. He was knighted in 1833. He died in London, May 15, 1836, and was interred at the Chapel in Portland town.' ৯৬০১৯ ২০০৯৩ 1 For a list of his oriental works and other particulars, see Asiatic Journal, 1836, pp. 165 71 ; Gentleman's Magazine, 1836 (pt. ii, pp. 67-8), 1808 (pt. ii, p. 922) ; Annual Register for 1836; Alwmni Ovonienses, 1888 ; Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors, 1816 ; Dictionary of National Biography ; Centenary Volumes -of the Asiatic Society of Bengal ; Letters in the Journal of American Oriental Society, 1880, vol x; Preface to Sir William Jones’s Cakuntala and to Wilkins’ Sansennt Grammar ; Notice of the Life of H. T. Colebrooke, by his son, p. 7: Wilkins’ translation of the Bhagabadgita (1785) with an introductory