Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/117

 EARLIEST EUROPEAN WRITERS 95 was established at Caleutta for imparting knowledge of the vernaculars to young civilians. With this Mission as its centre and the Fort William College as its public forum, Bengali language entered upon a new phase of development, hitherto undreamt of. Forster was, no doubt, followed by a band of earnest civilian workers, of whom the names of J. F. Ellerton' and Sir Graves C. Haughton are the most well-known, yet with the missionaries in the field, who, for years to come, had made education of the people and cultivation of the vernacular their own peculiar province, earlier work was eclipsed, and a fresh impetus was given to the vernacular literature. The experimental stage was not yet over, but what was desultory, spasmodic, and slipshod became regular, un- broken, and systematic: and for several years till the foundation of the Hindu College and the emergence of a new band of writers, the history of Bengali literature is closely bound up with the labours Sririmpur Mission. of the missionaries and school-masters, and especially of the brotherhood at Srira mpur, associated with the names of Carey, Marshman and Ward whose devotion, earnestness and philanthropic purpose cannot be too highly spoken of. ‘ Ellerton wrote his works before 1800 and, therefore, strictly speaking belongs to this chapter. But Ellerton’s Bible-translations were not published until probably 1819: so an account of him will be found in the next chapter under the Bible-translations of the Srirdmpor missionaries,