Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/14

 xii PREFACE to give more than a mere rapid sketch of the history of the period in all its varied aspects but only with reference to its bearings upon literature, although volumes may be and have been written on their difficult and vast subject. I have not hesitated to draw very considerably upon what has already been written on it and indeed I have drawn so considerably that it is not possible to acknowledge my indebtedness in all cases except by way of a general reference in the bibliography. The recognised historians of this period of Indian History, I may be permitted to add, have divergent methods and view-points. Auber is complacent, Mill querulous, ‘Thornton vindictive, Ghulam Hosain exuberant, Macaulay sweeping and Romesh Dutt vehement ; but the steadily accumulating mass of materials, in the shape of reports, pamphlets, bluebooks, state-papers and other documents would give to a patient scholar enough material for a thorough, sober, and I must add, imperatively necessary reconstruction of this period. The account of the European writers, which follow this introductory sketch, is made as full and accurate as materials at my disposal would allow, for never has full justice been done to these worthy pioneers who have been allowed to pass silently into oblivion. The average reader knows no other names than those of Carey and Marshman but the interesting group of writers, great and small, who surrounded or preceded these great names and added their little mite to the cause, are also worthy of grateful remembrance. They are, therefore, presented here as reputable and fairly interesting persons and not as un- presentable progenitors always to be kept in the back- ground. The early missionary movements in Bengal are studied for the first time from original sources with reference to their bearing on Bengali language and litera- ture and some pains are taken to trace the rather obscure