Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/140

 116 BENGALI LITERATURE as the earliest specimen of simple and homely prose, can ever claim any thing like literary competency for them marked that they are throughout by earliness and immaturity. Carey’s claim to importance as a contribu- tor to Bengali literature does not rest so much upon his Bible-translations and numerous tracts on Christian- ity, but on the works which he produced in another sphere of usefulness but on which he himself seems to have laid less emphasis although they show him in a better light as a writer of Bengali. This sphere of usefulness was first opened to Carey by his appointment as a teacher of wee ১ Bengali in Lord Wellesley’s newly established Fort William College. It is to be noted, however, that it was the publica- tion of the Bible-translation and his reputation as the foremost European scholar of Bengali that had secured the appointment which placed him ina position, philo- logical and financial, to further the earnse of Bengali writing. It was more to his connexion with the Fort William College and his growing influence as a writer and scholar in Bengali than to his position as a preacher of the Gospels that we owe every thing that he did for enriching Bengali literature.