Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/143

 CAREY AND FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE 119 possibly have produced nothing but for the stimulus thus given to their literary zeal and the encouragement yielded by the liberality of the government which would have never otherwise been so readily called into being.! The movement for undertaking literary and scientific works in Bengali prose and for translation into that language, which till 1850 had been so consp‘cuous an activity in the literary history of Bengal, had its beginning in the publi- cations of the College of Fort The value of its pub- Wilkens’ liastions. and in the zeal of its scholars, aided no doubt by the fact that exigencies of education and spread of liberal ideas naturally brought on a multiplication of text-books and books of general interest. It is true, speaking generally, that the productions of these devoted scholars, consisting, as they do, mostly of school-books and translations, are far from being invulnerable in point of literary merit ; yet to them belongs the credit of breaking fresh ground and creating the all-important Bengali prose-of-all-work. Not that we have no Bengali prose before this, but it was hardly in current use and not so developed as to be the medium of everyday thoughts of the nation.* No one ean claim for this early prose the finish and _all-expressive- ness of latter-day prose, but it cannot be denied that here ‘ This was a pet scheme of Wellesley’s: so the liberality of the Government was magnificent. ? The popular opinion, aided, no doubt, by the extreme scarcity of these publications in the present day as well as by ignorant or careless criticism, often deriving its informations second-hand, that these publi- cations were seldom or never read, is not borne out by contemporary allusions referring to these works and their eXtensive sale, running them through numerous editions within half a century. Most of these publications afforded an endless quarry of fables and stories, always interesting to an oriental reader, 2 See App. I.