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 CAREY AND FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE 137 the daily occupations of the people, their manners, feelings and ideas but also a thorough acquaintance with the re- sources of the language in its difficult colloquial forms. The book is indeed a rich quarry of the idioms (and even of the s/ang, the class or professional shibboleth) of the spoken dialect of Bengal; and in an age of mere or main translation, of tentative accumulation of vocabulary and experimental adaptation of arrangement, its value is very great. But to this book belongs also the credit of making an early and original attempt to give, sie eked social jn a erude semi-dramatie form, a faithful reflection of the social life in Bengal as it existed a century ago. The class of men who are supposed to carry on these dialogues or colloquies ranges from that of a Shahib, a respectable Bengali gentleman, a merchant, a zemindar and a Brahman priest to that of a peasant, a low class woman, a day- labourer, a fisherman and a beggar. The more regular and measured language of the upper classes is put side hy side with the loose style and talk of uncultured women and the lower orders in different situations. Indepen- dently of its merit as a help to the acquisition of the language, this work presents in many respects a curious and lively picture of the manner of life led by the middle and lower classes. The faithfulness of this picture is guaranteed by the fact that even in Its realism. ’ the present day it has not lost all the force and precision of its realism. In his celebrated Sanserit speech before Lord Wellesley at a public dis- putation of the College Carey, speaking of his knowledge of the country, said: “I, now an old man, have lived for a long series of years among the Hindoos. I have been in the habit of preaching to multitudes daily, of discoursing 18