Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/181

 CAREY AND FORT WILLIAM COLLEGE 157 fitted for this task he was by his acquirements as well as by his position. We have seen that Carey not only wrote in Bengali himself, but with his influence in the Fort William College and reputation as a Bengali scholar, _A friend of Bengali and friend of Bengali writers, he literature, - succeeded in inducing many learned Bengalis to the promotion and preparation of good Bengali works. With the aid of the Press at Srirampur and the collaboration of his colleagues, and in subordination to its special purpose of multiplying copies The Press at Srirém- of the Bengali Bible, he devoted him- pur and its encourage- < ment of native talent. self to the printing, as we shall see, of the first efforts of native literary talent. From 1801 to 1825 many useful works in Bengali as well as in other languages! issued from the Mission Press at Srirampur, to most of which Carey contributed encouragement and aid. Many of the older Bengali classics were printed at the Mission and made accessible to the read- ing public. The editions of the RamZyan of Krttibas and the Annadimangal of Bharat-chandra, published through the zeal of Carey, remained for a long time the standard texts translations (1832) is given & review of the work of the Mission since its commencement. It is shown that two hundred and twelve thousand volumes in forty different languages at a cost cf over £80,000 have been issued between 1801 and 1832, The Mission was practically the first in the field in its assiduous study of the different dialects and languages of India. In the Sixth Memoir (dated March, 1816) we find 34 specimens of 33 Indian languages given, The whole discussion, Grierson points out (/ndian Antiquary, 1903, p. 246), is the first systematic survey of the languages of India. Before this, Gilchrist in his Oriental Fabulist (1805) had attempted to give a polyglot version of ®sop’s fables: but he confined himself to giving specimens only in six languages including the classical Sanscrit and Arabic,
 * In the Appendix to the Tenth Memoir, relative to Srirampur