Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/206

 182 BENGALI LITERATURE language and manner. It is a pretty close but easy translation of the four books of the well-known moral essay—unabridged and unexpurgated—and the prose is plain and unassuming, except for a little quaintness smacking of the to/ pundit and a little irregularity of syntax here and there. Although itself based upon a Sanserit original and the author him- self a learned pundit, well-versed, it may be, in the classical language there is yet no trace of any affectation of Its language. pedantry or magnificence. The style is free also from the Persian influence so conspicuous in Ram Basu’s works. There is some attempt at periodic prose, but the syntax and arrangement, imitating commentorial queerness, is not all that could be desired, though it is certainly more correct and easy than that of Pratapaditya or Lipimala. With no conscious purpose of developing a prose style but with many unconscious experiments at arrangement and adjustment, here is, as in Carey’s Dialogues or Itihis-mala, much simplicity and desire to make the language clear and useful. There is hardly any necessity of quoting too many extracts, for the style, besides being plain and simple, has hardly any marked impressiveness of its own. The following extract Also in Blumhardt, op. cit. p. 115-116). A copy of Golak-nath Sarma’s version is in the library of the British Museum bearing the same date and place of publication as we have given above (Blumhardt, op. cit. p. 115). Seton-Karr in his article on Bengali Literature in Cal. Rev., 1849 (p. 499) is rather severe in his criticism on this work; but his views were formed, it seems, on the “condensed and corrected” specimens from this work given in Yates’s Introduction, vol. ii (1847) ed. by Wenger. The work under review is entered as Golak-nath’s and dated 1801 in the Cataloguefof the Library of the Hon, East India Company, 1845, p. 195. The date 1802, given in the Tenth Memoir, is inaccurate ; but it follows the date given on the English title-page of the book