Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/214

 190 BENGALI LITERATURE pretensions are few indeed, but the writer is a very good story-teller and has succeeded in making his book inter- esting, both in form and matter.”! The following quotation of a shorter story will serve Sy both as specimen of its tales and of A story quotedasa_, specimen. its language. ° একজন চৌকিদার রাজা তেবরস্তানের সহিত হিতকর্ম্ম করিয়াছিল তাহার প্রসঙ্গ এই ।__ যখন দিবাগত রাত্রি উপস্থিত হইল তখন খোজেস্তাঃ বহুমুল্য শয্যা হইতে গাত্রোথান করিয়া নানাবিধ খাগ্যসামগ্রী আর ফলাদি আনাইয়া ভোজন করিয়া আপন চন্দ্রতুল্য বদন সাজাইয়া স্বর্ণূপ্যের স্তত্রের বস্ত্র পরিধান করিয়া শুকপক্ষির সমীপে আসিয়া রাঁজপুজ্রের+ নিকট যাইতে 1 This book seems to have become very popular; Dr. Yates, in his Selection, gives 18 stories from it alone. Dr. Yates, however, stretches his point too far when he says that the language of this ““a very fair specimen of work is deserving of attention because it is the colloquial language and its almost unbounded negligence.” (Rev. W. Yates, Introduction to the Bengali Language in two .volumes 1847, ed. by J. Wenger; vol. ii containing Selections from Bengali Literature, p. 1). Haughton’s Selections (1822) contain 10 stories from it. The book was’ also translated into Hindusthani. See Roebuck op. cit. App. II. p. 24; “Tota Kuhanee a Translation into the Hindoosthanee Tongue, of the popular Persian Tales, entitled Tootee Namu, by Sueyid Huedur Buksh Hueduree, under the superintendence of John Gilchrist, for the use of the students in the College of Fort William, Calcutta...printed at the Hindoosthanee Press in one vol. 4to. 1804.” also quoted in Hanghton’s Selections, p. 12-18 ; trans. p. 92-96. 8 This is the wife whose husband Maymun has gone abroad; this introductory passage as well as the conclusions forms the link which connects a particular story with what precedes and what follows it, and is thus a part of the framework into which stories of miscellaneous character are thrown in. to meet at midnight. i
 * This story also occurs in another form in the Hitopades. It is
 * This is the paramour with whom an appointment was made