Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/298

 274 BENGALI LITERATURE ponded to contemporary influences. The old schools were being upset and the representative character of the old literature which was becoming more and more urbane and and artificially limited to a select few, who could appre- ciate its new ideas and novel forms, was lost in the attempt, mostly by untrained hands, to imitate foreign literary methods and models. Leaving aside the indigenous forms of literature for separate treatment, the first portion of this period (1800-1815), which was indeed a stage of timid experiment, was for the most part a period of European authorship, varied by occasional imitations by scarcely original native authors, the chief centre of literary publication being the Fort William College. We have ine Calin of Fort traced at some length the connexion of this college with the history and growth of Bengali literature in the early years of British settlement ; and its importance cannot be gain- said. It was here indeed that modern Bengali literature, especially Bengali prose, received its first exercising ground and without its co-operation it is doubtful whether even the Srirampur Mission, an institution equally important to Bengali literature, could have achieved the remarkable suecess which it actually did. The two institutions, the Fort William College and the Srirampur Mission, founded at the same time yet so dissimilar to each other in their aim and object, found them- and the Srirampur sar selves connected with each other by Mission. at least one bond of close kinship, namely, the encouragement which both afforded to the study of Bengali. We shall realise how close this relationship was when we bear in mind that almost all the publications of the College were printed at the Srirampur Press and that, on the other hand, it was the Mission which sup-