Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/308

 284 BENGALI LITERATURE brought the scientific study of Bengali within easy reach, but to them also as well as to other later writers, both native and foreign, belongs the ০1601 of making Bengali not only the official language of the Presidency but also the basis of one of the most prolific literary languages of India. While the to pundits and the court-scribes were attempting to bring Bengali under the lead of Sanserit and Persian respectively, the language (3) The common jy people ; their language. (চলিত বা অপর ভাষা), men” and the people generally, was the unforbidden, if untaught, Bengali, the country-places, among “ low which we find in the old writers and of which we find a distant echo in the outbursts of purely native inspiration like those of the Kadzwalas, নিই and yatrakars, Kathakas, and Painchali- kars. A little sanscritised on the one hand and a little persianised on the other, the language preserved the equipoise perfectly and drew its nerve and vigour from the soil itself. It was so direct in its simplicity, so dignified in its colloquial ease, and so artful in its want of art that it never failed to appeal. Nota single latter-day writer, as the foremost amorg them himself acknowledges, has been able to speak in the same tongue. While speaking of this language of the people in its contrast to modern mixed literary diction, Bankim Chandra lamented? “ s{faets fata অভিনব ও উন্নতির পথে সমারূঢ় সৌন্দযণবিশিষ্ট বাঙ্গালা সাহিত্য দেখিয়া অনেক সময় বোধ হয়, হৌক সুন্দর 187৮ (0000. কিন্তু এ বুঝি পরের আমাদের নয়। খাটি বাঙ্গালা কথায় বাঙ্গালীর মনের ভাব ত খুঁজিয় পাই না। তাই ঈশ্বরগুপ্তের কবিতা! সংগ্রহে প্রবৃত্ত হইয়াছি।” ॥ ঈশ্বর গুপ্তের কবিতা সংগ্রহের মুখবন্ধ| (1895) Preface to the Kabita Samgraha of [Svar Chandra Gupta. Ed, by baikim Chandra Chatterjee and Gop&l Chandra Mukerjee in 2 pts.