Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/337

 KABIWALAS 318 unmistakable relationship between the Baisnab writers and the Kabiwalas. It is true that the Kabiwalas never possessed the genius and devotional fervour of the old Baisnab poets, that none of the Kabi-songs reaches that standard of literary excellence which has made Baisnab poetry so resplendent, and that the Kabiwalas, in course of time, admitted more mundane subjects and themes and allowed themselves infinite looseness of speech and style : yet when we come across lines like the following sung by Nitai Bairadgt শ্যামের বাশী বাজে বুঝি বিপিনে। বধূর বাশী বাজে বুঝি বিপিনে ॥ নহে কেন অঙ্গ অবশো! হইলো, স্থধা বরিষিলো শ্রবণে ॥ we are at once reminded of many a line from the Baisnab poets, although it is quite probable that it is not a question of direct imitation or assimilation and that none of the Kabiwalas had any straight access to any of these older poets. The Kabiwalas were not a lettered class of studious poets : they probably never had any opportunity of direct- ly utilising the ancient wealth of the land ; yet whatever might have been the source through which the tendency had filtered down, they echo primarily in their songs the sentiment and taste of a bye-gone age, and through this inherited tendency and probably through indirect, if not direct, literary filiation, they trace their ultimate ancestry to the ancient Baisnab poets. ! that Kabi-songs originally constituted parts of old ya@tras, the simple operatic episodes of which were separately worked up into this special species, is hardly convincing; for in the first place, there are no data to support this suggestion; secondly, the two kinds had essentially different characteristics ; and thirdly, the one is not due to the break-up of 40