Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/357

 KABIWALAS 333 dealing with the conventional Baisnab themes, Kabi- poetry is marked by the sincere and unaffected religious- ness of the popular mind, if not Its sincere _ reli- 15 always by the true spirit of Baisnab literature. In art, in ideas, in poetical inspiration, the Kabiwalas may not be regarded as the true inheritors of ancestral genius yet in honest religious feeling, in sound and simple faith, they do not compare unfavourably with their great predecessors. But it is not here that we find the genius of Kabi-poetry finding its fullest seope. The conditions under which it might have become a legitimate development of Baisnab-poetry had been non-existent and, fortunately or unfortunately, Kabi-poetry had come under conditions and influences totally different. The excellence of Kabi-poetry rests, therefore, not so much upon its rehandling of older themes but upon its presentation of less pretentious but more homely and natural themes which, if these poets were not the first to treat, they were at least the first to work up with considerable effectiveness. Ram Basu’s treatment of the themes of 4zraha and dgamant is widely known and deserves its reputation ; but in these, among other themes, not Rim Basu alone but most of the Kabiwalas exgelled and found a congenial scope for the display of their natural poetical genius. It is not, however, in the themes themselves so much as in the treatment that the charac- teristie feature of Kabi-poetry is seen at its best. We shall have to come back to this point later on; but it may be noted here that these songs, in _Naturalness and their sincere foree of natural passion sincerity of its biraha ‘ ‘ f i songs. and affection and in their simple observation of common things, form a class by themselves, the value of which can never be over-estimated, although most of them have been so