Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/499

 APPENDIX I 475 capacities were now brought within easy reach of any 588 prose-writer—although such writers literary language in were not plentiful—who would have peer. had chosen to utilise them. The wonderfully rapid and accomplished literary develop- ment of prose in the 19th century caught up, summed, and uttered in more perfect form this literary heritage of past ages but even in a_ period of scanty prose- production such as the 18th century, in which verse-treat- ment of every subject was still predominant, we cannot mistake the influence of the enormous literary perfec- tion of the language in general on whatever little prose it produced. It may be necessary in this connexion to indicate the influence of Sanserit learning on early Bengali prose- writing. It is pretty certain that Influence of Sans- : aie the specimens of such prose as we possess, whether of the metaphysical or the deseriptive sort, represent periods when Sanscerit eulture of some kind, was already open to and in some degree had been enjoyed by the writers. Not only occasional Sanserit forms and technicalities are perceived and some Sanscrit works on Law and Logie were direetly translated, but the general tendency, inspite of occa- sional easy note of works like Brudahana-lila, was towards sanseritised, if not ornate, diction, although no effective Sanserit influence, with its predilection for long-drawn-out compound words, complex sentence-fram- ing, and other things, may be definitely traced anywhere. This prose-manner, however, cannot be called sanseritic in the sense in which it is used to designate the pedantic affectation of some of the Fort William College pundits or the Sanserit College style of the fifties ; and it is remarkable that with hardly any model before