Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/70

 46 BENGALI LITERATURE attaining to some measure of relative perfection, was itself failing ; and that at’ no period of its long history, it produced prose that could be called such. There must have been something wrong in the very system, some coldness in the literary constitution to account for this decadence and this poverty. If a literature after produc- ing great things in the past does nothing more for centuries, if it shows signs of decadence and practically limits itself to trifles, then the conclusion is irresistible that it badly wants a change. Long before the stability of British rule was beyond all question a process of decadence or dissolution had already begun which indi- cated a change in its spirit. The British occupation and its accompanying evils only hastened this change, so that a new era of literary history began in Bengal with the firm establishment of British rule. It is amiable but entirely unhistorical imagination which suggests that it was the British rule which enti- These facts show that rely swept away the old literature the decadent litera- রি ture, if it were to pro- and replaced it with the new. ‘There long its life, needed a change, and the Was no such absolute breach of the ue ths সকার ae continuity of our literary history ; tion of Bengal. a change was inevitable and _ the British rule brought it about in the most novel and unexpected way, although it would be difficult to say what form it would have taken had there been no British occupation of Bengal. The commencement of the 19th century saw a more settled order of things. Beginning with the চি 11 Act of 1774, vigorous attempts were made to reform the abuses of misrule which had been bringing disgrace to British ideas of justice and honour, and the permanence of British rule was now more or less a settled