Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/187

146 we find that the former bears to the latter much less similarity than what the structure of Narottam Das bears to that of modern Bengali. To say that Mandeveille's language is as distinct from modern English, as Prakrita is from modern Bengali or Hindi, is no exaggeration. To illustrate this we give below a specimen of Mandeveille's language:—

"And zee schulle understonde that I have put this yoke out of Latyn into Frensche, and transolated it azen out of Frensche into Englysche, that very man of my Nacioun understonde it,"

The structure of Narottam Das's language does not appear to be very different from that of modern Bengali, though the mode of composition and style are widely different. Mandeveille's language seems to be in its early infancy, rocking in its cradle; while, Narottam Das's language appears to be in its first state of childhood, lisping broken words. But the actual commencement of the progress of the Bengali prose towards development must be dated so late as 1800 A. D., or a little before that.

Although the Bengali prose literature may thus claim to be much older in age than the English prose, there can be no doubt, that the former is much younger and inferior to the latter in gradual development and progress. The Bengali prose has not had its development like the English. When we review the works of such English authors as appeared between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries, we find that the process of gradual