Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/570

Rh into a novel This difficult task has been very nicely accomplished by Vidyasagar, He has displayed the same skilfulness of attractive expression in his compilation of the Bhranti-Vilasa, that he has displayed in compiling the Sitar Vanavasa from Bhavabhuti's excellent drama, the "Uttara-Charita." If Vidyasagar had favoured us with some more translations of Shakespeare's plays, the Bengali language would surely have attained far greater improvement.

It is said, that Vidyasagar finished the composition of this book in 15 days, during which he wrote for a quarter of an hour every day before going to dinner. It must be said that fortunately for the country Vidyasagar gave up Mathematics as a dry subject, and applied himself to the study of Shakespeare with his friend, Ananda Krishna. If he had not done so, how could the readers of Bengali ever expect to get such an excellent translation of the great poet of the world? The same was the case with Macaulay. He also thought Mathematics dry and insipid, and paid greater attention to Literature. Had he not done so, most probably the world would have been deprived of his numerous excellent literary works. It may consequently be deduced that God opens to men of talents their ways of work according to their respective natural propensities.

The Bhranti-Vilasa was the last of his school-books. All such books that he wrote were printed