Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/195

 prosecution fell through, because the accused, living at Bhowanipur, was not under the jurisdiction of the Court. But the worry and anxiety attending it told so much on the already overworked constitution of Haris that he died, in June, 1861, at the age of fifty-seven years.

A chain of important events in Bengal made the time from 1856 to 1861 ever memorable. These were the widow-marriage agitation, the Mutiny, the indigo disturbances, the striking career of Haris Chandra Mukerji as a patriot and journalist, the rising of the vernacular paper Som Prakas into eminence, the starting of Bengali theatres, the fame and decline of the Bengali poet, Ishwar Chandra Gupta, the rise of Michael Madhu SudhamSudhan [sic] Dutt as the leading poet of Bengal, and, last but not least, Kesava Chandra Sen’s joining the Brahmo Samaj and, in doing so, communicating to it a new force. Each of these events created a sensation throughout Bengal, and the circumstances in connection with each are worthy of our notice here. In the meantime let us say something about the growth of dramatic literature in Bengal. In the days when there was no drama in Bengali the educated Indian gentlemen of Calcutta used to attend the only English theatre in the city. But they soon felt the desirability of having actors from among themselves. Babu Prasanna Kumar Tagore once had the English translation of the Uttararam Charita played in his country house at Soorho, near Calcutta, by young Bengalis. In 1854 the Oriental Theatre was established, in which Indian actors played Shakespeare’s Macbeth and other classical dramas. But the rich soon felt that such entertainments could not please the people in general, so one of them offered a prize for the best-written drama in Bengali, and the Kulin Kuls Sharbassha Natak was composed by Ram Narain Tarkaratna. Then followed