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Rh ning of the last century, excepting of course, the extensive commentaries and copious notes on ancient poems. However, the natural ease and beauty of the writings of the academic and the thymnal periods \vere gone The கலம்பகம், மாலை, அந்தாதி, பிள்ளைத் தமிழ், பரணி and உலா were the different kinds of poesy adopted for s'vrter literary compositions, and the Kavya (காப்பி பம்) form for longer and more descriptive works like the puranas. For these quasi-religious compositions all kinds of metres enumerated in the grammar books on prosudy were freely made use of. Learning was then confined to a class of indolent men or reli ious fanatics, who had no other work than this sort of exèrcise in prosodial gymnastics and who depended for their precarious subsistence on the bjunties of kings and noblemen. Their object was to display their skill in versifying and to scare the ordinary readers by making their stanzas obscure by the use of obsolete and ambiguous words as the following examples will show:—