Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/258

226 and journals, not only in prose but in verse, survive to attest his ability and grace of diction. To the Provakar and the Literary Gazette he was a frequent contributor on a variety of subjects, social, literary and political. His best-remembered literary productions however, are his dramas and farces in Bengali which attained considerable popularity. The dramatic art like almost every other branch of art in the first half of the 19th century had fallen on evil days, and it was Sir Jotindra's endeavour to raise the stage to a higher level of excellence and to improve the character of the dramas acted. One of his most famous plays was the Bidya Sundara Natak, which did much to set a better standard among Bengali compositions. At his house at Belgachhia the Maharaja organised theatrical entertainments on a elaborate scale, and by providing refined and clever plays and competent actors he succeeded in infusing a healthier moral and artistic tone into modern Bengali dramatic art. At the same time he turned his attention to stage music. Here he had the assistance of his younger brother Raja Sourindra Nath Tagore whose investigation into the theory of Hindu music have won him such a world-wide reputation and such unprecedented honours from well-nigh every country in the world. Hindu music, like dramatic art, had suffered eclipse during the troublous years of the eighteenth century and a