Page:Vidyasagar, the Great Indian Educationist and Philanthropist.djvu/36

 books in Bengali. The result was that Dr. Carey wrote the Bengali grammar and Mrityunjoy Vidyalanker, Ramram Basu, Haraprasad Roy, Rojib Lochan and Chandi Charan Munshi produced several prose works which were studied for some time. The names of other pioneer authors like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Rev. K. M. Banerji, Raja Rajendra Lala Mitra, Messrs. Halhead, Forster, Marsham and Ward, also deserve honourable mention. But they were not specimens of chaste Bengali; there were still too many Persian words in them. Their spelling was original; their style rather laboured, lacking precision and directness. In justice to them it ought to be said that they did much to foster the revival of vernacular literature. Vidyasagar's credit lay in assimilating the various works produced for half a century past and improving upon their style. His Vetala-Panchavingsati composted in 1847 was the first work in chaste prose to appear in the renaissance period of Bengali literature.