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[ »3 3 HEM CHANDRA BANERJEA. Hem Chandra was pre-eminently one of the greatest poets of modern Bengal. He was born in 1838 in the district of Hoogly. He received his early education in the Hindu College and in due time passed the Junior Scholarship Examination. Hem Chandra passed the final test of the pre- University period and found it exceed- ingly easy to pass the First Examination in Arts of the new standard with credit. He joined the Presidency College, into which the Hindu College had developed, hut poverty compelled him to leave off his University studies. He had to accept service in a Government office but the passion for learning did not leave him ; and it was when a clerk there that he passed the B. A. Examination of the newly established Calcutta University. He then worked for some time as a Professor of the Sanskrit College, Calcutta, and in other educational institutions until his passing the B. L. Examination. After his father's death in 1863 he began practising in the Calcutta High Court, and soon came to make a. name for himself among the practising lawyers. He was for a long time the senior Government Pleader at the Calcutta High Court and it was once proposed to raise him to the Bench. Hem Chandra was dear to his countrymen, not because he was a successful lawyer, but because he was the national poet. Law has always been kuown as a jealous mistress, but she could never win him away from the side of poetry. Lengali literature,, such as it was in those days, had long captivated his heart and he read with an insatiable appetite whatever he would lay his hands upon. The poems that he wrote are many and have upon them all the stamp of a true poet. His celebrated epic Vritrasamhara is placed by some even higher than the immortal Meghanadavadha of Michael Modhusudan Dutt. Although we do not hold the same opinion, w» mention it only to show the high place in literature that is univer- 8