Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/676

636 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap. The style follows. The Sanskritic style used by Algol was a greatly improved by Bharat Chandra. The descrip- tions of the school that follows abound with niceties which mystify the reader, as in the case of Padmavati. In Bharat Chandra, the great master of the age, we only find these niceties somewhat curtailed, and absurdities often reclaimed, by a sweet jingle of words, which please the ear, like the warblings of birds—without conveying to us any clear sense or meaning. The moral tone became more and more vitiated ; and Bharat Chandra, had he lived in this age, when poets are not allowed to revel in the unrestrained language of sensualism and the grosser passions, could not have given us his masterpiece the Vidya- Sundara. The literature of Bengal in the 18th cen- tury was pitched in the key of a high-strung classic taste ; yet it bore no mark of any master hand, that could shape circumstances and give them life. The works of the period are nevertheless full of spark- ling passages and delicate sentiment, and they display above all a unique treasure of choice expres- sions which has greatly enriched our literature. The poets had betaken themselves to the pain- ter's art. They did not aim at inspiring life ; they wanted to give finish to the form. They busied themselves with colouring, till some of the pictures they drew became blurred by their very efforts to embellish them. For it was not the natural that engaged their poetic powers, but the artificial and exaggerated, which pandered to the vitiated taste of mere scholars. From the time of Algolthe tone gradually degenerated ;—the good sense, the sound principles, and the domestic instincts that aimed at