Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/811

VI.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE, 769 poems will only be read by a few students of Bengali who would desire to trace the history of its progress. I¢vara Chandra’s style bears evident traces of Bharata Chandra’s influence ; and the influence of his own is stamped on the works of Hema Chandra who succeeded to his high place in Bengali poetry, a quarter of century after. Most of the social satires of Hema Chandra have aring of I¢vara His influ- ence on রর Sy Hema Mr. Marshman was humourously called by him. ehandee Chandra’s celebrated verses on ‘our old Civa’ as I¢vara Chandra’s prose is far from being happy. It is highly pedantic, and has even an element of srotesqueness in it. The Polk-literature of Bengal. Bengal possesses a rich folk-literature, very little of which has yet been put into writing. The grandmothers may be heard to tell these stories to their grandchildren every evening in remote villages, —stories which have come down from a very early age. The Rev. Lal Behari Dey published some of these stories in English, but those gleaned by him from the resources available in towns represent only a very small fraction of such literature, and the most beautiful of these were not accessible to him, as, being a Christian, he could not have full Daksina Babu’s col- command of the resources of the Hindu home. _ lections. Lately Babu Daksina Ranjana Mitra Mazumdar has published two volumes of folk-tales in Bengall. He has attempted to reproduce them in the very language of the rustic women from whom _ he collected them. In some cases he recorded the a7