Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/967

VII. ] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. 923 In Satguaa O Viryyer Itibasa written in 1829 by a Crirampur missionary, we come across the following sentences on the title page : « সকল লোকের হিতার্থে বাঙ্গাল! ভাষায় তজ্জমা কর। গেল। তাহার একদিকে ইংরাঙ্গী ও এক দিকে বাঙ্গাল? | But inspite of these unavoidable ১০১ met with oe now and then in the use of Bengali idioms, the of style. vernacular style of the foreign writers commended itself generally for its simplicity, closeness of argu- ment, and directness as contraSted with the high flown unmeaning jargons of scholarly pedants ; and the latter had gradually to adopt the simpler style of the European which erred occasionally in idiom, but was, generally speaking, correct and elegant. The indirect benefit derived from the writing Indirect of vernacular works by Europeans was great, for Se they controlled Bengali prose; and though it was taken out of the hands of the Vaisnavas and the Caktas, it came once more to competent hands, who made it a vehicle of thought and not a show thing to be admired for artistic excellence 01 rendered too abstruse for popular understanding by pedantic follies. Europeans ceased to take the great imterest in the vernacular literature as they had done in the first half of the 19th century, only when the native hand grew sufficiently strong to take up the work in right earnest, and this our country men ere long did, even beyond all expectations of their friendly patrons. The great zeal of the European writers of Scientific Bengali prose is evidenced by the fact that Mr. জন দি Felix Carey coined scientific and technical terms