Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/410

386 BENGALI LITERATURE it may be in course of time ; but taken as a whole the later poetry is merely imitative and reproductive of the earlier and does not reward patient and detailed study. Not much of it can bear very well the beauty-truth test implied in the famous line of Keats. Nor are there materials enough to trace their systematic history in this period. In tone and temper as well as in poetic expression it declined considerably ; and with the advent of Hip-akhdai first set in fashion by Hap-akhdai and Tarja. Mohanchand Basu! and of Zura popularised by Hosain Khan, the form itself as well as its spirit went through striking changes. These songsters no doubt kept up and still keeps up the native trend in poetry but in themselves they never reach that high level of literary excellence which would make ‘them worthy of the attention of posterity. It is therefore not necessary to drag these inferior poets and their poems from their deserved obscurity or devote tedious pages to their comparatively uninspiring annals. 1 Fora history of this see Sambad Prabhakar, Agrahayan 8, 1261, and preface to Manmohan Gitabali.