Page:Bengal Celebrities.djvu/155

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

[ 156 ] English and thenceforward his speeches are almost always delivered in Bengali. As an orator his delivery is sonorous and clear, his language forcible and poetic, and his manner majestic. But it is not only for his oratorical powers that he is famous. He is a brilliant scholar, essayist and critic. His essays»on 'Women,' 'Marriage,' 'Bhaktir Jay,' 'Prabhat Chinta,' 'Nibhiita Chinta,' have illumined a neglected field of Bengali literature. For his literary works he has been honoured with the title of Rai Bahadur by the Government. He has also worked Tor many years as the Dcwan of the Bhawal Estate. The greatest work of his life however is the 'Bandhab'— a high- class Bengali periodical. The Bandhab, published in Dacca, was at one time no mean competitor of that prince of periodicals — the Bangadarsana of Bankim Chundra. Now it has been revived, and is one of the best magazines in Bengali ; and it would certainly be accorded a high place in a history of the Bengali literature, as it well deserves to be.