VVy জীবন-চরিত first courted the outlandish English Muse. Next he courted the indigenous Sarasvati. In his 26th year, he entered upon his first poetic adventure-the Captive Ladie. It rose as an aurora borealis from amidst the stern cold of want and poverty. We have had in our day Anglo-Bengali poets such as Kasiprosad Ghosh, Rajnarain Dutt, Guru Churn IDutt, O. C. Dutt and others. Modhu distances them all. He was to the Hindu community what Derozio was to the East Indian Both of them held out great promises that were destined to remain unfulfilled. It seems that the melodramatic tales in English poetry, -Scott's Lady of the Lake; Byron's Giaow, The Aride of Abydos and Zara; Southey's Kehama; and Moore's Lalla Rookh, influenced their young minds to pour out their first effusions-the one in his Fakeer of Jungheera, and the other in his Capóitive Ladie. But they were eminently nati önal in choosing national themes. The tale of the Captive Ladie is founded upon circumstances once common in the land, but unknown in our days. It relates to the abduction of Princess Sanjukta from her father's palace at Kanauj by the heroic Prithiraj of Delhi. The Hindu histoly of that period teems with instances of as heroic Courage, as great love of country, and as patriotic devotion ; as we read of in Grecian or Roman history. Modhu tells the tale with a little variation and historical inaccuracy. But he falls not to dio justice to the ancient Chivalry of India—to the bucklered knights and barons bold of ancient Delhi. His Visions of the Past is decidedly an imitation of Byron's ZDream Byron stands on 'a gentle hill'-Modhu stands in "a bower bosomed on a mount.' Byron saw 'two beings in the hues of youth'-Modhu saw 'two beings pent in each other's arms in balny rest.” Changes conne over the spirit of Byron's dream-so are there shiftings of the figures in Modhu's phantasmagoria. Of course, Byron's concentiation and enefigy of expression-his "thoughts that breathe and words that burn,' are too much to expect from Modhu. But his pictures are not a little spirited, and "his beings' interest us more than Byron's "beings." Let us consider these efforts as imitative of what had caught the youthful ear and fancy. But if such were his early and immature productions, what might have been the fruits of his ripened talents, how far he might have soared. had he continued in his courtship of the European Muse, it is not easy lo say. Modhu exchanged old Pegasus for the Indian Pakharaj. He gave up his addresses to Calliope, and turned an admirer of, and lost his heart to Sarasvati. In plain words, Modhu took to writing in his native tongue. There are four eras in Bengali literature. I. That of Chaitanya’s followers ; 2. That of Raja Krishna Chandra Rai and his literary proteges; 3. That of Dr. Carey and his Serampur contemporaries; and 4. That of Ram Mohun Roy and the
