A Sketch of Anglo-Indian Literature; (The Le Bas Prize Essay for 1907) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... 16 CHAPTER II Beginnings--Jones and Leyden Missus in hanc venio timiJe liber exulis urbem.--Ovid, Tristia. ANGLO-INDIAN literature may be said to have been born in 1783, the year of the arrival in India of Sir William Jones, the great Orientalist, who became the first Anglo-Indian poet. Prior to that date it cannot be said to have existed, unless we except certain rather crude volumes of travel and letters devoid in the main of any literary merit. The history of preceding years tells of battle and warfare, of massacre and revenge, of intrigue and counter-intrigue, of the struggle of two white nations for the prize of the jewel of the East, of the victory of the disciplined few over the unwieldly many, of the slowly Alexander Dow's tragedy Zingis, produced at Drury Lane in 1769, and his more famous History of Hindustan, deserve mention as exceptions to the generalization. extending grip which never relaxed. It was a time in which the pen had to give place to the sword, as Clive, to his own and his nation's great advantage, discovered early. Literature, ever the handmaid of peace rather than of war, could find no place amid the clash of arms. Men had no time to cultivate their imagination, or, if they had, lacked the ability to express their thoughts. It was not till 1782 that India could boast its first newspaper. So far was the exile community removed in literary progress from the brilliance and fecundity of contemporary literature at home. The thirty years which followed the arrival of Sir William Jones in India, contain the name of only one other man of literary genius, John Leyden, the Orientalist and lyric poet, who reached India in 1803 and died in 1811. These two remarkable men, Sir William Jones and John Leyden, were practically...