পাতা:ভানুমতী চিত্তবিলাস.djvu/৭

PREFACE In presenting this piece of dramatic composition to my indulgent readers, I would observe, that at the suggestion of an European friend of nativo education, I had originally undertaken the translation of Shakspeare's Merchant of Venice—a play, which, though inferior in some respect to Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, and Othello, or perhaps to the First and Second parts of Henry IV, was considered the best for the purpose, for which the translation was avowed ly undertaken by me. But the plan was abandoned before I had distanced the flight of Jessica, some of my learned friends having surmised that my performance was not likely to be popular, unless the mode in which it was dome were altered. I took their advice and undertook to write it in the shape of a Bengali Natuck or Drama, taking only the plot and underplots of the Merchant of Venice, with considerable additions and alterationa to suit the native taste ; but at the same time losing no opportunity to convey to my countrymen, who have no means of getting themselves acquainted with Shakspeare, save through the medium of their own language, the beauty of the author's sentiments as expressed in the best passages in the play in question. The sort of reception my Natuck is to meet with from the publie, I can by no means divine or guess at, the work being of a novel character, professing, as it does, to be § Bengali Natuck, though written much after the manner of an English play. But should my work meet with their approbation, I would deam my lahours amply rewarded, and, if thus encouraged, onvour to devote my leisure hours to writing other of a similar nature, - ... } новкосниковванов