The Drama of Mâlavikâgnimitra is a remarkable instance of how much a genuine production of a well-known poet may suffer, when left to the mercies of distant posterity. The history of that play affords a most instructive illustration of the universal disfavour that is not unfrequently shown to an object that has once had the misfortune of being accidentally disfavoured by a great man. Genuine merit does not always shine forth through all clouds of misfortune. It is as frequently brought to light by an accidental glance of illustrious eyes, as thrown into obscurity by a contemptuous look of them.
Such and no other is the misfortune under which the play of Mâlavikâ and Agnimitra" has hithertolaboured. Professor H. H. Wilson, the most eminent orientalist, was the first who brought that drama, along with many others, to the notice of European Sanskrit scholars. But in the account which he gives of this play in his Appendix to the second volume of his excellent work on the Theatre of the Hindus, that great scholar expresses himself rather unfavourably on the merits of the play, and doubts very much whether it belongs to the celebrated author of the Śâkuntala and the Vikramorvaśî . Nay he seems to have been of opinion that the play might be the production of a Kâlidâsa, who lived perhaps in the tenth or eleventh century, or even later than that.
These and other depreciatory remarks of the great orientalist on the literary merits and the pretensions to antiquity of the drama, followed by the greatly incor-
