पृष्ठम्:मालविकाग्निमित्रम्.djvu/३५

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MALAVIKAGNIMITRA.

similar ‘‘points of contact,” as Professor Weber calls them, in works that professedly belong to different authors, unless one of them has designedly imitated in his own writings the diction, the style, the thoughts, the fancies, the modesty, and good sense of another . The conclusion that will force itself irresistibly on the mind of a reader of the three plays that they all belong to one and the same author, can hardly be unsettled by a suggestion that the similarities may be explained on the ground of imitation. If the Mâlavikâagnimitra be the work of a person who made it his study to imitate Kâlidâsa, it is a most singular instance of imitation, unpararelled, probably, in the wide range of literature of ancient or modern times. What should we say of the imitating powers of a man who so transformed himself into another person that he was able to copy most faithfully every characteristic, great or small, of his master,his style, his diction, his shoughts, his words, his taste, his good sense, his modesty, and, what is most surprising, his name itself? But when did this most unique imitator live ? He could not have lived in the time of the great Kâlidâsa; nay, not even soon after him. For the imitation of a poet like Kâlidâsa, either during his lifetime or at anytime subsequently, when there were critics who were yet familiar with the personal history of the great author, would surely be known by its true nature, and we should certainly have had some tradition handed down to us in one shape or another of so singular an imitator as that who composed the Mâlavikâgnimitra.