known for their generous dispositions, and Kali Coomar possessed a great reputation among his countrymen as an accomplished Urdu scholar.

HURO COOMAR TAGORE.

Huro Coomar's title to fame rests less on his public career than on his blameless life, his amiability of character and his eminence. as a Sanskrit scholar. In common with his brother, Prosunna, and his second cousin, Dwarika Nath, he was a pupil in Mr. Sherbourne's school. Thence he was sent to the Hindoo College, in the foundation of which, as has just been seen, his father had taken so prominent a part.

There, aided by the private tuition of Mr. Anselm, the head-master, he made rapid progress in his studies, and became an accomplished Persian, as well as English, scholar.

His first Sanskrit teacher was, however, the Guru Mahashay, one Jhoro Guru, a Brahman and a native of Jessore, who had taught him his alphabet. This man's system

of instruction, based on the Kalapa Byakarana, appears to have been of a more thorough character than that generally in vogue at the time. But it was not long before the pupil surpassed the master, and became an enthusiastic student of Sanskrit literature. So complete, indeed, was the mastery he obtained over the language, that he acquired the rare power of conversing in it with fluency, while his skill in composition was excelled by none of his contemporaries.

It is related that he and his brother, Prosunna, having resolved to erect a tablet to the memory of their father at the temple at Mulajore, and offered a prize for the best set of verses in Sanskrit for inscription thereon, Huro Coomar sent in anonymously a set composed by himself. Among the competitors were many of the best Sanskrit scholars of the day, but the judges unanimously selected the anonymous composition for the prize, and Huro's verses were accordingly inscribed on the tablet, where they still bear testimony to his scholarship and poetical genius.

Huro Coomar's zeal for Sanskrit led him, in after years, to enter upon the study of the Vedantic system, which was regarded with disfavour by the strict Hindoos of those days, as subversive of orthodoxy. In connexion with this circumstance it is related that Huro Coomar's cousin, Wooma Nundun, meeting him one day at a wedding-party, expressed regret at learning that he had engaged in this new study. On Huro Coomar asking him his reason for this feeling, Wooma Nundun expressed a fear that, from being a staunch Hindoo, he might become a freethinker. Huro Coomar replied with a smile:—

'You should bear in mind, good cousin, that Vyasa, the father of the Vedanta philosophy, was also the author of our Puranas; yet, according to your theory, he should have been the greatest infidel of his time.'

Gopee Mohun's love of music was inherited by his son, and Huro not only patronised but practised the art, studying it under the well-known Kalawat Hassu Khan, and becoming an accomplished singer and performer on the sitar.

Though his tastes did not lead him to engage in public affairs, Huro Coomar, by his admirable management of his own estates, showed himself to be a man of great business capacity.

The family property was at first held jointly by all the brothers; but, being led by information received from a trusted servant to suspect that it was being seriously mismanaged, Huro at once consulted with Prosunna Coomar as to the course that should be adopted, and they came to the conclusion. that a partition was necessary to save their shares from destruction. After some opposition they succeeded in their efforts for this purpose, and a partition was effected.

Huro Coomar found his share greatly encumbered and deteriorated, but by dint of thrift and good management he in time succeeded in not only restoring, but increasing it.

He died in the year 1858, leaving two sons, Jotendro Mohun Tagore and Surendro Mohun Tagore, whose distinguished careers

will be noticed hereafter, and a reputation for 'learning, ability, accomplished politeness, probity, and honourable feeling.'

PROSUNNA COOMAR TAGore.

Of a very different type of character from his elder brother, Huro Coomar, was Gopee Mohun's youngest son, Prosunna Coomar Tagore. His equal in rectitude of character and in scholarship, his superior in breadth of culture, he possessed in the highest degree that political spirit and that taste for public life which the amiable Huro lacked.

Like Dwarika Nath Tagore, he was essentially a man of action; like Dwarika Nath, too he was always ready to advance the cause of charity or progress. But his views were those of the statesman, rather than the mere philanthropist; and he added to forensic eloquence and a profound knowledge of English and Indian jurisprudence a degree of literary skill and ambition which placed him in the front rank of the native