t is partly due
to the accident that only the Shakuntala became known in translation
at a time when romantic Europe was in full sympathy with
the literature of India.

Bhavabhuti, too, is far less widely known than Kalidasa; and for this
the reason is deeper-seated. The austerity of Bhavabhuti's style, his
lack of humor, his insistent grandeur, are qualities which prevent his
being a truly popular poet. With reference to Kalidasa, he holds a
position such as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides. He will
always seem to minds that sympathize with his grandeur[3] the greatest
of Indian poets; while by other equally discerning minds of another
order he will be admired, but not passionately loved.

Yet however great the difference between Kalidasa, "the grace
of poetry,"[4] and Bhavabhuti, "the master of eloquence,"[5] these two
authors are far more intimately allied in spirit than is either of
them with the author of The Little Clay Cart. Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti
are Hindus of the Hindus; the Shakuntala and the Latter
Acts of Rama could have been written nowhere save in India:
but Shudraka, alone in the long line of Indian dramatists, has a
cosmopolitan character. Shakuntala is a Hindu maid, Madhava is
a Hindu hero; but Sansthanaka and Maitreya and Madanika are
citizens of the world. In some of the more striking characteristics of
Sanskrit literature--in its fondness for system, its elaboration of
style, its love of epigram--Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti are far truer
to their native land than is Shudraka. In Shudraka we find few
of those splendid phrases in which, as the Chinese[6] say, "it is only
the words which stop, the sense goes on,"--phrases like Kalidasa's[7]
"there are doors of the inevitable everywhere," or Bhavabhuti's[8] "for
causeless love there is no remedy." As regards the predominance of
swift-moving action over the poetical expression of great truths,
The Little Clay Cart stands related to the Latter Acts of Rama as
Macbeth does to Hamlet. Again, Shudraka's style is simple and direct,
a rare quality in a Hindu; and although this style, in the passages
of higher emotion, is of an exquisite simplicity, yet Shudraka
cannot infuse into mere language the charm which we find in Kalidasa
or the majesty which we find in Bhavabhuti.

Yet Shudraka's limitations in regard to stylistic power are not
without their compensation. For love of style slowly strangled originality
and enterprise in Indian poets, and ultim