History of Bengali Language and Literature c11.24

c11.24

The difficulties in the way of Dr. Carey were many and great. It was his greatest ambition in life to publish a translation of the Gospel in Bengali. When after years of hard and unremitted labour, he had brought the translation of the New Testament almost to completion, he estimated the cost of printing at Calcutta of 10,000 of copies at Rs. 43750. This was quite beyond his means, and he thought of getting the book printed in England. At first he proposed to obtain punches from Caslon, the eminent letter-founder in London, calculating that the cost of each punch would be 5 s. only; but he was wrong; the cost of the punches was a guinea a piece. So he gave up the idea of getting the book printed in England, though before doing so he had made another attempt to engage the services of a letter-founder whom he knew at Derby. In 1798 he read an advertisement that a letter-foundry was established for the ‘country language’ at Calcutta. Dr. Carey lost no time in corresponding with the projector of the scheme, and found that the punches of the foundry were cut by Panchānana, who had been trained by Sir Charles