No. 5.— 1850.] 



THE ELU LANGUAGE. 



269 



When the nocturnal spirit, seeing the goddess of the evening 

 sip the honey of the moonbeams, fastly and indignantly 

 approached (the latter) exposing with her mirth her flowery 

 teeth, and waving the iron staff of night ; the evening fled 

 indeed with her scarlet jewel of a sun, and the crimson mantle 

 of a scarlet cloud : the remnants which she left behind — a silver 

 salver and the honey-drops which it scattered — illumined into 

 the moon and the spangled stars. 



The above selection from the Gangdrohane is composed in 

 the Mattebhavikridita tune,* and comprises : — 



anapoest, a dactyl, cretic, tribrach, molossus, bacchic, short and long. 



No. 2. 



The following, one of the concluding stanzas of a beauti- 

 ful little poem, "A Critique," upon the work from which the 

 last has been selected, is from the pen of a celebrated 

 living author named Miripenne: — f 



* The rule, which is the following : — 



exemplifies itself; "an anapoest, a dactyl, a cretic, a tribrach, a 

 molossus, and a bacchic, ending with two letters, of which the last either 

 long or al, and with a pause at the end of the 13th syllable, compose 

 the species called MattebhavikHditam." 



f This talented and venerable priest is a resident of the Galle district. 

 As a Sinhalese poet he is unrivalled at the present day. Some of his 

 earlier productions, quite of a piece with Cowper's " John Gilpin," were 

 burnt by the writer, as they were a source of great annoyance to an 

 ii dividual who was the hero of the tale. There are many persons, 

 however, who had committed the whole poem to memory ; and I believe 

 it is by no means impossible still to reclaim it from the Destroying Angel 

 of time. His miscellaneous writings comprise two volumes, and are 

 a valuable addition to the Sinhalese classics. 



