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early death deprived the world of a Sanskrit scholar of great promise—I mean Anandaram Barua. In regard to him also there was the difficulty about the age to which I have referred; but, the point having been settled in my case, it was no longer raised in his. He came from Assam and distinguished himself at the examinations of the Calcutta University. Having obtained a State scholarship, he went to England to compete for the Indian Civil Service. He secured a place for himself among the successful candidates in 1870. As a member of the Indian Civil Service he combined the duties of an administrator with extraordinary devotion to literature, and at the time of his death, I understand, he was engaged in preparing a dictionary of the Sanskrit language which, alas, never saw the light. His was a case of blighted promise which in its fruition would have enriched the world of letters.

Of my two friends, Romesh Chunder Dutt and Behari Lal Gupta, what shall I say? They were to me more than brothers. Throughout life, though our activities lay in different spheres, we were linked by the closest ties of friendship and affection, the memory of which death has only served to sanctify. They were pioneers in the hitherto untrodden path of Indians entering the Bengal Civil Service. Their position was difficult; and their anxieties great. But they excelled in those high qualities which should distinguish all pioneers; and when, as in their careers it sometimes happened, there was a conflict between the claims of the Service and those of the nation, they preferred the latter and exalted the interests of the motherland above the sectional concerns of the class to which they belonged. An illustration of this was found in the Ilbert Bill controversy, of which Behari Lal Gupta, in his capacity of Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta, might be said to have been the originator. As for Romesh Chunder Dutt, he was a man amongst men, a prince among his peers (primus inter pares). His superiority was observable in every gathering that he adorned with his presence. Yet this distinguished Civil Servant, such was the reactionary tendency in those days, never rose beyond the position of an officiating Commissioner of a Division, though an Indian Prince, one of the greatest in the Empire, the Maharaja of Baroda, subsequently, when Dutt was no longer in the Indian Civil Service, appointed him his Prime Minister. When he was appointed a member of the Bengal Legislative Council, his presence was immediately felt. I was a member, and we all noticed it. He would not move in the usual official groove. There was a flutter in the official benches; and Sir2