The subject, for example, of the Malatimadhava is as unmythical as any that can be imagined.
The task of showing why one work of an author is inferior to another, why one play of a dramatist is not so rich in fancy of the thoughts or fragrance of the poetry as some other, is one that can hardly be satisfactorily performed by the author himself. Nor can we reject a work as unworthy of a celebrated poet on no other ground than that it does not possess the same excellence in regard to a point that relates to its matter or form, especially when the evidence for holding that it does belong to the same poet is overwhelmingly convincing. If the fact of the comparative excellence and the comparative inferiority of different works of one and the same author is established, all that we can do to account for the fact is necessarily of a general character, and partaking greatly of the nature of a mere conjecture. If this last is strengthened by any corroborative evidence, so as to make it probable, we can proceed no further in the investigation of the question. If, accordingly, I may be allowed to hazard a guess as to the cause of the difference between the poetical worth of the Mâlavikâgnimitra and that of either of the two other plays, the first that suggests itself to my mind is that the Mâlavikâgnimitra is the first production of Kalidasa, that it was written while he was yet young, and while he was yet unknown as a dramatist of note to his contemporaries, and while yet he had not made a name for himself as a poet. Such a supposition seems to be strengthened by the tone of the prologue that in-
