VISWANADA, a Tamil author of the middle of the 19th century, who distinguished himself as a playwiight, and whose death was a great blow both to the Brahmo cause and the theatre. His plays are exceedingly popular, and are in no acme copies of the Sanskrit productions. That which is esteemed the finest is called the Tahsildar Natakam. The word Natakam means a drama, and the whole title fitly introduces the piece, which is a satirical comedy, intended to rebuke and ex_pose a tahsildar who obtains the favour of and proniotion from the collector by aping Euro pean customs,—who wears boots, drinks beer and brandy-pegs, rides horses, swears loudly, professes the utmost contempt for native prejudices, but is withal a confirmed scoundrel. He takes bribes, oppresses the poor, persecutes his enemies, sets up a haram, gathers money by every means fair and foul, and then scatters it in coarse pleasures and brutal riot. Such is the man that Kasi
Viswanada Mudelliar undertook to flagellate, and seldom has the lash been laia. on more smartly. Of coiirse in the end the villain hero comes to most irremediable grief, to the confounding of his imitators and the outrageous joy of the people. The play, wherever performed, gains all the aid of local feeling. Its hero is always identified with Tahsildar this, Deputy - Collector that, or Police - Inspector the other. Hence unfailing crowds always rush to its performance. The play styled Dumbachari Vilasam, or the Story of a Spendthrift, in Madras is almost as popular as the Talisildar Nataltam. The hero is truly identified with a person who rushed by native society a few years since with all the glory and sputter of a rocket, but who afterwards lived in well-deservcd obscurity.