CROMARTY OCCASION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1938, Page 7

CROMARTY OCCASION

MEMORIAL TO SIR THOMAS URQUHART. The unveiling, in his native Cromarty, of a memorial to Sir Thomas Urquhart, the seventeenth century translator of Rabelais, though to the man-in-the-street an affair of relative unimportance, is nevertheless an indication of a new spirit which is abroad in Scotland. Urquhart’s translation of a classic of French literature is the most famous made in the English tongue, and the ceremony is to be attended by a number of men-of-let-ters. both French and Scottish. But it is as an indication of a trend in Scottish literary circles that the Cromarty unveil.ing ceremony will be significant. A genuine regard for the great writers of the past is usually a sign of the health of contemporary letters. It was so in the palmy state of Edinburgh, when many texts of the old Scottish classics were published. Today, owing to the extraordinary growth of the Burns and Scott cults, the worth of many great Scots writers of the past is obscured. But there arc signs that their memories are beginning to revive again, and with this will develop a saner outlook upon Scottish literature. both past and present. —“Weekly Scotsman.”