My Contemporaries in Fiction by David Christie Murray

When one calls to mind the rapid and extensive popularity achieved by the latest school of Scottish dialect writers, one is tempted to wonder a little at the comparative neglect which has befallen a real master of that _genre_, who is still living and writing, and who began his work within the memory of the middle-aged. With the single exception of 'A Window in Thrums,' none of the new books of this school are worthy to be compared with 'David Elginbrod,' or 'Alec Forbes of Howglen,' or 'Robert Falconer. ' Yet not one of them has failed to find a greater vogue or to bring to its author a more swelling reputation than Dr. Mac-donald achieved. Perhaps the reasons for these facts are not far to seek.

To begin at the beginning, Sir Walter, who created the Scottish character novel, had made, in other fields, a reputation quite unparalleled in the history of fiction before he took broadly to the use of Scottish rural idiom, and the depiction of Scottish character in its peculiarly local aspects. The magic of his name compelled attention, and his genius gave a classic flavour to dialects until then regarded as barbarous and ugly. The flame of Burns had already eaten all grossness out of the rudest rusticities, and in the space of twenty years at most the Auld Braid Scots wore the dignity of a language and was decorated with all the honours of a literature. But this, in spite of the transcendent genius of the two men to whom northern literature owes its greatest debt, brought about very little more than a local interest and a local pride.