1960 Fredericton Convocation
Rowse, Alfred Leslie
Doctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
Image
Image Caption
L to R: Lord Beaverbrook, Phyllis Gregory Ross, Louis Joseph Robichaud, Irenee Lussier, Alfred Leslie Rowse
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Source: UA PC-5 no.3b(4)
Citation:
CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1960
ALFRED LESLIE ROWSE
to be Doctor of Civil Law
The University, I am eager to inform you, has already bestowed on this gifted Cornishman its own spontaneous accolade, thereby relegating this afternoon's ceremony to a symbol. A. L. Rowse is a scholar and historian, whose books are at once his life and his monument -- and every copy of his works at one point, during his memorable visit, had vanished from the Library shelves!
He is also, in lesser vein, a poet and a spellbinder, a raconteur of the fact and folklore of his beloved Cornwall. When it comes to how history should be written, 'let dogs' (and intellectuals) 'delight to bark and bite': beyond doubt, Rowse's lay public -- such as have not been privileged to hear with their own ears this witty and inspiring
lecturer -- will be only too happy to endorse the views of two professionals. Quickening to Rowse's The Early Churchills, the first tells of how "in vast detail, and with a prose almost Elizabethan in its choicest phrases, he parades before us the history of those times". The other, as enthusiastic, but more succinct, on Sir Richard Grenville and the Revenge, sees "the entire Elizabethan age lighted up with a single klieg flash".
Happy they, who have both read and heard him. We who sat at his feet last Monday will carry on our hearts -- let us hope, for ever -- even more burning impressions: one, that -- pace Henry Ford -- History is not "the bunk;" two, that the British Empire has been, and is, "a good thing", and that it is, "a good thing" to be proud of it; three, that this our Empire was conceived, and its greatness assured, by those intrepid captains, and the intrepid Queen who sent them forth, from Rowe's own West Countree; and four, that Rowse's Cornwall has no intention of seceding from the British Commonwealth of Nations.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
ALFRED LESLIE ROWSE
to be Doctor of Civil Law
The University, I am eager to inform you, has already bestowed on this gifted Cornishman its own spontaneous accolade, thereby relegating this afternoon's ceremony to a symbol. A. L. Rowse is a scholar and historian, whose books are at once his life and his monument -- and every copy of his works at one point, during his memorable visit, had vanished from the Library shelves!
He is also, in lesser vein, a poet and a spellbinder, a raconteur of the fact and folklore of his beloved Cornwall. When it comes to how history should be written, 'let dogs' (and intellectuals) 'delight to bark and bite': beyond doubt, Rowse's lay public -- such as have not been privileged to hear with their own ears this witty and inspiring
lecturer -- will be only too happy to endorse the views of two professionals. Quickening to Rowse's The Early Churchills, the first tells of how "in vast detail, and with a prose almost Elizabethan in its choicest phrases, he parades before us the history of those times". The other, as enthusiastic, but more succinct, on Sir Richard Grenville and the Revenge, sees "the entire Elizabethan age lighted up with a single klieg flash".
Happy they, who have both read and heard him. We who sat at his feet last Monday will carry on our hearts -- let us hope, for ever -- even more burning impressions: one, that -- pace Henry Ford -- History is not "the bunk;" two, that the British Empire has been, and is, "a good thing", and that it is, "a good thing" to be proud of it; three, that this our Empire was conceived, and its greatness assured, by those intrepid captains, and the intrepid Queen who sent them forth, from Rowe's own West Countree; and four, that Rowse's Cornwall has no intention of seceding from the British Commonwealth of Nations.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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