Lord Wentworth writes a very modest and very sensible letter
to Thursday's Times, disapproving, as Lord Byron's grandson, of the proposal to get up a centenary celebration of Byron's birth two years hence, unless the great majority of literary men combine together to urge it. So far as our own view is of any value, we confess that centenary celebrations seem to us to produce a great deal of windy talk, and a very little genuine study of any poet's works. And this is almost inevitable. Centenary celebrations are meant to glorify, and it would be felt to be very unnatural to use such an occasion for strictly impartial criticism, however good. Indeed, impartial criticisms are seldom produced to order. In Lord Byron's case, the difficulty would be twofold. The occasion could not but be used, if not to discuss his character, at least to defend it against unjust aspersions. This, again, would be sure to produce re- joinder, and we might expect a good deal of criticism and reply very far from improving. Lord Wentworth is, we think, right in deprecating the centenary celebration. Why not for once steadily hold our tongues ?
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