GREECE AND BYRON.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 496, 1 May 1909, Page 11

GREECE AND BYRON.

One may interpret as a,final proof of the legoneracy of the modern Greek that he Je jot even rare of Lord Byron's disinterested levotion to tbo cause of Hellenio independence. Of course there were. contempqrarios who construed his second and, final visit to Greece as merely one phase of his theatrical ind abounding, egotism.'. It was Byron's habit to cast 'himself as the hero of all his own poetic dramas. And as he had tried almost overy human sensation by the ago of .35, ind- exhausted the -satisfaction, of most oi them, it .was natural enough that., he should fall! to playing; at soldiers, on behalf of e romantio cause, in his premature old age. I'hat is a, view still held, with less animation of oonrso, nearly a century after, his ieath. ' A modern satirist has paid him th« guarded compliment upon., his brief career is a soldier that ... Though nevpr going altogether strong he . Managed at least to die at Missolonghi. His fellow-countrymen may.. say, what thej think on this point. Most of us agree thai his motives .were as mised as if ho had beer, an ordinary prosaic man. But one does noi aspect to find; the modern cultured Greet idopting a defensive attitude in advocating i ■ Byron centenary celebratitin.' Dumas', .the Elder recalls in his memoirs, at the . end oi i vivid account of Byron's last hours, the Fact that his daughter Ada'was declared tht adopted • daughter ,of 'Greece. "I do noi know whether King Otho I. remembered this Fact whoa he'came to the throne." ,To-daj M.. Caclamanos; one of the most prominent of literary-men in At hens, finds; it necessary, in addressing a gathering of other emineni literary .and political Grecians, "to oppose strongly, the theory that Byron was' really indifferent; to tho Greek cause, and' visited the because h'o waa sick of life and was in. search of the excitement which. hi: temperament required." Of oourso the Barnassos, the . first' - literary. ' society .oi Athens,- proposes • to:do tho celebration' hand somely.. A ■ commission 'is'to • select all th< Byroni. poems; relating' to Greece, and giv< prizes for.'their translation ' into' moderr Greek. . And it is ; doing this 100 years aftei the poet's ttrst\ visit, instead of waiting -foi the .centenary'of hisv death.' Perhaps th< l'arnassos fcirs.that the'lapse, of -another ; li years might : deepen' modern ' forgetfulnos: and scepticism. Of coiirse the. pcroratior of ,M. '- Oaclamanos was -ijuite sound. . "Oui gratitude makes him' ours. Our love im mortalises, him... a second. time." 1 But ' oui other citation from his;speech arouses dis trust of modern Grecian gratitude. Ant why should M. Caclamanos' have to reac aloud, the test of Byron's-poems and illustrate -the chief'-incidents r of his work -foi Greece-;by limelight views? Is Greece o! to-day. as forgetful as I)umas 'hintsv'.thai iiing. Otho was '.of- the daughter of the .'enfranchised ;■ nation ?-rGlaSgow "Herald."