THE YEAR’S CENTENARIES.

Evening Star, Issue 22576, 18 February 1937, Page 10

THE YEAR’S CENTENARIES.

Centenaeies have their uses. Their observance furnishes something more than an opportunity merely to pay tribute to persons figuring prominently in events of one hundred years ago. It supplies direct encouragement to the people of to-day to review in a proper perspective events and developments which exercised a far-reaching influence on the course of history, and which, therefore, thoroughly repay detailed study. The year 1937 is rich in centenaries. The most outstanding one that comes to mind concerns the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne of Great Britain. It was on June 20, 1837, that the young Princess, on the death of William IV., became Queen. At that time there was no indication that her reign was to be one of great length and

splendour, or that the then Juke-warm feeling of the people for Her Majesty would ripen into a whole-hearted devo. tion which played a great part in building xtp the resources and might of the Empire. During the sixty-four years of Queen Victoria’s reign the British throne became stronger, while many of those in Europe collapsed. The Queen’s accession was followed by a General Election, which left the Administration of Melbourne undisturbed, thus enabling the Prime Minister to begin his wise and patient tutelage of the young Sovereign. Posterity has realised that the greatest of the new members of Parliament in 1837 was Disraeli, whose name will ever be associated with the rule of Victoria. The records tell us that the House refused to hear Disraeli’s maiden speech. His later triumphs are a matter of common knowledge. Coincident with the first year of Queen Victoria’s reign came the memorable invention of the electric telegraph, the inauguration of Sir Rowland Hill’s scheme for penny postage, and Pitman’s first publication of his now widely-used shorthand system. Turning to the realm of literature, we find that Algernon Charles Swinburne, a poet of lyrical genius, was born in 1837. Mr Leonard Woolf has said recently : “ When time has at last performed its salutary task of destroying the accidents of temporary enthusiasms or temporary reactions Swinburne will, I believe, again take his place among the great English poets.” The year 1837 also saw the birth of Sir James Murray, who compiled the greater part of that mighty work, ‘ The New English Dictionary,’ and of J. R. Green, who set a • new fashion, in degree at least, with his ‘ Short History of the English People.’ A famous theologian born in that year was the evangelist Moody. Among the noteworthy figures who first saw the light of day on the Continent in the same year was Georges Boulanger, who failed in his bold attempt to establish himself as a dictator, probably because his effort was made in an age unprepared for such a startling and unorthodox innovation. The deaths recorded in 1837 include those of Pushkin, the Russian poet, and John Constable, Britain’s great landscape painter, who loved and painted England, but was better understood for a beginning in France. In going still further back, and giving some attention to bi-centenaries, we recall that in 1737 the preaching of George Whitefield and the influence of John Wesley were beginning to create the “ Nonconformist conscience ” in England. It was in that year, moreover, that Samuel Johnson, with his pupil, David Garrick, went to London to seek his fortune. Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, just fifty years before the completion of ‘ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.’ The list of ’37 historical events is a particularly lengthy one, which could be carried on right down through the centuries to the birth in 37 A.n. of Nero, the first Emperor to persecute the Christians.