A STUDY OF BRITISH GENIUS. 541 



If we consider separately the eminent persons in whose ancestry two 

 or more of the elements of British nationality (English, Welsh, Scotch 

 and Irish) are mixed we find that the English proportion is only 51 

 per cent., the Scotch 16.8, while the Irish element has risen to equality 

 with the Scotch, 16.8, and the Welsh is as high as 15.4. This would 

 seem to indicate that the Irish and the Welsh are especially adapted for 

 cross-breeding in the production of genius. 



If we turn to the eminent persons of partly foreign blood (those 

 of wholly foreign blood, like Disraeli, the elder Herschel and Romilly, 

 being necessarily excluded from our study) we find that they constitute 

 a very inconsiderable proportion of the whole. A strain of foreign blood 

 (not going further back than the grandparents) occurs, so far as the 

 'Dictionary' enables us to ascertain it, only forty-six times. In twenty- 

 four of these cases the element is French (at least half of them being 

 Huguenot), in six German, in six Dutch. The most noteworthy fact 

 about these elements of foreign blood is the peculiarly beneficial effect 

 a French strain has in producing intellectual ability. 



It is somewhat remarkable that the geographical distribution of 

 eminent women by no means follows that of eminent men. Here, after 

 England, Ireland leads, and Scotland is but little ahead of Wales. The 

 intellectual brilliancy of Irish women is, indeed, remarkable, and has 

 been displayed in literature as well as on the stage. 



These facts serve to indicate that on the whole British ability has 

 not been very unfairly distributed over Great Britain. We are still en- 

 titled to ask whether it is also fairly distributed among the populations 

 of different physical type inhabiting the British Islands. 



In investigating this point I have supplemented the somewhat 

 scanty information contained in the 'Dictionary* by examination of 

 such portraits of these eminent persons as I have been able to find in the 

 London National Portrait Gallery, and I have confined myself almost 

 exclusively to the color of the hair and eyes. For various reasons the 

 data thus obtained are not altogether satisfactory; the imperfect and 

 often vague statements of the biographers, the frequently faded tones 

 of the pictures, sometimes badly hung, have furnished indications 

 which are often doubtful and not seldom conflicting. An artist is a 

 reliable observer in such matters, but he is liable to disregard the facts 

 in order to obtain his effect, as we may see in Millais's portrait of 

 Gladstone in the National Gallery, where the eyes are represented of 

 quite different colors, one blue, the other brown. The evidence in 

 some cases has been so conflicting that I have had to disregard it 

 altogether, and in many cases the results obtained are probably only an 

 approximation to the truth. With these allowances, however, we may 

 still obtain results which have some value and are not without interest. 



From the point of view of hair-color and eye-color I have divided 



