376 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Louisa, 4, 9; Amelia, 5, 6; Mary, 4, 8, and Caroline Elizabeth, 4, 9. 

 Both sons were below the average morally, the others range pretty close 

 to the average, except Caroline Elizabeth, who was an exceptionally 

 lovely character.* These are not out of line with heredity. The genera- 

 tion before this contains only George II. and his sister, who became 

 queen of Prussia. She was a mediocrity, and George II. represented 

 the bad side of the family inheritance. 



George I. was a poor representative of an illustrious stock as his 

 mother was the intellectual Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick, a descend- 

 ant of the great House of Orange on both sides. It was left for the 

 sister of George, who was the 'Philosophical Queen' of Frederick I., 

 of Prussia, to transmit the genius of Orange into Prussia to the genera- 

 tion of Frederick the Great. It can easily be seen that after the two 

 first Georges, each the poorest among his kind, that the ancient great- 

 ness must necessarily die out, as it was never rejuvenated in this house. 



To summarize the House of Hanover : It contains 28 persons whose 

 pedigrees have been studied. The total number brought together on a 

 chart containing in addition the full pedigree for George IV. to five 

 generations is 87. Of these 87 only two show high intellectual variation; 

 these are Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick (10) and Caroline of Branden- 

 burg (8). It was shown that these higher streaks were lost by selec- 

 tion. There are only five as low as grade 3 and one in grade 2. 

 Thus the house of Hanover has never deviated much from the average, 

 either in itself or in the nature of the blood introduced, and the char- 

 acters are much as one would expect from heredity alone. It is a great 

 mistake to consider that Queen Victoria had a bad ancestry. On the 

 other hand, it was in general very good. The ancestry of King Edward 

 VII. is even better and most of Victoria's children have upheld the 

 standard. 



Saxe-Coburg the Reigning House of England. 



As I started with the present King of England, and since his father 

 was a prince of Saxe-Coburg, I was at once led into that family, which 

 will now be considered. 



Albert, the lamented consort of Queen Victoria, was, as every one 

 knows, a highly, cultivated, earnest and noble man, a devoted husband 

 and an enthusiastic reformer in all affairs related to the public good. 

 Well versed in science and literature, he was also an accomplished 

 musician. Did he come by this character through inheritance? It 

 will be seen that characters of this sort are written all over his family 

 pedigree. As the group, just considered, Hanover was remarkable for 

 its dullness, so this group is remarkable for its virtue and bent towards 

 literature, science and art. It is not that the dukes in the male line 



* Wharton, ' Wits and Beaux,' p. 177. 



