12 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



Moorish wars, strength alternated with mediocrity. 

 After the time of Charles V. an unfortunate ancestral 

 combination gave nothing for mediocrity to alternate 

 with as far as mentality was concerned, save insanity 

 and imbecility. A few fine moral characters are still 

 found here and there rising conspicuously among a 

 mass of lazy or cruel degenerates. 



The heritage from the mad Joanna also appeared 

 in the Austrian line of the Hapsburgs, but did not at 

 first affect many members. Selection was almost 

 entirely through normal parentage. Vehse, in his 

 well-known " Memoires of the House of Austria," 

 refers to the more recent reappearance of the ancient 

 ailment, " Whereas the children of Maria Theresa 

 were all of them healthy, the sons of Ludovica were 

 afflicted with the hereditary evil of the Spanish 

 Bourbons, convulsions and epilepsy. The Archduke 

 John alone was free from it, and all the other sons 

 suffered more or less from the terrible malady ; the 

 Archduke Charles very badly, most of all the 

 Archduke Rodolph. Ludovica's daughters were free, 

 but the malady reappeared in the grand-daughters — 

 as, for instance, in the Archduchess-Co-Regent 

 Caroline of Saxony." 



The history, of Portuguese royalty is easily divided 

 into two main periods, that prior to Emanuel the 

 Fortunate, who died in 1521, which was an era of 

 great kings, and the subsequent generations composed 

 of little or mediocre personages. In the early period 

 Ferdinand I. and Alfonso V. stand out in contrast, 

 owing to their weakness ; while in the latter period 



