340 NATURE AND LIFE. 



Galton, in the work published by him four years ago, 1 and 

 Th. Ribot, in his very late book, give long lists of painters, 

 poets, and musicians, designed to prove the part which 

 heredity takes in the production of these artists' talents. 

 In these lists many instances appear in which that influence 

 cannot be called in question, but there are very many 

 more in which it is extremely disputable. Thus these au- 

 thors discover the influence of heredity in the poetic genius 

 of Byron, Goethe, and Schiller, because they find in their 

 ancestors certain passions, certain vices or qualities, as if 

 such peculiarities of character could have any thing to do 

 with determining poetic genius. In fact, their catalogues 

 do not name one great poet who inherited his powers from 

 his parents. We do learn from them that a great poet 

 sometimes becomes the father of tolerably good poets, 

 which is by no means the same thing. Hereditary predis- 

 position for painting is more real ; in a list of forty-two 

 famous Italian, Spanish, or Flemish painters, Galton cites 

 twenty-one who had famous parents. The names of Bel- 

 lini, Caracci, Teniers, Van Ostade, Mieris, Van der Yelde, 

 Vernet, are proof enough of the existence of families of 

 painters. In Titian's family nine meritorious painters are 

 met with. The history of musicians presents more striking 

 instances. The family of Bach begins in 1550 and ends 

 in 1800 ; its founder was Veit Bach, a baker at Presburg, 

 who sought recreation from his work in music and singing. 

 He had two sons, who began that unbroken succession 

 of musicians of the same name which filled Thuringia, 

 Saxony, and Franconia, for nearly two centuries. They 

 were all organists, or parish singers, or town musicians, as 

 they are styled in Germany. When the members of this 

 family had scattered, becoming too numerous to live in the 

 same neighborhood, they agreed to come together on a 

 fixed day once a year, in order to keep up a sort of patri- 

 1 " Hereditary Genius," London, 1869. 



