BLUE BLOOD 141 



without issue; the brother of the latter, James II, 

 was treacherous, vindictive, mendacious, cruel, and 

 ridiculous to boot ; Mary, daughter of James II, was 

 weak-minded and childless ; and Anne, although pro- 

 lific, had not a healthy or long-lived family. Finally 

 Charles Stuart the Pretender, the last of his line, was 

 illiterate, drunken, paralytic, and died insane. 



The Hanoverian family fares no better at Jacoby's 

 hands. Elizabeth from her marriage with the Elector 

 had many children. Several died young. Of the 

 remainder one left a daughter who died without issue ; 

 two others were childless; and yet another died 

 insane at thirty-nine. Sophia, the youngest daughter 

 of Elizabeth, and sister of the unhappy lunatic, be- 

 came heiress to the English throne. Did she leave 

 the family taint behind her when she quitted Germany 

 in order to take up her ancestral heritage in this 

 country ? Jacoby finds an answer to this question in 

 the debaucheries and excesses of the four Georges, in 

 one of whom the positive insanity of the Stuarts re- 

 appeared. Since then, happily, the English Crown 

 has passed into a healthy line. It is inadvisable for 

 obvious reasons to pursue our inquiries as far as the 

 present condition of the royal caste in Europe. Suffice 

 it to say that not a few examples of the tnith of 



