THE PHENOMENA OF HEREDITY. 61 



According to Galton, the memory was so notable a faculty in the 

 family of the celebrated English Hellenist, Porson, as to have % passed 

 into a by-word, the Porson memory. Lady Hester Stanhope, she whose 

 life was so full of adventure, gives, as one among many points of re- 

 semblance between herself and her grandfather, her retentive memory. 

 " I have my grandfather's gray eyes," said she, " and his memory of 

 places. If he saw a stone on the road, he remembered it : it is the 

 same with myself. His eye, Avhich was ordinarily dull and lustreless, 

 was lighted up, like my own, with a wild gleam whenever he was 

 seized with passion.'' The imaginative and creative faculties, those 

 which play the chief part in art and in poetry, are sometimes trans- 

 mitted from father to son. Galton, in the work he published four 

 years ago (" Hereditary Genius "), and Bibot, in his recent book, give 

 long lists of painters, poets, and # musicians, in order to show the part 

 played by heredity in the genesis of these artists' talents. There are 

 in these lists many instances in which this influence of heredity is in- 

 dubitable, but there are far more in which it is very questionable 

 indeed. Thus, these authors see the influence of heredity in the po- 

 etic genius of Byron, Goethe, and Schiller, because they find in the 

 ancestors of these poets certain passions, vices, or qualities — just as 

 though these peculiarities of character could determine poetic genius. 

 The fact is, these lists do not show us any great poet who received 

 his faculties from his ancestors. We do there find that a great poet 

 is sometimes the father of mediocre poets — which is a different thing. 

 The heredity of aptitudes for painting is better established : in a list 

 of 42 celebrated painters, Italians, Spaniards, and Flemings, Galton 

 shows that 21 had illustrious ancestors. The names of Bellini, Caracci, 

 Teniers, Van Ostade, Mieris, Vandervelde, and Vernet, will suffice to 

 prove that there are families of painters. In the family of Titian we 

 find nine painters of merit. The history of music presents instances 

 still more striking. The Bach family took its rise in 1550, and became 

 extinct in 1800. Its head was Veit Bach, a baker at Presburg, who 

 used to seek for relaxation from labor in music and song. He had two 

 sons, who commenced that unbroken series of musicians of the same 

 name, who, for nearly two centuries, overran Thuringia, Saxony, and 

 Franconia. They were all organists, church singers, or what is called 

 in Germany city musicians. When they became too numerous to live 

 all together, and the members of this family were scattered abroad, 

 they resolved to meet once a year, on a stated day, with a view to 

 keep up a sort of patriarchal bond of union. This custom was kept up 

 until nearly the middle of the eighteenth century, and oftentimes more 

 than 100 persons bearing the name of Bach, men, women, and children, 

 were to be seen assembled. In this family are reckoned 29 eminent 

 musicians, and 28 of a lower grade. Mozart's father was second ca- 

 pellmeister to the prince-bishop of Salzburg. Beethoven's father was 

 tenor in the chapel of the Elector of Cologne : his grandfather had 



