340 NATURE AND LIFE. 
Galton, in the work published by him four years ago,’ 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 Velde, 
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 arestyled 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. 
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