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JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE 

 His Ancestry 



Of Joseph Rodman Drake the poet, who, like Keats, died 

 too early, it may be said that he was his own ancestor. 



Good American doctrine, that, and well suited to the boy 

 who wrote The American Flag. 



With the exception of Sir Francis Drake, from whose 

 family he descended, none of the name seems to have made 

 any great noise in the world, although many there were on 

 both sides of the Atlantic who upheld the name by their con- 

 duct and attainments as soldiers, sailors and citizens of emi- 

 nence and worth. In Berlin during the reign of the first 

 German Emperor there lived a sculptor of note, named Drake, 

 who was an offshoot of this widely spread and efficient stock. 

 He is best known for the winged figure on the Victory Column 

 that overtops the statues along the Sieges Allee in the Thier- 

 garten, statues which represent the ancestors of the German 

 autocrat. 



However we Americans, in our ambition to make good use 

 of the present and prepare for the future, may neglect the past, 

 it is only natural that we should like to know about the an- 

 cestry of men of genius and of mark. Though we may reject 

 the extreme to which China, for instance, has pushed- the 

 worship of ancestors, we can not shut our eyes to the value of 

 inherited traits, and so are led to acknowledge that it is well 

 for a man to have fore-bears whom their fellows applauded. 

 This is only to maintain a just poise and keep the true per- 

 spective in our attitude toward men, neither permitting our- 

 selves to give undue weight to the forefathers of a stock, nor 

 allowing ourselves to be hurried to the other extreme by our 

 preference for democracy. One of the wisest among the 

 Greeks under Roman rule, Plutarch, as you may remember, 

 kept always to that dignified moderateness. Whenever he 

 could, he recounted the family origin of the men who live 



