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72
Hereditary Genius
and a new barony of Capel (second creation); in the fourth one more, the
dukedom of Manchester (the Premier in 1701); in the fifth one more, the
earldom of Guilford. The second Earl of Guilford, the Premier of George
III. (best known as Lord North), was in the sixth generation.
It is wholly impossible for me to describe the characteristics of all the
individuals who are jotted down in my genealogical tree. I could not do it
without giving a vast deal more room than I can spare. But this much I can
do, and ought to do; namely, to take those who are most closely linked with
the Judges, and to show that they possessed sterling ability, and did not hold
their high positions by mere jobbery, nor obtain their reputations through the
accident of birth or circumstances. I will gladly undertake to show this,
although it happens in the present instance to put my cause in a peculiarly
disadvantageous light, because Francis North, the Lord Keeper, the first
Baron Guilford, is the man of all others, in that high position (identical, or
nearly so, with that of a Lord Chancellor), whom modern authorities vie in
disparaging and condemning. Those who oppose my theories might say, the
case of North being Lord Keeper shows it is impossible to trust official rank
as a criterion of ability; he was promoted by jobbery, and jobbed when he
was promoted,; he inherited family influence, not natural intellectual gifts:
and the same may be said of all the members of this or of any other
pedigree. As I implied before, there is enough truth in this objection to make
it impossible to meet it by a flat contradiction, based on a plain and simple
statement It is necessary to analyse characters, and to go a little into detail I
will do this, and when it is concluded I believe many of my readers will
better appreciate than they did before, how largely natural intellectual gifts
are the birthright of some families.
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