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Hereditary Genius
135
The result of all these facts is exceedingly striking. It is:—
1st. That out of the thirty-one peerages, there were no less than
seventeen in which the hereditary influence of an heiress or co-
heiress affected the first or second generation. That this influence
was sensibly an agent in producing sterility in sixteen out of these
seventeen peerages, and the influence was sometimes shown in two,
three, or more cases in one peerage.
2d. That the direct male line of no less than eight peerages, viz.
Colpepper, Harcourt, Northington, Clarendon, Jeffreys, Raymond,
Trevor, and Rosslyn, were actually extinguished through the influence
of the heiresses, and that six others, viz. Shaftesbury, Cowper,
Guilford, Parker, Camden, and Talbot, had very narrow escapes from
extinction, owing to the same cause. I literally have only one case,
that of Lord Kenyon, where the race-destroying influence of heiress-
blood was not felt.
3d. Out of the twelve peerages that have failed in the direct male
line, no less than eight failures are accounted for by heiress-
marriages.
Now, what of the four that remain? Lords Somers and Thurlow
both died unmarried. Lord Alvanley had only two sons, of whom one
died unmarried. There is only his case and that of the Earl of
Mansfield, out of the ten who married and whose titles have since
become extinct, where the extinction may not be accounted for by
heiress-marriages. No one can therefore maintain, with any show of
reason, that there are grounds for imputing exceptional sterility to the
race of judges. The facts, when carefully analysed, point very
strongly in the opposite direction.
I will now treat the Statesmen of George III. and the Premiers
since the accession of George III. down to recent times, in the same
way as I have treated the Judges; including, however, only those
whose pedigrees I can easily
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