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Hereditary Genius
261
boyhood. Most of them wrote voluminously, and were continually
engaged in preachings and religious services. They had evidently a
strong need of utterance. They were generally, but by no means
universally, of religious parentage, judging by the last 100 biographies
of Middle-ton's collection, the earlier part of the work giving too
imperfect notices of their ancestry to make it of use to analyse it. It
would appear that, out of 100 men, only 41 had one or more
eminently religious parents, nothing whatever being said of the
parentage of the other 59. The 41 cases are divided thus:¹—In 17
cases (a) the father was a minister; in 16 cases (b), the father not
being a minister, both parents were religious; in 5 cases (c) the
mother only is mentioned as pious; in 2 cases (d) the mother's near
relatives are known to have been religious; in l case (e) the father
alone is mentioned as pious.
There is no case in which either or both parents are distinctly
described as having been sinful, though there are two cases (f.)² of
meanness, and one (g.)³ of overspending.
The condition of life of the parents is mentioned in 66 cases—more
than one-third of the whole. They fall into the following groups:—
4. Highly connected.—Hamilton; George, Prince of Anhalt; John a
Lasco; Herbert.
8. Ancient families (not necessarily wealthy).—Jewell, Deering,
Gilpin, Hildersham, Ames, Bedell, Lewis de Dieu, Palmer.
1
(a) Lewis de Dieu, Alting, Manton, T. Gouge, Owen, Leighton, Claude, Hopkins,
Fleming, Burkitt, Halyburton, M. Henry, Clarke, Mather, Evans, Edwards, Hervey.
(b) Donne, Downe, Taylor, Whately, W. Gouge, Janeway, Winter, Flavel, Spener,
Witsius, Shower, Doddridge, G. Jones, Davies, Guyse, Gill.
(c) G. Herbert, Hall, P. Henry, Baily, Whitefield.
(d) Wilkins (mother's father, J. Dod), Toplady (two maternal uncles, clergymen).
(e) Hale.
2
f. Bullinger, Fulke.
3
g. Baxter.
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