Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/384

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376
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

medical men, who are not, however, considered by their biographers to have really attained a durable reputation. Just as a really able business man is not satisfied with business success, so a really able doctor is not satisfied with professional success, but seeks a higher success, especially in science. A number of eminent men in science, letters and philosophy have been doctors, but it has not been in medical practice that their reputations have been made. I have no comments to make on the other groups, which, in all cases, I believe, fairly correspond to the real distribution of high ability. The group of Divines may seem large, but it certainly appears that religion has offered, in the past, if not in the present, a peculiarly favorable field for the development of mental ability.

There are 43 eminent women, the proportion to eminent men being only about 1 to 20, although, as I have already pointed out, a somewhat lower standard of intellectual ability seems here to be demanded in order to attain eminence. The eminent women fall into the following groups: Actresses, 13; Women of Letters, 23; Women of Science, 1; Philanthropists, 1; Poets, 5. It will be noticed that women have only attained eminence in five out of the eighteen departments, although, even allowing for legal and other disabilities, they have been free to attain eminence in at least twelve departments.

Having now explained how these lists have been obtained, it may be well at this stage to enumerate the individuals who thus appear entitled to rank as the preeminent men and women of genius produced by the British Isles. Names appearing in more than one group are marked by an asterisk. It has not been thought necessary to distinguish the very numerous cases in which individuals of the same name appear in different groups, since no confusion should thus be caused.

Actors.—Betterton, Booth, Burbage, Cibber, Cooke, Elliston, Foote, Garrick, Kean, Kemble, King, Lewis, Liston, Macklin, Macready, C. Mathews, C. J. Mathews, Palmer, Phelps, Quin, Webster, Wilks, Woodward.

Artists.—Adam, Banks, C. Barry, J. Barry, Bewick, Blake,* Bonington, Browne, Cattermole, Chantrey, Cockerell, Constable, Cooper, Copley, Cotman, Cox, Cozens, Crome, Cruikshank, Danby, Dawson, Dobson, Doyle, Dyce, Eastlake, Etty, Flaxman, Gainsborough, Gibson, Girtin, Gillray, Haydon, Hogarth, Holl, Inigo Jones, Keene, Landseer, Lawrence, Lewis, Linnell, Leech, Maelise, Mbrland, Mulready, Northcote, Opie, Phillip, Pugin, Raeburn, Reynolds, Romney, Rossetti,* Rowlandson, Sandby, D. Scott, G. Scott, Stevens, Stothard, Street, Stubbs, Turner, Vanbrugh,* Varley, Walker, Wilkie, Wilson, Woolner, Wren, Wright.

Business Men.—Gresham, Paterson, Whittington.

Divines.—Abbot, Adrian IV., Ainsworth, Alesius, Allen, Andrewes,* Atterbury, Bancroft, Barclay, Barrow,* Baxter, Bedell, St. Boniface, Bonner, Bradshaw, Browne, Burges, Burnet,* Butler,* Campion, Candlish, St. Thomas de Cantelupe, Cartwright, Challoner, Chalmers, Chichele, Chillingworth, Clarke, Colenso, St. Columba, St. Columban, Cooke, Cosin, Coverdale, Cranmer, Cudworth, St. Cuthbert, Dolben, Doddridge, Donne,* Duff, St. Dunstan, St. Edmund, Emlyn, Erskine, Faber, Ferrar, Fox, Foxe,* Fuller, Garnett, Henderson,* Heylin, Hoadley, Hook, Hooker,