Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/457

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
MENTAL AND MORAL HEREDITY IN ROYALTY.
451

was his own cousin and by the Orange branch. Thus now this great stock is repeated four times in the pedigree. Besides this we have four other great grandparents of high standing.

Thus the pedigree stands for intellect:

It will be noticed that only two are below mediocrity. From this remarkable union were produced, out of ten children, five of the most illustrious persons contained in this study. These were Frederick the Great (10). Henry, his almost equally great brother[1] (9). Charlotte, Duchess of Brunswick (8), had a remarkable mind, literary tastes and fine character. Wraxall said of her that he scarcely ever met a woman in any walk of life who possessed an understanding more enlarged and cultivated. Amelia (9), 'endowments of mind said to have been extraordinary,' had a remarkable talent for music[2] and Louisa Ulrica, Queen of Sweden (10), was called the 'Minerva of the North.' The other five included Frederica Sophia, of Baireuth, whose memoirs are considered very interesting. These other grades are 7, 5, 5, 3.

Frederick the Great also had a number of nephews and one niece who were very richly endowed mentally. As some of these would escape mention elsewhere they are here enumerated:

1. Gustavus II. of Sweden (9).
2. Sophia Albertina, his sister (8).
3. Augustus Frederick of Prussia (8); reputed the first artillery officer in the Prussian army.
4. Louis, a son of Ferdinand of Prussia (8); distinguished talents.
5. Amelia Duchess of Saxe-Weimar (9); the distinguished patron of genius, of Wieland, Herder, Goethe, etc.
6. Charles William Ferdinand (8) of Brunswick; celebrated commander.'[1]
7. William Adolphus (8) of Brunswick; generally brilliant, and an author.

Such a union of high talents, found here about Frederick the Great, is certainly remarkable and bears out Galton's idea that of all great men, the greatest commanders have the greatest number of eminent relations.

Frederick the Great had in the first degree of relationship, in spite of having no direct descendants, one in 10, two in 9 and one in 8. In second degree two in 9, five in 8. Three of his great-


  1. 1.0 1.1 Lippincott.
  2. Wraxall, 'Berlin Mem.,' Vol. I., pp. 209, 294.