The second generation after this is similar, so it seems to me there is nothing in the history of this house to speak against heredity, except that among the three children of William V., we find in two brothers a too large proportion of mental endowment, since there was no eminent relation nearer than great uncles and aunts. Thus about twenty-six of the twenty-seven give us the expected. This is another example of a royal house that did not degenerate through assumption of rank and power.
The moral tone remained good throughout and, although probably explicable on grounds of environment, is also in line with heredity.
Evidence from the House of Brunswick.
This family may be conveniently taken up next, since it is much like Saxe-Coburg in character, has intermarried with it and taken its tap-roots from much the same sources.
From Henry of Brunswick Danneburg (1546-1598) to William Duke of Brunswick Oels (1806-) we have eight generations with thirty-nine members of the direct house who are available for study. Of these thirty-nine all but Henry, above mentioned, and August (1579-1666) are given a full pedigree to the great-grandparent generation and studied with uncles and aunts as additional material. This brings into the group ninety-five more persons, or 144 in all. Among the thirty-nine we find one in grade (9), Amelia of Saxe Weimar, the distinguished patron of men of learning, and three in grade (8), William Adolphus, an author, and Charles William Frederick, the celebrated general in the Seven Years' War, and Juliana, the very ambitious and unprincipled queen of Frederick V., of Denmark. The gifted ones, Amelia of Saxe-Weimar, Charles William Ferdinand and William Adolphus, are niece and nephews of Frederick the Great and also of Juliana. The generation to which Juliana belongs also contains Ferdinand, a celebrated general, but his fraternity does not average quite as high as the next, which was formed by a union with the Hohenzollerns at the height of their greatness.
The first five generations of the House of Brunswick contain eight as high as grade (7), but none of these were distinguished sufficiently to be mentioned in Lippincott's. Only two, Ferdinand and his father, Ferdinand Albert II., were noted as generals.
The literary activity was very great, there being among the thirty-nine no less than ten who were authors. This authorship ran through five of the eight generations and should have appeared as it did, even setting aside the influence of education and example, since we find a remarkable breeding in of literary qualities somewhat comparable to what was found in the family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
