successor of Charles V. The tidings that there was a new Emperor reached the Vera of Plasencia when its wide woodlands were in the first verdure of May. The fact was conveyed to the recluse at Yuste in a short letter from his son the King, then in the Netherlands, and it gave him much satisfaction to learn that he was really at last, what the Leaguers of Schmalkalden had called him twelve years before, plain Charles of Ghent. "His Majesty," wrote the Secretary Gaztelu to the Secretary of State at Valladolid, "was much pleased with the King's "letter, though it was very short; and seeing that it advises him of "the renunciation of the empire, he has given me orders that the letters "henceforth written to you and to other persons are not to be headed "with the word Emperor, or any other title, and he has also told me that "two seals with his arms are to be made, according as they were painted in the paper herewith enclosed, without crown, fleece, eagle, or anything else, and sent hither as soon as possible." In this letter, the usual heading "The Emperor" was omitted, and Juan Vazquez de Molina was addressed in the superscription, not as heretofore "my secretary," but secretary of the council of the King my son," a somewhat late and unmeaning change of style, seeing that all the servants of the crown had been, by law, the servants of Philip since the 16th of January, 1556. The seals with the arms, shorn of their Imperial and royal ornaments, were made and sent to Yuste; but in spite of the injunctions of Charles, his children and other correspondents continued to address him in the old way as "his sacred Cæsarean "Catholic Majesty."

แ

'At the funeral-rites which were performed in his honour at the close of 1558 in the great cities of his wide dominions, the long array of titles which indicated his power, and the accumulation of heraldic blazonry which belonged to his blood, were restored to him. The procession which passed on the 29th of December from the palace at Bruxelles to the church at St. Gudule, and the services afterwards performed in those majestic aisles, were amongst the most imposing pageants of their time. In that procession a splendid galley was wheeled along, heaving on its mimic sea, and spreading to the wintry breeze sails inscribed with a catalogue of the achievements of the dead Emperor, and banners and pennons embroidered with his armorial bearings and emblematical devices. Hope with her anchor stood at the prow; Faith with her crucifix sat beneath the mainmast; and on the lofty poop Charity displayed her flaming heart. Upon the sides and on the stern of the vessel were twelve richly-bordered compartments, within which the Emperor's principal victories were painted. Over these pictures, twelve Latin verses, in letters of gold, gleamed along the architectural bulwarks of the galley. They may be thus translated:

""Not craving lust of fame, nor thirst for gold,
Nor love of sway, to labours manifold
Thee, Cæsar! spurr'd; 'twas pious care alone
For all mankind that sent to lands unknown
Thy ships with messengers of Christ, to pour
Baptismal streams o'er many a heathen shore.

Nor didst thou bate of hope till launch'd from Spain,
Guided by thee, Religion cross'd the main,—
Whilst Neptune, and his dripping Triton train,
Made smooth her path across the billowy plain,——
To gild the golden lands with brighter ray
And Indian souls benighted fill with day."

'Rising out of the sea behind the galley were two rocks crowned by the Pillars of Hercules, which bore this distich in Latin :

"The columns of great Hercules thou tookest for thy sign;

These, monster-queller of our age, of right indeed were thine." The inscription on the splendid monument of the Escorial, raised to him by his son, is in the following words :

666

:

HUNC LOCUM SI QUIS POSTER. CAROLO V. HABITAM
GLORIAM RERUM GESTARUM SPLENDORE SUPERAVERIS,

IPSE SOLUS OCCUPATO, CETERI REVERENTER ABSTINETE.

6

"Thou alone of the children of Charles V. who shalt surpass the glory of his actions take his place: ye others reverently forbear.” But it was not, says Sir William, only in pulpit panegyric or in pompous epitaph that tributes to the Emperor are found. The homage which he received from those who followed his fortunes was equally accorded by those who feared his power and strove to foil his policy. Christendom,' said the Venetian Cavalli in 1551, has seen no prince since Charlemagne so ' valiant or so great as this Emperor Charles.' The traditionary worship of his memory remained fresh in the evil and degenerate days of his house.It is our maxim in the Council ' of State,' said the second Don John of Austria, his son's great-grandson, and in 1679 Prime Minister of the last Austrian King of Spain, always to consult the spirit of our great Charles V., and in every difficult crisis to consider what he would have done, and endeavour to do the like.' The greatest artists, the most illustrious historians, have vied with one another in preserving the likeness of his person and the record of his achievements. Nor is it a small addition to his fame that in this our age, the taste, the learning, and the munificence of a Scottish gentleman, aided by the arts of the nineteenth century, should have raised this literary monument to his greatness.

6

ART. IV.- Hereditary Genius: an Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences. By FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S., &c. 8vo. London: 1869.

'WE E often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, and ' hereditary virtues; but whoever will critically ex'amine the evidence will find that we have no proof of their 'existence. The way in which they are commonly proved is in the highest degree illogical; the usual course being for writers to collect instances of some mental peculiarity found in a parent and in his child, and then to infer that the peculiarity was bequeathed. By this mode of reasoning we might 'demonstrate any proposition; since in all large fields of in'quiry there are a sufficient number of empirical coincidences 'to make a plausible case in favour of whatever view a man 'chooses to advocate. But this is not the way in which truth is discovered; and we ought to inquire not only how many instances there are of hereditary talents, &c., but how many instances there are of such qualities not being hereditary. Until something of this sort is attempted, we can know nothing about the matter inductively; while, until physiology and chemistry are much more advanced, we can know "nothing about it deductively. These considerations ought to 'prevent us from receiving statements which positively affirm the existence of hereditary madness and hereditary suicide; ' and the same remark applies to hereditary disease; and with 'still greater force does it apply to hereditary vices and hereditary virtues, inasmuch as ethical phenomena have not been registered as carefully as physiological ones, and therefore our 'conclusions respecting them are precarious.'*

This passage, from the work of a writer of vast knowledge and acknowledged intellectual power, is chiefly remarkable as affording an instance of the extraordinary manner in which love of paradox, and an aversion for the commonplace, and a desire to say something new on all subjects, will sometimes divert a mind of so high a class from the straightforward but trodden road of truth. Mr. Buckle's determination not to adopt the ordinary belief in hereditary influences in human physiology was akin to the determined scepticism with which Sir Cornewall Lewis set himself to reject all ancient record outside the pages of classical and Bible history, and all evidence that human beings had attained the age of a century. Buckle, History of Civilisation,' vol. i. ch. 4.

*

6

We quote it now, not in any disposition to triumph over the obstinate incredulity which was Mr. Buckle's weakness, as over-credulity is that of others, but in order to introduce the decisive answer with which Mr. Darwin disposes of all such negative theories, and establishes on scientific grounds the doctrine already so firmly rooted in popular belief of heredity ' of talent,' or rather of mental conformation.*

'Some writers, who have not attended to natural history, have attempted to show that the force of inheritance has been much exaggerated. The breeders of animals would smile at such simplicity; and, if they condescended to make any answer, might ask what would be the chance of winning a prize if two inferior animals were paired together? They might ask whether the half-wild Arabs were led by theoretical notions to keep pedigrees of their horses? Why have pedigrees been scrupulously kept and published of the short-horn cattle, and more recently of the Hereford breed? Is it an illusion that these recently improved animals safely transmit their excellent qualities even when crossed with other breeds? Have the short-horns, without good reason, been purchased at immense prices and exported to almost every quarter of the globe? . . . In fact, the whole art of breeding, from which such great results have been attained during the present century, depends on the inheritance of each small detail of structure. But inheritance is not certain; for if it were, the breeder's art would be reduced to a certainty, and there would be little scope left for skill and perseverance.'

After giving some remarkable instances of hereditary personal marks and deformities, Mr. Darwin proceeds :--

When we reflect that certain extraordinary peculiarities have thus appeared in a single individual out of many millions, all exposed in the same country to the same general conditions of life, and, again, that the same extraordinary peculiarity has sometimes appeared in individuals living under widely different conditions of life, we are driven to conclude that such peculiarities are not directly due to the action of the surrounding conditions, but to unknown laws acting on the organisation or constitution of the individual; that their production stands in scarcely closer relation to the condition than does life itself. If this be so, and the occurrence of the same unusual character in the parent and child cannot be attributed to both having been exposed to the same unusual conditions, then the following problem is worth consideration,

*We are bound to add, that Mr. Buckle's incredulity in this matter has been shared by minds of a more philosophical order than his. The 'school of Monpellier,' in French physical science, was opposed to the doctrine of heredity' as well as to other notions implying the existence of congenital mental peculiarities. See the writings of two of its distinguished pupils, Lourdat and Virey, commented on, and answered, in the remarkable work of Prosper Lucas, Traité physiologique et 4 philosophique de l'hérédité,' 1847.

successor of Charles V. The tidings that there was a new Emperor reached the Vera of Plasencia when its wide woodlands were in the first verdure of May. The fact was conveyed to the recluse at Yuste in a short letter from his son the King, then in the Netherlands, and it gave him much satisfaction to learn that he was really at last, what the Leaguers of Schmalkalden had called him twelve years before, plain Charles of Ghent. "His Majesty," wrote the Secretary Gaztelu to the Secretary of State at Valladolid, "was much pleased with the King's "letter, though it was very short; and seeing that it advises him of "the renunciation of the empire, he has given me orders that the letters "henceforth written to you and to other persons are not to be headed "with the word Emperor, or any other title, and he has also told me that "two seals with his arms are to be made, according as they were "painted in the paper herewith enclosed, without crown, fleece, eagle, or anything else, and sent hither as soon as possible." In this letter, the usual heading "The Emperor" was omitted, and Juan Vazquez de Molina was addressed in the superscription, not as heretofore "my "secretary," but "secretary of the council of the King my son," a somewhat late and unmeaning change of style, seeing that all the servants of the crown had been, by law, the servants of Philip since the 16th of January, 1556. The seals with the arms, shorn of their Imperial and royal ornaments, were made and sent to Yuste; but in spite of the injunctions of Charles, his children and other correspondents continued to address him in the old way as "his sacred Cæsarean "Catholic Majesty."

'At the funeral-rites which were performed in his honour at the close of 1558 in the great cities of his wide dominions, the long array of titles which indicated his power, and the accumulation of heraldic blazonry which belonged to his blood, were restored to him. The procession which passed on the 29th of December from the palace at Bruxelles to the church at St. Gudule, and the services afterwards performed in those majestic aisles, were amongst the most imposing pageants of their time. In that procession a splendid galley was wheeled along, heaving on its mimic sea, and spreading to the wintry breeze sails inscribed with a catalogue of the achievements of the dead Emperor, and banners and pennons embroidered with his armorial bearings and emblematical devices. Hope with her anchor stood at the prow; Faith with her crucifix sat beneath the mainmast; and on the lofty poop Charity displayed her flaming heart. Upon the sides and on the stern of the vessel were twelve richly-bordered compartments, within which the Emperor's principal victories were painted. Over these pictures, twelve Latin verses, in letters of gold, gleamed along the architectural bulwarks of the galley. They may be thus translated :""Not craving lust of fame, nor thirst for gold, Nor love of sway, to labours manifold Thee, Caesar! spurr'd; 'twas pious care alone. For all mankind that sent to lands unknown Thy ships with messengers of Christ, to pour Baptismal streamus o'er many a heathen shore.