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'Sic oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora ferebat';

but scarcely less often the differences which distinguish

children both from their parents and from one another. We are

told of similar mental peculiarities running in families, and

again of a tendency, as in the animals, to revert to a common or

original stock. But we have a difficulty in distinguishing what

is a true inheritance of genius or other qualities, and what is

mere imitation or the result of similar circumstances. Great men

and great women have rarely had great fathers and mothers.

Nothing that we know of in the circumstances of their birth or

lineage will explain their appearance. Of the English poets of

the last and two preceding centuries scarcely a descendant

remains,-none have ever been distinguished. So deeply has nature

hidden her secret, and so ridiculous is the fancy which has been

entertained by some that we might in time by suitable marriage

arrangements or, as Plato would have said, 'by an ingenious

system of lots,' produce a Shakespeare or a Milton.