M and N are the cousins, male and female, who are as alike as twins, and they are exact reproductions of the Blue Man, notwithstanding that through C, D, G, and I come in fresh streams of blood, that two entirely independent rivers flush the veins of M and N respectively, coming in from G and I. They have the blood of C and D in common, but alike disregard their qualities; so also do they reject the blood of their respective mothers, and go back to a common ancestor in the reign of Queen Anne.
But I can give a still more remarkable instance of atavism, which also must be illustrated by a table. Here the likeness goes back even further, and, like that above, also through the maternal line.
There is in the same old manor-house as that in which hangs the Blue Man another picture, painted by Carlo Maratti, in or about 1672, of a certain Sir Edward, a dandy, in long flowing curls, a beautiful Steenkirk, a cherry ribbon round his neck, and also about his wrists. The face is fine, haughty, somewhat dreamy. It was painted of him when he was a young man of about five-and-twenty. Hanging near him is his elder brother, also with flowing hair, a bluff, good-natured man in appearance, quite different in character from the knight, one may judge, and certainly not like him in feature. Now the knight, Sir Edward, died without issue, and left all his property to his great-nephew, the grandson of his elder brother James. That nephew bought estates in Nottinghamshire, and for two hundred years the family he founded has been apart from the elder branch, which lives in the west of England, and which owns the picture.
Sir Edward, A.D. 1668.
From a painting by Carlo Maratti.
N. A.D. 1888.
From a Photograph.
One day recently there came into the neighbourhood a descendant of James, and calling at the house of his kinsman, unconsciously seated himself beneath the picture of Sir Edward. He was a young man of about four-and-twenty. He was at once greeted with an exclamation of astonishment and amusement. He was extraordinarily like the portrait; had he but been dressed in stamped black velvet, worn curls, a Steenkirk, and cherry ribbons, he might have been the same man. Now look at this pedigree, and note the remarkable fact. He did not hail from the knight, whom he resembled, but from his brother James, whom he did not resemble. The knight, Sir Edward, must therefore have inherited the features of an earlier ancestor, who was also, of course, the ancestor of his brother; so that this young man in 1888 bore the face and features of a still earlier member of the family, whose likeness has not been preserved, if it were ever taken. Here is a family likeness going back six or seven generations. We cannot be certain that the characteristic features of Sir Edward were derived from his father or his mother. Nor is this likeness found only in N. It exists also in his father L, though not in so strong a degree, or, at all events, it is less apparent in an old man of sixty than in a young man of four-and-twenty. Curiously enough, the portrait of Elizabeth, the ancestress through whom these two, L and N, derive their likeness to Sir Edward, shows none of these characteristics. They remained latent in her, but reappeared in her grandson and great-grandson. Unfortunately the pictures of D and F, who intervened, have not been preserved, or their whereabouts have not been discovered, so that it is not possible to track the likeness through two generations that intervene between Elizabeth in 1780 and James in 1680.
It has been conjectured that a child sitting daily in the presence of a certain portrait insensibly assumes a likeness to it; but such a conjecture will not satisfy the case just mentioned, for L and N till recently had never seen the picture which they so closely resembled.
There is another point connected with family portraits that has given me occasion of thought and speculation; and that is, the way in which those children who are named after an ancestor or ancestress sometimes, I do not say often or always, but certainly sometimes, do in a very remarkable manner receive the stamp of the features of that ancestor after whom named. This has nothing to do with the naming of the child at baptism because of a supposed resemblance, for in very young infants none such can be traced, but the likeness grows in the child to the person whose name it bears.
Now here is a bit of pedigree, with the likenesses that exist curiously agreeing with the Christian names. In this relation of a new generation to an old there is a point to be remarked. E2 is in character, in manner, and in tastes and pursuits exactly what E was, but does not resemble him in face. W D2 is just like W D, his great-great-great-grandfather, whose double Christian name he bears. M B2 and M B3 are like M B in face, and M B2 resembles her great-great-grandmother in face and in character. D A2 is absurdly like her great-grandmother, whose double name she bears, but is as yet too young for the mental characteristics to show themselves, or at all events to have become sufficiently emphasized to enable one to say whether, in mind as in face, she resembles her great-grandmother.