an in that of a great family. Recent inquiries into
the matter have brought out some remarkable facts in this regard.

As a rule, there exist no living descendants in the male line from the
great authors, artists, statesmen, soldiers, of England. It is stated that
there is not one such descendant of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Butler,
Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, or Moore; not one of Drake,
Cromwell, Monk, Marlborough, Peterborough, or Nelson; not one of Strafford,
Ormond, or Clarendon; not one of Addison, Swift, or Johnson; not one of
Walpole, Bolingbroke, Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Grattan, or Canning; not
one of Bacon, Locke, Newton, or Davy; not one of Hume, Gibbon, or Macaulay;
not one of Hogarth or Reynolds; not one of Garrick, John Kemble, or Edmund
Kean. It would be easy to make a similar American list, beginning with
Washington, of whom it was said that "Providence made him childless that
his country might call him Father."

Now, however we may regret that these great men have left little or no
posterity, it does not occur to any one as affording any serious drawback
upon their service to their nation. Certainly it does not occur to us that
they would have been more useful had they left children to the world, but
rendered it no other service. Lord Bacon says that "he that hath wife and
children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great
enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of
greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or
childless men; which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed
the public." And this is the view generally accepted,--that the public is
in such cases rather the gainer than the loser, and has no right to
complain.

Since, therefore, every child must have a father and a mother both, and
neither will alone suffice, why should we thus heap gratitude on men who
from preference or from necessity have remained childless, and yet
habitually treat women as if they could render no service to their country
except by giving it children? If it be folly and shame, as I think, to
belittle and decry the dignity and worth of motherhood, as some are said to
do, it is no less folly, and shame quite as great, to deny the grand and
patriotic service of many women who have died and left no children among
their mourners. Plato puts into the mouth of a woman,--the eloquent
Diotima, in the "Banquet,"--t