Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/459

Rh minstrel of a many chorded harp—belonged to families of twelve children.

Lord Nelson, the English admiral; Washington Irving, the American essayist, and James Buchanan, aforetime president of the United States, were members of families of eleven children.

The number ten, perhaps, enjoys a prouder boast than any other, for among those who can claim membership in families of that number are the mighty names of George Washington, Daniel Webster, Samuel Portland Chase (whose father, we may observe in passing, was one of nine sons), Henry George, Thomas Carlyle and Oliver Cromwell.

Of those historic characters who were members of families nine in number, illustrious examples are Thomas B. Macaulay (whose father was one of thirteen children and whose grandfather was one of fourteen children), Charles Sumner, General Sam Houston, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee (whose father was one of eleven children, Patrick Henry and ex-president Grover Cleveland. Mr. Cleveland's ancestry is one truly remarkable for the very numerous offspring of which his progenitors became parents for generations reaching back to colonial times—far the most remarkable of all we have discovered. Moses Cleveland, a remote ancestor of the ex-president, was the father of eleven children; his son Aaron was the father of ten; the latter's son Aaron was likewise the father of ten; this Aaron's son of the same name was also the father of ten; a son of the third Aaron, also of the same name, could claim an additional son for each of the three preceding him, for he was the proud parent of thirteen children; a son of this Aaron, named William, became the father of Richard, who in turn became the father of Grover. It is thus apparent that Mr. Roosevelt's warm interest in the ex-president springs not altogether from a high opinion of his talents or his services.

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas H. Huxley and Charles Dickens were each one of eight children, while James Madison, Henry Clay, Samuel J. Tilden, Paul Jones, Martin Luther, William Wadsworth Longfellow and William Cullen Bryant were members of families consisting of seven. As characters coming from families of six we find W. H, Seward, Lewis Cass, John Milton, Thomas DeQuincey, William E. Gladstone and Rufus Choate, while Noah Webster, William Wordsworth, Cardinal Richelieu, John Keats, James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Fulton, Gustavus Adolphus and Louis Agassiz—a goodly company, it must be owned, but only three more than those springing from families of ten—were each one of five children. The number four lays claim to the names of Charles Francis Adams, the Duke of Wellington, Henry D. Thoreau, John G. Whittier, Balzac and