10 - THE GREAT VILLIERS CONNECTION

Summary

Mr Gun has set himself to carry forward the fascinating subject which Galton invented—the collection of hereditary titbits connecting the famous and the moderately famous—quite a different subject from the scientific compilation of complete family trees of definitely determinable characteristics such as blue eyes, round heads, six toes, and the like. His method, like Galton's, is to take in turn each of a number of distinguished ‘connections’ and to exhibit to us what a surprising number of celebrities are some sort of a cousin to one another.

One of the most striking of Mr Gun's connections is by no means a novel one, yet not too hackneyed to be worth repeating—the cousinship of Dryden, Swift, and Horace Walpole. All three were descended from John Dryden of Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire, Dean Swift being a second cousin once removed, and Horace Walpole a first cousin three times removed of John Dryden the poet (Horace being descended on his mother's side—and therefore irrespective of doubts as to his paternity—from Dryden's aunt Elizabeth). Mr Gun is disposed to trace this magnificent display to the wife of the original John Dryden—Elizabeth Cope, daughter of Erasmus's friend and great-granddaughter of Sir Ralph Verney, which brings a good many others into the same connection, including Robert Harley. A representative to-day of this great Verney connection is Lady Ottoline Morrell. If, on the other hand, we remember that Lady Ottoline is not only descended from Verney the mercer, but also from Sir William Pierrepont (and through his wife from Henry VIPs Empson, son of Empson the sieve-maker), we establish her cousinship with Francis Beaumont, Lord Chesterfield, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.