I WOULD sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry,
than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my father’s great
good sense,——knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious
too in philosophy,—wise also in political reasoning,—and in polemical
(as he will find) no way ignorant,—could be capable of entertaining a
notion in his head, so out of the common track,—that I fear the reader,
when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a cholerick
temper, will immediatly throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh
most heartily at it;—and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he
will, at first sight, absolutely condemn as fanciful and extravagant;
and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of christian
names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than what
superficial minds were capable of conceiving.
His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of
magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly
impressed upon our characters and conduct.
The hero of _Cervantes_ argued not the point with more
seriousness,——nor had he more faith,——or more to say on the powers of
necromancy in dishonouring his deeds,—or on DULCINEA’s name, in
shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of TRISMEGISTUS
or ARCHIMEDES, on the one hand—or of NYKY and SIMKIN on the other. How
many CÆSARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere inspiration of the
names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he would add,
are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not
their characters and spirits been totally depressed and NICODEMUS’D
into nothing?
I see plainly, Sir, by your looks, (or as the case happened) my father
would say—that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of
mine,—which, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it
to the bottom,—I own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning
in it;——and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your character,
I am morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a case to you,
not as a party in the dispute,—but as a judge, and trusting my appeal
upon it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this
matter;——you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of
education as most men;—and, if I may presume to penetrate farther into
you,—of a liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion, merely
because it wants friends. Your son,—your dear son,—from whose sweet and
open temper you have so much to expect.—Your BILLY, Sir!—would you, for
the world, have called him JUDAS?—Would you, my dear Sir, he would say,
laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,—and in
that soft and irresistible _piano_ of voice, which the nature of the
_argumentum ad hominem_ absolutely requires,—Would you, Sir, if a _Jew_
of a godfather had proposed the name for your child, and offered you
his purse along with it, would you have consented to such a desecration
of him?——O my God! he would say, looking up, if I know your temper
right, Sir,—you are incapable of it;——you would have trampled upon the
offer;—you would have thrown the temptation at the tempter’s head with
abhorrence.
Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that
generous contempt of money, which you shew me in the whole transaction,
is really noble;—and what renders it more so, is the principle of
it;—the workings of a parent’s love upon the truth and conviction of
this very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called JUDAS,—the
forbid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have
accompanied him through life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a
miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example.
I never knew a man able to answer this argument.—But, indeed, to speak
of my father as he was;—he was certainly irresistible;—both in his
orations and disputations;—he was born an
orator;—Θεοδίδακτος.—Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of
Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him,—and, withal, he had so
shrewd a guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent,——that
NATURE might have stood up and said,—“This man is eloquent.”—In short,
whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, ’twas
hazardous in either case to attack him.—And yet, ’tis strange, he had
never read _Cicero_, nor _Quintilian de Oratore_, nor _Isocrates_, nor
_Aristotle_, nor _Longinus_, amongst the antients;—nor _Vossius_, nor
_Skioppius_, nor _Ramus_, nor _Farnaby_, amongst the moderns;—and what
is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or
spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon
_Crackenthorp_ or _Burgersdicius_ or any _Dutch_ logician or
commentator;—he knew not so much as in what the difference of an
argument _ad ignorantiam_, and an argument _ad hominem_ consisted; so
that I well remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at
_Jesus College_ in ****,—it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy
tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society,—that a man who
knew not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work
after that fashion with them.
To work with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was,
however, perpetually forced upon;——for he had a thousand little
sceptical notions of the comick kind to defend——most of which notions,
I verily believe, at first entered upon the footing of mere whims, and
of a _vive la Bagatelle_; and as such he would make merry with them for
half an hour or so, and having sharpened his wit upon them, dismiss
them till another day.
I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the
progress and establishment of my father’s many odd opinions,—but as a
warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such
guests, who, after a free and undisturbed entrance, for some years,
into our brains,—at length claim a kind of settlement there,——working
sometimes like yeast;—but more generally after the manner of the gentle
passion, beginning in jest,—but ending in downright earnest.
Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father’s notions—or
that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit;—or how far,
in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right;—the
reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain here,
is, that in this one, of the influence of christian names, however it
gained footing, he was serious;—he was all uniformity;—he was
systematical, and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both
heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to
support his hypothesis. In a word I repeat it over again;—he was
serious;—and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience
whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known
better,——as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed
upon their child,—or more so, than in the choice of _Ponto_ or _Cupid_
for their puppy-dog.
This, he would say, look’d ill;—and had, moreover, this particular
aggravation in it, viz. That when once a vile name was wrongfully or
injudiciously given, ’twas not like the case of a man’s character,
which, when wrong’d, might hereafter be cleared;——and, possibly, some
time or other, if not in the man’s life, at least after his death,—be,
somehow or other, set to rights with the world: But the injury of this,
he would say, could never be undone;—nay, he doubted even whether an
act of parliament could reach it:——He knew as well as you, that the
legislature assumed a power over surnames;—but for very strong reasons,
which he could give, it had never yet adventured, he would say, to go a
step farther.
It was observable, that tho’ my father, in consequence of this opinion,
had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards
certain names;—that there were still numbers of names which hung so
equally in the balance before him, that they were absolutely
indifferent to him. _Jack, Dick_, and _Tom_ were of this class: These
my father called neutral names;—affirming of them, without a satire,
That there had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and
good men, since the world began, who had indifferently borne them;—so
that, like equal forces acting against each other in contrary
directions, he thought they mutually destroyed each other’s effects;
for which reason, he would often declare, He would not give a
cherry-stone to choose amongst them. _Bob_, which was my brother’s
name, was another of these neutral kinds of christian names, which
operated very little either way; and as my father happen’d to be at
_Epsom_, when it was given him,—he would oft-times thank Heaven it was
no worse. _Andrew_ was something like a negative quantity in Algebra
with him;—’twas worse, he said, than nothing.—_William_ stood pretty
high:——_Numps_ again was low with him:—and _Nick_, he said, was the
DEVIL.
But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion
for TRISTRAM;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of
any thing in the world,—thinking it could possibly produce nothing in
_rerum natura_, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the
midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was
frequently involved,——he would sometimes break off in a sudden and
spirited EPIPHONEMA, or rather EROTESIS, raised a third, and sometimes
a full fifth above the key of the discourse,——and demand it
categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say,
he had ever remembered,——whether he had ever read,—or even whether he
had ever heard tell of a man, called _Tristram_, performing any thing
great or worth recording?—No,—he would say,—TRISTRAM!—The thing is
impossible.
What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish
this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle
speculatist to stand single in his opinions,—unless he gives them
proper vent:—It was the identical thing which my father did:—for in the
year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the
pains of writing an express DISSERTATION simply upon the word
_Tristram_,—shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the
grounds of his great abhorrence to the name.
When this story is compared with the title-page,—Will not the gentle
reader pity my father from his soul?—to see an orderly and
well-disposed gentleman, who tho’ singular,—yet inoffensive in his
notions,—so played upon in them by cross purposes;——to look down upon
the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in all his little systems
and wishes; to behold a train of events perpetually falling out against
him, and in so critical and cruel a way, as if they had purposedly been
plann’d and pointed against him, merely to insult his speculations.——In
a word, to behold such a one, in his old age, ill-fitted for troubles,
ten times in a day suffering sorrow;—ten times in a day calling the
child of his prayers TRISTRAM!—Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which,
to his ears, was unison to _Nincompoop_, and every name vituperative
under heaven.——By his ashes! I swear it,—if ever malignant spirit took
pleasure, or busied itself in traversing the purposes of mortal man,—it
must have been here;—and if it was not necessary I should be born
before I was christened, I would this moment give the reader an account
of it.