XIX
I would sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry, than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my fatherвАЩs great good sense,вБ†вЄЇвБ†knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious too in philosophy,вБ†вАФwise also in political reasoning,вБ†вАФand in polemical (as he will find) no way ignorant,вБ†вАФcould be capable of entertaining a notion in his head, so out of the common track,вБ†вАФthat I fear the reader, when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a cholerick temper, will immediately throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh most heartily at it;вБ†вАФand 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,вБ†вЄЇвБ†nor had he more faith,вБ†вЄЇвБ†or more to say on the powers of necromancy in dishonouring his deeds,вБ†вАФor on DulcineaвАЩs name, in shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of Trismegistus or Archimedes, on the one handвБ†вАФor of Nyky and Simkin on the other. How many Caesars 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 NicodemusвАЩd into nothing?
I see plainly, Sir, by your looks (or as the case happened), my father would sayвБ†вАФthat you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion of mine,вБ†вАФwhich, to those, he would add, who have not carefully sifted it to the bottom,вБ†вАФI own has an air more of fancy than of solid reasoning in it;вБ†вЄЇвБ†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,вБ†вАФnot as a party in the dispute,вБ†вАФbut as a judge, and trusting my appeal upon it to your own good sense and candid disquisition in this matter;вБ†вЄЇвБ†you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices of education as most men;вБ†вАФand, if I may presume to penetrate farther into you,вБ†вАФof a liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion, merely because it wants friends. Your son,вБ†вАФyour dear son,вБ†вАФfrom whose sweet and open temper you have so much to expect.вБ†вАФYour Billy, Sir!вБ†вАФwould you, for the world, have called him Judas?вБ†вАФWould you, my dear Sir, he would say, laying his hand upon your breast, with the genteelest address,вБ†вАФand in that soft and irresistible piano of voice, which the nature of the argumentum ad hominem absolutely requires,вБ†вАФWould 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?вБ†вЄЇвБ†O my God! he would say, looking up, if I know your temper right, Sir,вБ†вАФyou are incapable of it;вБ†вЄЇвБ†you would have trampled upon the offer;вБ†вАФyou would have thrown the temptation at the tempterвАЩs head with abhorrence.
Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous contempt of money, which you show me in the whole transaction, is really noble;вБ†вАФand what renders it more so, is the principle of it;вБ†вАФthe workings of a parentвАЩs love upon the truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called Judas,вБ†вАФthe sordid 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.вБ†вЄЇвБ†But, indeed, to speak of my father as he was;вБ†вАФhe was certainly irresistible;вБ†вАФboth in his orations and disputations;вБ†вАФhe was born an orator;вБ†вАФќШќµќњќіќѓќіќ±ќЇѕДќњѕВ.вБ†вАФPersuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him,вБ†вАФand, withal, he had so shrewd a guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent,вБ†вЄЇвБ†that Nature might have stood up and said,вБ†вАФвАЬThis man is eloquent.вАЭвБ†вАФIn short, whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, вАЩtwas hazardous in either case to attack him.вБ†вАФAnd yet, вАЩtis strange, he had never read Cicero, nor Quintilian de Oratore, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus amongst the ancients;вБ†вАФnor Vossius, nor Skioppius, nor Ramus, nor Farnaby amongst the moderns;вБ†вАФand what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtlety struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch logician or commentator;вБ†вАФhe 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 ****,вБ†вАФit was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society,вБ†вАФthat 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;вБ†вЄЇвБ†for he had a thousand little sceptical notions of the comick kind to defendвБ†вЄЇвБ†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 fatherвАЩs many odd opinions,вБ†вАФbut 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,вБ†вАФat length claim a kind of settlement there,вБ†вЄЇвБ†working sometimes like yeast;вБ†вАФbut more generally after the manner of the gentle passion, beginning in jest,вБ†вАФbut ending in downright earnest.
Whether this was the case of the singularity of my fatherвАЩs notionsвБ†вАФor that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit;вБ†вАФor how far, in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right;вБ†вЄЇвБ†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;вБ†вАФhe was all uniformity;вБ†вАФhe was systematical, and, like all systematick reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture everything in nature, to support his hypothesis. In a word, I repeat it over again;вБ†вАФhe was serious;вБ†вАФand, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known better,вБ†вЄЇвБ†as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon their child,вБ†вАФor more so, than in the choice of Ponto or Cupid for their puppy-dog.
This, he would say, lookвАЩd ill;вБ†вАФand had, moreover, this particular aggravation in it, viz., That when once a vile name was wrongfully or injudiciously given, вАЩtwas not like the case of a manвАЩs character, which, when wrongвАЩd, might hereafter be cleared;вБ†вЄЇвБ†and, possibly, some time or other, if not in the manвАЩs life, at least after his death,вБ†вАФbe, somehow or other, set to rights with the world: But the injury of this, he would say, could never be undone;вБ†вАФnay, he doubted even whether an act of parliament could reach it:вБ†вЄЇвБ†He knew as well as you, that the legislature assumed a power over surnames;вБ†вАФbut 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 though my father, in consequence of this opinion, had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards certain names;вБ†вАФthat 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;вБ†вАФaffirming 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;вБ†вАФso that, like equal forces acting against each other in contrary directions, he thought they mutually destroyed each otherвАЩs effects; for which reason, he would often declare, He would not give a cherrystone to choose amongst them. Bob, which was my brotherвАЩs name, was another of these neutral kinds of christian names, which operated very little either way; and as my father happenвАЩd to be at Epsom, when it was given him,вБ†вАФhe would ofttimes thank Heaven it was no worse. Andrew was something like a negative quantity in Algebra with him;вБ†вАФвАЩtwas worse, he said, than nothing.вБ†вАФWilliam stood pretty high:вБ†вЄЇвБ†Numps again was low with him:вБ†вАФand Nick, he said, was the Devil.
But, of all the names in the universe, he had the most unconquerable aversion for Tristram;вБ†вАФhe had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of anything in the world,вБ†вАФthinking it could possibly produce nothing in rerum natur√Ґ, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the by, he was frequently involved,вБ†вЄЇвБ†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,вБ†вЄЇвБ†and demand it categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, he had ever remembered,вБ†вЄЇвБ†whether he had ever read,вБ†вАФor even whether he had ever heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing anything great or worth recording?вБ†вАФNo,вБ†вАФhe would say,вБ†вАФTristram!вБ†вАФThe 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,вБ†вАФunless he gives them proper vent:вБ†вАФIt was the identical thing which my father did:вБ†вАФfor 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,вБ†вАФshowing 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,вБ†вАФWill not the gentle reader pity my father from his soul?вБ†вАФto see an orderly and well-disposed gentleman, who though singular,вБ†вАФyet inoffensive in his notions,вБ†вАФso played upon in them by cross purposes;вБ†вЄЇвБ†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 plannвАЩd and pointed against him, merely to insult his speculations.вБ†вЄЇвБ†In a word, to behold such a one, in his old age, ill-fitted for troubles, ten times in a day suffering sorrow;вБ†вАФten times in a day calling the child of his prayers Tristram!вБ†вАФMelancholy dissyllable of sound! which, to his ears, was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven.вБ†вЄЇвБ†By his ashes! I swear it,вБ†вАФif ever malignant spirit took pleasure, or busied itself in traversing the purposes of mortal man,вБ†вАФit must have been here;вБ†вАФand if it was not necessary I should be born before I was christened, I would this moment give the reader an account of it.