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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 call’d neutral names;—affirming of them, without a satyr, 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 others 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,20 when it was given him,—he would oft times thank heaven it was no worse. Andrew21 was something like a negative quantity in Algebra with him;—’twas worse, he said, than nothing.—William stood pretty high:—–Numps22 again was low with him;–and Nick, he said, was the DEVIL.23

But, of all the 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 naturâ,24 but what was extreamly 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,25 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 remember’d,—–whether he had ever read,—or even whether he had ever heard tell of a man, call’d 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 Nicompoop, 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.

CHAP. XX

——How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it, That my mother was not a papist.——Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir. Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again, That I told you as plain, at least, as words, by direct inference, could tell you such a thing.—Then, Sir, I must have miss