shed
at parents failing to perceive that "when once a vile name was
wrongfully or injudiciously given, 'twas not like a case of a man's
character, which, when wronged, might afterwards 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." This
name-giving injury, he would say, "could never be undone; nay, he
doubted 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 further."

With all this extravagance, however, there was combined an admirable
affectation of sobriety. Mr. Shandy would have us believe that he
was no blind slave to his theory. He was quite willing to admit the
existence of names which could not affect the character either
for good or evil--Jack, Dick, and Tom, for instance; and such the
philosopher styled "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 among 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 happened to be at Epsom when
it was given him, he would ofttimes thank Heaven it was no worse."
Forewarned of this peculiarity of Mr.

Shandy's, the reader is, of course, prepared to hear that of all
the names in the universe the philosopher had the most unconquerable
aversion for Tristram, "the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it
of anything in the world." He would break off in the midst of one
of his frequent disputes on the subject of names, and "in a spirited
epiphonema, or rather erotesis," demand of his antagonist "whether he
would take upon him to say he had ever remembered, whether he had
ever read, or whether he had ever heard tell of a man called Tristram
performing anything great or worth recording. No, he would say.
Tristram! the thing is impossible." It only remained that he should
have published a book in defence of the belief, and sure enough "in
the year sixteen,