rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Names, by an involuntary suggestion, produce an extraordinary illusion.
Favour or disappointment has been often conceded as the _name_ of the
claimant has affected us; and the accidental affinity or coincidence of
a _name_, connected with ridicule or hatred, with pleasure or disgust,
has operated like magic. But the facts connected with this subject will
show how this prejudice has branched out.[20]

Sterne has touched on this unreasonable propensity of judging by
_names_, in his humorous account of the elder Mr. Shandy's system of
Christian names. And Wilkes has expressed, in Boswell's Life of Johnson,
all the influence of baptismal _names_, even in matters of poetry! He
said, "The last city poet was _Elkanah_ Settle. There is _something_ in
_names_ which one cannot help feeling. Now _Elkanah_ Settle sounds so
queer, who can expect much from _that name_? We should have no
hesitation to give it for _John Dryden_ in preference to _Elkanah
Settle_, from the _names only_, without knowing their different merits."

A lively critic noticing some American poets, says "There is or was a
Mr. Dwight who wrote a poem in the shape of an epic; and his baptismal
name was _Timothy_;" and involuntarily we infer the sort of epic that a
_Timothy_ must write. Sterne humorously exhorts all godfathers not "to
Nicodemus a man into nothing."

There is more truth in this observation than some may be inclined to
allow; and that it affects mankind strongly, all ages and all climates
may be called on to testify. Even in the barbarous age of Louis XI.,
they felt a delicacy respecting _names_, which produced an ordinance
from his majesty. The king's barber was named _Olivier le Diable_. At
first the king allowed him to got rid of the offensive part by changing
it to _Le Malin_; but the improvement was not happy, and for a third
time he was called _Le Mauvais_. Even this did not answer his purpose;
and as he was a great racer, he finally had his majesty's ordinance to
be called _Le Dain_, under penalty of law if any one should call him _Le
Diable_, _Le Malin_, or _Le Mauvais_. According to Platina, Sergius the
Second was the first pope who changed his name in ascending the papal
throne; because his proper name was _Hog's-mouth_, very unsuitable with
the pomp of the tiara. The ancients felt the same fastidiousness; and
among the Romans, those who were called to the equestrian order, having
low a