air Eloisa gave the
whimsical name of _Astrolabus_ to her boy; it bore some reference to the
stars, as her own to the sun.

Whether this name of _Astrolabus_ had any scientific influence over the
son, I know not; but I have no doubt that whimsical names may have a
great influence over our characters. The practice of romantic names
among persons, even of the lowest orders of society, has become a very
general evil: and doubtless many unfortunate beauties, of the names of
_Clarissa_ and _Eloisa_, might have escaped under the less dangerous
appellatives of _Elizabeth_ or _Deborah_. I know a person who has not
passed his life without some inconvenience from his _name_, mean talents
and violent passions not according with _Antoninus_; and a certain
writer of verses might have been no versifier, and less a lover of the
true Falernian, had it not been for his namesake _Horace_. The
Americans, by assuming _Roman_ names, produce ludicrous associations;
_Romulus_ Higgs, and _Junius Brutus_ Booth. There was more sense, when
the Foundling Hospital was first instituted, in baptizing the most
robust boys, designed for the sea-service, by the names of Drake,
Norris, or Blake, after our famous admirals.

It is no trifling misfortune in life to bear an illustrious name; and in
an author it is peculiarly severe. A history now by a Mr. Hume, or a
poem by a Mr. Pope, would be examined with different eyes than had they
borne any other name. The relative of a great author should endeavour
not to be an author. Thomas Corneille had the unfortunate honour of
being brother to a great poet, and his own merits have been considerably
injured by the involuntary comparison. The son of Racine has written
with an amenity not unworthy of his celebrated father; amiable and
candid, he had his portrait painted, with the works of his father in
his hand, and his eye fixed on this verse from Phaedra,--

Et moi, fils inconnu d'un si glorieux pere!

But even his modesty only served to whet the dart of epigram. It was
once bitterly said of the son of an eminent literary character,--

He tries to write because his father writ,
And shows himself a bastard by his wit.

Amongst some of the disagreeable consequences attending some _names_,
is, when they are unluckily adapted to an uncommon rhyme; how can any
man defend himself from this malicious ingenuity of wit? _Freret_, one
of those unfortunate victims to Boileau's verse, is said not to have
be