Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father’s notions--or that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit; --or how far, in many of his notions, he might, though odd, be absolutely right; ----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; --he was all uniformity; --he 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; --he was serious; --and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known better, ----as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon their child, --or more so, than in the choice of _Ponto_ or _Cupid_ for their puppy-dog. This, he would say, look’d ill; --and had, moreover, this particular aggravation in it, viz., That when once a vile name was wrongfully or injudiciously given, ’twas not like the case of a man’s character, which, when wrong’d, might hereafter 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: But the injury of this, he would say, could never be undone; --nay, he doubted even 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 farther. 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 called 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 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_, when it was given him, --he would oft-times thank Heaven it was no worse. _Andrew_ was something like a negative quantity in Algebra with him; --’twas worse, he said, than nothing. --_William_ stood pretty high: ----_Numps_ again was low with him: --and _Nick_, he said, was the DEVIL.