 vive la
Bagatelle; and as such he would make merry with them for half an hour or so, and
having sharpen'd his wit upon 'em, dismiss them till another day.
    I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the
progress and establishment of my father's many odd opinions, - but as a warning
to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such guests, who,
after a free and undisturbed enterance, for some years, into our brains, - at
length claim a kind of settlement there, -- working sometimes like yeast; - but
more generally after the manner of the gentle passion, beginning in jest, - but
ending in downright earnest.
    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, tho' 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 gain'd 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 every
thing 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 puppydog.
    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 clear'd; -- and, possibly, sometime 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 assum'd
