ism was
valid--and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the priest should
have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun--and not, as in your
case, upon the last.

My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen'd with
infinite attention.

Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, baptizes a child of
John Stradling's in Gomine gatris, &c. &c. instead of in Nomine patris,
&c.--Is this a baptism? No--say the ablest canonists; in as much as the
radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them
removed and changed quite to another object; for Gomine does not signify
a name, nor gatris a father.--What do they signify? said my uncle
Toby.--Nothing at all--quoth Yorick.--Ergo, such a baptism is null, said
Kysarcius.--

In course, answered Yorick, in a tone two parts jest and one part
earnest.--But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where patriae is
put for patris, filia for filii, and so on--as it is a fault only in
the declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch'd, the
inflections of their branches either this way or that, does not in any
sort hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the
words as before.--But then, said Didius, the intention of the priest's
pronouncing them grammatically must have been proved to have gone along
with it.--Right, answered Kysarcius; and of this, brother Didius, we
have an instance in a decree of the decretals of Pope Leo the IIId.--But
my brother's child, cried my uncle Toby, has nothing to do with the
Pope--'tis the plain child of a Protestant gentleman, christen'd
Tristram against the wills and wishes both of his father and mother, and
all who are a-kin to it.--

If the wills and wishes, said Kysarcius, interrupting my uncle Toby, of
those only who stand related to Mr. Shandy's child, were to have weight
in this matter, Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least to do in
it.--My uncle Toby lay'd down his pipe, and my father drew his chair
still closer to the table, to hear the conclusion of so strange an
introduction.

--It has not only been a question, Captain Shandy, amongst the (Vide
Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7. para 8.) best lawyers and civilians in
this land, continued Kysarcius, 'Whether the mother be of kin to her
child,'--but, after much dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the
arguments on all sides--it has been adjudged for the negative--namely,
'That the mother is not of kin to her child.'