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.

But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion
for Tristram;--he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of
any thing in the world,--thinking it could possibly produce nothing in
rerum natura, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in
the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was
frequently involved,--he would sometimes break off in a sudden and
spirited Epiphonema, or rather Erotesis, raised a third, and sometimes a
full fifth above the key of the discourse,--and demand it categorically
of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, he had ever
remembered,--whether he had ever read,--or even whether he had ever
heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing any thing great
or worth recording?--No,--he would say,--Tristram!--The thing is
impossible.

What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to
publish this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle
speculatist to stand single in his opinions,--unless he gives them
proper vent:--It was the identical thing which my father did:--for in
the year sixteen, which was two years before I was