of the schools. "He was certainly," says his
son, "irresistible both in his orations and disputations," but
that was because "he was born an orator _([Greek: Theodidaktos])_.
Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of logic and rhetoric
were so blended in him, and withal he had so shrewd a guess at the
weaknesses and passions of his respondent, that Nature might have
stood up and said, 'This man is eloquent.' And yet," continues the
filial panegyric,

"He had never read Cicero nor Quintilian de Oratore, nor Aristotle,
nor Longinus among the ancients, nor Vossius, nor Skioppius, nor
Ramus, nor Farnaby among the moderns: and what is more astonishing
he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtilty
struck into his mind by one single lecture upon Crackenthorpe or
Burgersdicius or any Dutch commentator: he knew not so much as
in what the difference of an argument _ad ignorantiam_ and an argument
_ad hominem_ consisted; and when he went up along with me to
enter my name at Jesus College, in * * * *, it was a matter of just
wonder with my worthy tutor and two or three Fellows of that learned
society that a man who knew not so much as the names of his tools
should be able to work after that fashion with them."

Surely we all know men of this kind, and the
consternation--comparable only to that of M. Jourdain under the
impromptu carte-and-tierce of his servant-maid--which their sturdy
if informal dialectic will often spread among many kinds of "learned
societies." But such men are certainly not of the class which Scott
supposed to have been ridiculed in the character of Walter Shandy.

Among the crotchets of this born dialectician was a theory as to the
importance of Christian names in determining the future behaviour
and destiny of the children to whom they are given; and, whatever
admixture of jest there might have been in some of his other fancies,
in this his son affirms he was absolutely serious. He solemnly
maintained the opinion "that there was a strange kind of magic bias
which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed
upon our character and conduct." How many Caesars and Pompeys, he
would say, by mere inspiration of their names have been rendered
worthy of them! And how many, he would add, are there who might have
done exceeding well in the world had not their characters and spirits
been totally depressed and Nicodemus'd into nothing! He was astoni