The Spaniards then must feel a most singular contempt for a very short name, and on this subject Fuller has recorded a pleasant fact.  An opulent citizen of the name of John Cuts (what name can be more unluckily short?) was ordered by Elizabeth to receive the Spanish ambassador; but the latter complained grievously, and thought he was disparaged by the shortness of his name.  He imagined that a man bearing a monosyllabic name could never, in the great alphabet of civil life, have performed anything great or honourable; but when he found that honest John Cuts displayed a hospitality which had nothing monosyllabic in it, he groaned only at the utterance of the name of his host.

There are names, indeed, which in the social circle will in spite of all due gravity awaken a harmless smile, and Shenstone solemnly thanked God that his name was not liable to a pun.  There are some names which excite horror, such as Mr. Stabback; others contempt, as Mr. Twopenny; and others of vulgar or absurd signification, subject too often to the insolence of domestic witlings, which occasions irritation even in the minds of worthy, but suffering, men.

There is an association of pleasing ideas with certain names,—­and in the literary world they produce a fine effect. Bloomfield is a name apt and fortunate for a rustic bard; as Florian seems to describe his sweet and flowery style.  Dr. Parr derived his first acquaintance with the late Mr. Homer from the aptness of his name, associating with his pursuits.  Our writers of romances and novels are initiated into all the arcana of names, which cost them many painful inventions.  It is recorded of one of the old Spanish writers of romance, that he was for many days at a loss to coin a fit name for one of his giants; he wished to hammer out one equal in magnitude to the person he conceived in imagination; and in the haughty and lofty name of Traquitantos, he thought he had succeeded.  Richardson, the great father of our novelists, appears to have considered the name of Sir Charles Grandison as perfect as his character, for his heroine writes, “You know his noble name, my Lucy.”  He felt the same for his Clementina, for Miss Byron writes, “Ah, Lucy, what a pretty name is Clementina!” We experience a certain tenderness for names, and persons of refined imaginations are fond to give affectionate or lively epithets to things and persons they love.  Petrarch would call one friend Lellus, and another Socrates, as descriptive of their character.

In our own country, formerly, the ladies appear to have been equally sensible to poetical or elegant names, such as Alicia, Celicia, Diana, Helena, &c.  Spenser, the poet, gave to his two sons two names of this kind; he called one Silvanus, from the woody Kilcolman, his estate; and the other Peregrine, from his having been born in a strange place, and his mother then travelling.  The fair Eloisa gave the whimsical name of Astrolabus to her boy; it bore some reference to the stars, as her own to the sun.