Whether this name of Astrolabus had any scientific influence over the son, I know not; but I have no doubt that whimsical names may have a great influence over our characters.  The practice of romantic names among persons, even of the lowest orders of society, has become a very general evil:  and doubtless many unfortunate beauties, of the names of Clarissa and Eloisa, might have escaped under the less dangerous appellatives of Elizabeth or Deborah.  I know a person who has not passed his life without some inconvenience from his name, mean talents and violent passions not according with Antoninus; and a certain writer of verses might have been no versifier, and less a lover of the true Falernian, had it not been for his namesake Horace.  The Americans, by assuming Roman names, produce ludicrous associations; Romulus Higgs, and Junius Brutus Booth.  There was more sense, when the Foundling Hospital was first instituted, in baptizing the most robust boys, designed for the sea-service, by the names of Drake, Norris, or Blake, after our famous admirals.

It is no trifling misfortune in life to bear an illustrious name; and in an author it is peculiarly severe.  A history now by a Mr. Hume, or a poem by a Mr. Pope, would be examined with different eyes than had they borne any other name.  The relative of a great author should endeavour not to be an author.  Thomas Corneille had the unfortunate honour of being brother to a great poet, and his own merits have been considerably injured by the involuntary comparison.  The son of Racine has written with an amenity not unworthy of his celebrated father; amiable and candid, he had his portrait painted, with the works of his father in his hand, and his eye fixed on this verse from Phaedra,—­

    Et moi, fils inconnu d’un si glorieux pere!

But even his modesty only served to whet the dart of epigram.  It was once bitterly said of the son of an eminent literary character,—­

    He tries to write because his father writ,
    And shows himself a bastard by his wit.

Amongst some of the disagreeable consequences attending some names, is, when they are unluckily adapted to an uncommon rhyme; how can any man defend himself from this malicious ingenuity of wit? Freret, one of those unfortunate victims to Boileau’s verse, is said not to have been deficient in the decorum of his manners, and he complained that he was represented as a drunkard, merely because his name rhymed to Cabaret.  Murphy, no doubt, felicitated himself in his literary quarrel with Dr. Franklin, the poet and critical reviewer, by adopting the singular rhyme of “envy rankling” to his rival’s and critic’s name.