But it is time to draw to a close.  We could expatiate much longer upon this topic, but want of space constrains us to leave unfinished these few desultory remarks—­slender contributions towards a subject which has fallen sadly backward, and which, we grieve to say, was better understood by the king of Siam in 1686 than by all the philosophers of to-day.  If, however, we have awakened in any rational mind an interest in the symbolism of umbrellas—­in any generous heart a more complete sympathy with the dumb companion of his daily walk—­or in any grasping spirit a pure notion of respectability strong enough to make him expend his six-and-twenty shillings—­we shall have deserved well of the world, to say nothing of the many industrious persons employed in the manufacture of the article.

CHAPTER V—­THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE

’How many Caesars and Pompeys, by mere inspirations of the names, have been rendered worthy of them?  And how many 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?’—­Tristram Shandy, vol.  I. chap xix.

Such were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq., Turkey merchant.  To the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy is the first who fairly pointed out the incalculable influence of nomenclature upon the whole life—­who seems first to have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic appellation, soaring upwards on the wings of fortune, and the other, like the dead sailor in his shotted hammock, haled down by sheer weight of name into the abysses of social failure.  Solomon possibly had his eye on some such theory when he said that ‘a good name is better than precious ointment’; and perhaps we may trace a similar spirit in the compilers of the English Catechism, and the affectionate interest with which they linger round the catechumen’s name at the very threshold of their work.  But, be these as they may, I think no one can censure me for appending, in pursuance of the expressed wish of his son, the Turkey merchant’s name to his system, and pronouncing, without further preface, a short epitome of the ’Shandean Philosophy of Nomenclature.’

To begin, then:  the influence of our name makes itself felt from the very cradle.  As a schoolboy I remember the pride with which I hailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on my heart when I found a freebooter or a general who did not share with me a single one of my numerous praenomina.  Look at the delight with which two children find they have the same name.  They are friends from that moment forth; they have a bond of union stronger than exchange of nuts and sweetmeats.  This feeling, I own, wears off in later life.  Our names lose their freshness and interest, become trite and indifferent.  But this, dear reader, is merely one of the sad effects of those ‘shades of the prison-house’ which come gradually betwixt us and nature with advancing years; it affords no weapon against the philosophy of names.