THE AUTHOR RECOMMENDS A CERTAIN WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER AS A CANDIDATE FOR HONOURS, BOTH ON THE SCORE OF HIS FAMILY AND HIS DESERTS. HE NOTICES ALSO OTHER PERSONS WHO HAVE SIMILAR CLAIMS.
Thoricht, auf Bessrung der Thoren zu harren!
Kinder der klugheit, o habet die Narren
Eben zum Narren auch, wie sich's gehort.
GOETHE.
In these days when honours have been so profusely distributed by the most liberal of Administrations and the most popular of Kings, I cannot but think that Tom Fool ought to be knighted. And I assure the reader that this is not said on the score of personal feeling, because I have the honour to be one of his relations, but purely with regard to his own claims, and the fitness of things, as well as to the character of the Government.
It is disparaging him, and derogatory to his family, which in undisputed and indisputable antiquity exceeds any other in these kingdoms,—it is disparaging him, I say, to speak of him as we do of Tom Duncombe, and Tom Cribb, and Tom Campbell; or of Tom Hood and Tom Moore, and Tom Sheridan; and before them of Tom Browne and Tom D'Urfey, and Tom Killigrew. Can it be supposed if he were properly presented to his Majesty (Lord Nugent would introduce him), and knelt to kiss the royal hand, that our most gracious and good-natured King would for a moment hesitate to give him the accollade, and say to him “Rise Sir Thomas!”
I do not ask for the Guelphic Order; simple Knighthood would in this case be more appropriate.
It is perfectly certain that Sir Thomas More, if he were alive, would not object to have him for a brother knight and namesake. It is equally certain that Sir Thomas Lethbridge could not, and ought not.
Dryden was led into a great error by his animosity against Hunt and Shadwell when he surmised that “dullness and clumsiness were fated to the name of Tom.” “There are,” says Serjeant Kite, “several sorts of Toms; Tom o'Lincoln, Tom Tit, Tom Tell-truth, Tom o'Bedlam and Tom Fool!” With neither of these is dullness or clumsiness associated. And in the Primitive World, according to the erudite philologist who with so much industry and acumen collected the fragments of its language, the word itself signified just or perfect. Therefore the first Decan of the constellation Virgo was called Tom, and from thence Court de Gebelin derives Themis: and thus it becomes evident that Themistocles belongs to the Toms. Let no Thomas then or Sir Thomas, who has made shipwreck of his fortune or his reputation or of both, consider himself as having been destined to such disgrace by his godfathers and godmothers when they gave him that name. The name is a good name. Any one who has ever known Sir Thomas Acland may like it and love it for his sake: and no wise man will think the worse of it for Tom Fool's.
No! the name Thomas is a good name, however it has been disparaged by some of those persons who are known by it at this time. Though Bovius chose to drop it and assume the name Zephiriel in its stead in honour of his tutelary Angel, the change was not for the better, being indeed only a manifestation of his own unsound state of mind. And though in the reign of King James the First, Mr. William Shepherd of Towcester christened his son by it for a reason savouring of disrespect, it is not the worse for the whimsical consideration that induced him to fix upon it. The boy was born on the never to be forgotten fifth of November 1605, about the very hour when the Gunpowder Treason was to have been consummated; and the father chose to have him called Thomas, because he said this child if he lived to grow up would hardly believe that ever such wickedness could be attempted by the sons of men.