I know not whether it was the happy-minded author of the Worthies and the Church History of Britain who proposed as an epitaph for himself the words “Fuller's Earth,” or whether some one proposed it for him. But it is in his own style of thought and feeling.
Nor has it any unbeseeming levity, like this which is among Browne's poems.
Here lieth in sooth
Honest John Tooth,
Whom Death on a day
From us drew away.
Or this upon a Mr. Button,
Here lieth one, God rest his soul
Whose grave is but a button-hole.
No one was ever punned to death, nor, though Ditton is said to have died in consequence of “the unhappy effect” which Swift's verses produced upon him, can I believe that any one was ever rhymed to death.
A man may with better reason bless his godfathers and godmothers if they chuse for him a name which is neither too common nor too peculiar.3
3 It is said of an eccentric individual that he never forgave his Godfathers and Godmother for giving him the name of Moses, for which the short is Mo.
It is not a good thing to be Tom'd or Bob'd, Jack'd or Jim'd, Sam'd or Ben'd, Natty'd or Batty'd, Neddy'd or Teddy'd, Will'd or Bill'd, Dick'd or Nick'd, Joe'd or Jerry'd as you go through the world. And yet it is worse to have a christian name, that for its oddity shall be in every body's mouth when you are spoken of, as if it were pinned upon your back, or labelled upon your forehead. Quintin Dick for example, which would have been still more unlucky if Mr. Dick had happened to have a cast in his eye. The Report on Parochial Registration contains a singular example of the inconvenience which may arise from giving a child an uncouth christian name. A gentleman called Anketil Gray had occasion for a certificate of his baptism: it was known at what church he had been baptized, but on searching the register there, no such name could be found: some mistake was presumed therefore not in the entry, but in the recollection of the parties, and many other registers were examined without success. At length the first register was again recurred to, and then upon a closer investigation, they found him entered as Miss Ann Kettle Grey.
“Souvent,” says Brântome, “ceux qui portent le nom de leurs ayeuls, leur ressemblent volontiers, comme je l'ay veu observer et en discourir à aucuns philosophes.” He makes this remark after observing that the Emperor Ferdinand was named after his grandfather Ferdinand of Arragon, and Charles V. after his great grandfather Charles the Bold. But such resemblances are as Brântome implies, imitational where they exist. And Mr. Keightley's observation, that “a man's name and his occupation have often a most curious coincidence,” rests perhaps on a similar ground, men being sometimes designated by their names for the way of life which they are to pursue. Many a boy has been called Nelson in our own days, and Rodney in our fathers', because he was intended for the sea service, and many a seventh son has been christened Luke in the hope that he might live to be a physician. In what other business than that of a lottery-office would the name Goodluck so surely have brought business to the house? Captain Death could never have practised medicine or surgery, unless under an alias; but there would be no better name with which to meet an enemy in battle. Dr. Damman was an eminent physician and royal professor of midwifery at Ghent in the latter part of the last century. He ought to have been a Calvinistic divine.