statu peccaminoso, scandaloso et damnabili;" and gave the most odious turn to the pure attachment she had manifested. Will it be believed, that this furious theologist wished that the lovers, instead of being mar. ried, had been cudgelled out of their mutual affection? He supported this extravagance by the example of Luther, who seems to have been fond of using the argumentum baculinum with his friends. It is well known that he once compelled a disputant to come into his opinion, by the dextrous application of a good cudgel; and the examiner says, he took the same method with his maid-servant, who had been silly enough to fall in love, and whom he thrashed into a severer way of thinking. It would have been easy to have replied, that Luther shewed a little more complaisance for the tender passion, when he sanctioned the bigamy of the Elector, his patron; but the retort would have been ill received at the court of Dresden. This terrible doctor, however, literally called out for clubs; M "ad baculum, ad baculum quo pruritum exstinguite!" A milder adversary, moved by the largeness of the fine which Sorlisi had engaged to pay, doubted whether the parties, upon acknowledging the enormity of their offence, might not be suffered to live together as brother and sister, a concession which the unfortunate pair seem to have been at length willing to make. But upon setting aside the consideration of the money, and regarding the scandal and danger likely to accrue to the protestant church, from such an indulgence, he reluctantly decided in the negative. After wearying the reader with this tedious detail, he will be glad, for more reasons than one, to learn, that in May, 1668, the Consistory of Leipsic declared that the marriage ought to be parties to be freed from or prosecution on that tolerated, and the any father vexation account. At the same time, the Elector, to prevent the growth of scandal, ordered that this case should not CHAPTER VI. Mr. Shandy's hypothesis of Christian names ---Miscellaneous illustrations-Conclusion. I think it is D'Aubigné who mentions a fact, wrought up by Sterne into a chapter, that the States of Switzerland proposed the name of Abednego to be given to one of the children of Henry 11. of France. Sterne transferred the story, with his usual carelessness, to Francis 1. Burton certainly should have added to the happiness of being well-born, that of being well-named; and this superstition has been so common among the learned, that I wonder how it escaped him. In the general theory respecting Christian names, I am persuaded that Sterne had in view Montaigne's Essay des Noms. "Chaque nation," says Montaigne, " à quelques noms qui se prennent, je ne sçai comment, en mauvaise part; et a nous, Jean, Guillaume, Benoist." Mr. Shandy has passed a similar condemnation on some English names, to which vulgar prejudices are attached. I am surprised that Sterne should have withheld a story which Montaigne has told, in support of this fancy. He mentions a young man, who was reclaimed from a very dissolute course of life, by discovering that the name of a prostitute whom he went to visit, was Mary. His reformation was so exemplary, that a chapel was built on the spot where his house had stood, and on the same ground was afterwards erected the church of our lady of Poictiers. "Cette correction," says he, "voyelle et auriculaire, devotieuse, tira droit a l'ame:" it was indeed a palpable hit. "A gentleman, my neighbour," proceeds the venerable Gascon," preferring the manners of old times to ours, did not forget to |