Chapter 63

—Now, quoth Didius, rising up, and laying his right hand with his fingers spread upon his breast—had such a blunder about a christian-name happened before the Reformation—(It happened the day before yesterday, quoth my uncle Toby to himself)—and when baptism was administer’d in Latin—(’Twas all in English, said my uncle)—many things might have coincided with it, and upon the authority of sundry decreed cases, to have pronounced the baptism null, with a power of giving the child a new name—Had a priest, for instance, which was no uncommon thing, through ignorance of the Latin tongue, baptized a child of Tom-o’Stiles, in nomine patriae & filia & spiritum sanctos—the baptism was held null.—I beg your pardon, replied Kysarcius—in that case, as the mistake was only the terminations, the baptism was valid—and to have rendered it null, the blunder of the priest should have fallen upon the first syllable of each noun—and not, as in your case, upon the last.

My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listen’d with infinite attention.

Gastripheres, for example, continued Kysarcius, baptizes a child of John Stradling’s in Gomine gatris, &c. &c. instead of in Nomine patris, &c.—Is this a baptism? No—say the ablest canonists; in as much as the radix of each word is hereby torn up, and the sense and meaning of them removed and changed quite to another object; for Gomine does not signify a name, nor gatris a father.—What do they signify? said my uncle Toby.—Nothing at all—quoth Yorick.—Ergo, such a baptism is null, said Kysarcius.—

In course, answered Yorick, in a tone two parts jest and one part earnest.- -

But in the case cited, continued Kysarcius, where patriae is put for patris, filia for filii, and so on—as it is a fault only in the declension, and the roots of the words continue untouch’d, the inflections of their branches either this way or that, does not in any sort hinder the baptism, inasmuch as the same sense continues in the words as before.—But then, said Didius, the intention of the priest’s pronouncing them grammatically must have been proved to have gone along with it.—Right, answered Kysarcius; and of this, brother Didius, we have an instance in a decree of the decretals of Pope Leo the IIId.—But my brother’s child, cried my uncle Toby, has nothing to do with the Pope—’tis the plain child of a Protestant gentleman, christen’d Tristram against the wills and wishes both of his father and mother, and all who are a-kin to it.—

If the wills and wishes, said Kysarcius, interrupting my uncle Toby, of those only who stand related to Mr. Shandy’s child, were to have weight in this matter, Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least to do in it.—My uncle Toby lay’d down his pipe, and my father drew his chair still closer to the table, to hear the conclusion of so strange an introduction.

—It has not only been a question, Captain Shandy, amongst the (Vide Swinburn on Testaments, Part 7. para 8.) best lawyers and civilians in this land, continued Kysarcius, ’Whether the mother be of kin to her child,’— but, after much dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments on all sides—it has been adjudged for the negative—namely, ’That the mother is not of kin to her child.’ (Vide Brook Abridg. Tit. Administr. N. 47.) My father instantly clapp’d his hand upon my uncle Toby’s mouth, under colour of whispering in his ear;—the truth was, he was alarmed for Lillabullero—and having a great desire to hear more of so curious an argument—he begg’d my uncle Toby, for heaven’s sake, not to disappoint him in it.—My uncle Toby gave a nod—resumed his pipe, and contenting himself with whistling Lillabullero inwardly—Kysarcius, Didius, and Triptolemus went on with the discourse as follows:

This determination, continued Kysarcius, how contrary soever it may seem to run to the stream of vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on its side; and has been put out of all manner of dispute from the famous case, known commonly by the name of the Duke of Suffolk’s case.—It is cited in Brook, said Triptolemus—And taken notice of by Lord Coke, added Didius.—And you may find it in Swinburn on Testaments, said Kysarcius.

The case, Mr. Shandy, was this: