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Bickerstaff 's friends, it was not remarkable that such authoresses as Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Haywood should be dismissed from notice as infamous scribbling women.
PARTRIDGE lieth under a dilemma, either of disowning his Almanack, or allowing himself to be no man alive. Therefore, if an uninformed Carcass walks still about and is pleased to call itself PARTRIDGE; Mr. BICKERSTAFF doth not think himself any way answerable for that!
I felt it to be a good one, but my turn, when I write at all, is perversely to travel out of the record, so that my letters are anything but answers. So you still want a motto? You must not take my ironical one, because your book, I take it, is too serious for it. Bickerstaff might have used it for his lucubrations. There is Religio Medici and Laici.
We think it somewhat, more to the honour of Ireland to enumerate the names of some of the men of genius whom she has produced: Milton and Shakspeare stand unrivalled; but Ireland can boast of Usher, Boyle, Denham, Congreve, Molyneux, Farquhar, Sir Richard Steele, Bickerstaff, Sir Hans Sloane, Berkeley, Orrery, Parnell, Swift, T. Sheridan, Welsham, Bryan Robinson, Goldsmith, Sterne, Johnsons , Tickel, Brooke, Zeland, Hussey Burgh, three Hamiltons, Young, Charlemont, Macklin, Murphy, Mrs.
Swift had assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet against Partridge, the maker of almanacs. Partridge had been fool enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more diverting than the first. All the wits had combined to keep up the joke, and the town was long in convulsions of laughter.
His writings have been well compared to those light wines which, though deficient in body and flavor, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not kept too long, or carried too far. Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imaginary person, almost as well known in that age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours.
Bickerstaff, at the time of which we are speaking, was in high vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day; a few years afterward he was obliged to fly the country to escape the punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great astonishment at hearing the offense for which he had fled. "Why, sir," said Thrale; "he had long been a suspected man."
In short, what are snares for others " My petitioner would hear no more, but told me very seriously, "Mr. Bickerstaff, you quite mistake your man; it is the joy, the pleasure, the employment, of my life to frequent public assemblies, and gaze upon the fair."
They despaired ever to equal him in Wit, Humour, or Learning; which had been their true and certain way of opposing him: and therefore rather chose to fall on the Author; and to call out for help to all good Christians, by assuring them again and again that they were the First, Original, True, and Undisputed ISAAC BICKERSTAFF.
At the same time, since in this unreasonable age, by the force of prevailing custom, things in which men have no hand are imputed to them; and that I am used by some people as if Isaac Bickerstaff, though I write myself Esquire, was nobody: to set the world right in that particular, I shall give you my genealogy, as a kinsman of ours has sent it me from the Heralds' Office.
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