unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every
thing which concerns you.

It is in pure compliance with this humour of theirs, and from a
backwardness in my nature to disappoint any one soul living, that I have
been so very particular already. As my life and opinions are likely to
make some noise in the world, and, if I conjecture right, will take in
all ranks, professions, and denominations of men whatever,--be no less
read than the Pilgrim's Progress itself--and in the end, prove the very
thing which Montaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is, a
book for a parlour-window;--I find it necessary to consult every one a
little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a little
farther in the same way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I have
begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and that I am able
to go on, tracing every thing in it, as Horace says, ab Ovo.

Horace, I know, does not recommend this fashion altogether: But that
gentleman is speaking only of an epic poem or a tragedy;--(I
forget which,) besides, if it was not so, I should beg Mr. Horace's
pardon;--for in writing what I have set about, I shall confine myself
neither to his rules, nor to any man's rules that ever lived.

To such however as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I
can give no better advice than that they skip over the remaining part of
this chapter; for I declare before-hand, 'tis wrote only for the curious
and inquisitive.

--Shut the door.--

I was begot in the night betwixt the first Sunday and the first Monday
in the month of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven
hundred and eighteen. I am positive I was.--But how I came to be so very
particular in my account of a thing which happened before I was born,
is owing to another small anecdote known only in our own family, but now
made publick for the better clearing up this point.

My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had
left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon,
his paternal estate in the county of ----, was, I believe, one of
the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of
business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen
of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave,
he had made it a rule for many years of his life,--on the first
Sunday-night of every month throughout the whole