ay say without vanity, is as unspotted a spinster as any
in Great Britain. I shall take this occasion to recommend the conduct of
our own family in this particular.

We have, in the genealogy of our house, the descriptions and pictures of
our ancestors from the time of King Arthur, in whose days there was one
of my own name, a knight of his round table, and known by the name of
Sir Isaac Bickerstaff. He was low of stature, and of a very swarthy
complexion, not unlike a Portuguese Jew. But he was more prudent than
men of that height usually are, and would often communicate to his
friends his design of lengthening and whitening his posterity. His
eldest son Ralph, for that was his name, was for this reason married to
a lady who had little else to recommend her but that she was very tall
and very fair. The issue of this match, with the help of high shoes,
made a tolerable figure in the next age, though the complexion of the
family was obscure till the fourth generation from that marriage. From
which time, till the reign of William the Conqueror, the females of our
house were famous for their needlework and fine skins. In the male line
there happened an unlucky accident in the reign of Richard III., the
eldest son of Philip, then chief of the family, being born with a
hump-back and very high nose. This was the more astonishing, because
none of his forefathers ever had such a blemish, nor indeed was there
any in the neighbourhood of that make, except the butler, who was
noted for round shoulders and a Roman nose; what made the nose the less
excusable was the remarkable smallness of his eyes.

These several defects were mended by succeeding matches: the eyes were
open in the next generation, and the hump fell in a century and a half,
but the greatest difficulty was how to reduce the nose, which I do not
find was accomplished till about the middle of the reign of Henry VII.,
or rather the beginning of that of Henry VIII.

But while our ancestors were thus taken up in cultivating the eyes and
nose, the face of the Bickerstaffs fell down insensibly into chin, which
was not taken notice of, their thoughts being so much employed upon the
more noble features, till it became almost too long to be remedied.

But length of time, and successive care in our alliances, have cured
this also, and reduced our faces into that tolerable oval which we enjoy
at present. I would not be tedious in this discourse, but cannot but
observe that ou