" No. XVI., "A
very Pretty Poet," and No. XX., "False Doctoring." Addison joined Steele
in the record of cases before "Bickerstaff, Censor," No. XVIII. Of the
twenty-six sections in this volume, therefore, three are by Addison
alone; one is in two parts, written severally by Addison and Steele;
four are by Addison and Steele working in friendly fellowship, and
without trace of their separate shares in the work; eighteen are by
Steele alone.

* Cassell's National Library.

ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, PHYSICIAN AND ASTROLOGER.

I.--THE STAFFIAN RACE.

From my own Apartment, May, 4, 1709.

Of all the vanities under the sun, I confess that of being proud
of one's birth is the greatest. 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. It is certain,
and observed by the wisest writers, that there are women who are not
nicely chaste, and men not severely honest, in all families; therefore
let those who may be apt to raise aspersions upon ours please to give
us as impartial an account of their own, and we shall be satisfied.
The business of heralds is a matter of so great nicety that, to avoid
mistakes, I shall give you my cousin's letter, verbatim, without
altering a syllable.

"DEAR COUSIN,

"Since you have been pleased to make yourself so famous of late by your
ingenious writings, and some time ago by your learned predictions; since
Partridge, of immortal memory, is dead and gone, who, poetical as he
was, could not understand his own poetry; and, philomathical as he was,
could not read his own destiny; since the Pope, the King of France, and
great part of his court, are either literally or metaphorically defunct:
since, I say, these things not foretold by any one but yourself have
come to pass after so surprising a manner: it is with no small concern I
see the original of the Staffian race so little known in the world as it
is at this time; for which reason, as you have employed your studies in
astronomy and the occult sciences, so I, my mother being a Welsh woman,
dedicated mine to genealogy, particularly that of our family, which, for
its antiquity and number, may challenge any