anac, the character of which is exactly
described in the introduction to the _Predictions_, and it appears to
have had a wide sale. Partridge, however, was not the only impostor of
his kind, but had, as we gather from notices in his Almanac and from his
other pamphlets, many rivals. He was accordingly obliged to resort to
every method of bringing himself and his Almanac into prominence, which
he did by extensive and impudent advertisements in the newspapers and
elsewhere. In his Almanac for 1707 he issues a notice warning the public
against impostors usurping his name. It was this which probably attracted
Swift's attention and suggested his mischievous hoax.

The pamphlets tell their own tale, and it is not necessary to tell it
here. The name, Isaac Bickerstaff, which has in sound the curious
propriety so characteristic of Dickens's names, was, like so many of the
names in Dickens, suggested by a name on a sign-board, the name of a
locksmith in Long Acre. The second tract, purporting to be written by a
revenue officer, and giving an account of Partridge's death, was, of
course, from the pen of Swift. The verses on Partridge's death appeared
anonymously on a separate sheet as a broadside. It is amusing to learn
that the tract announcing Partridge's death, and the approaching death of
the Duke of Noailles, was taken quite seriously, for Partridge's name was
struck off the rolls of Stationers' Hall, and the Inquisition in Portugal
ordered the tract containing the treasonable prediction to be burned. As
Stationers' Hall had assumed that Partridge was dead--a serious matter
for the prospects of his Almanac--it became necessary for him to
vindicate his title to being a living person. Whether the next tract,
_Squire Bickerstaff Detected_, was, as Scott asserts, the result of an
appeal to Rowe or Yalden by Partridge, and they, under the pretence of
assisting him, treacherously making a fool of him, or an independent
_j'eu d'esprit_, is not quite clear. Nor is it easy to settle with any
certainty the authorship. In the Dublin edition of Swift's works, it is
attributed to Nicholas Rowe; Scott assigns it to Thomas Yalden, the
preacher of Bridewell and a well-known poet. Congreve is also said to
have had a hand in it. It would have been well for Partridge had he
allowed matters to rest here, but unhappily he inserted in the November
issue of his Almanac another solemn assurance to the public that he was
still alive; and was fool eno