228 R. Sc/icvi//, 



heard of the verification of his predictions, ordered the l^ook to be 

 burned, as an unmistakable emanation from the Evil One." ^ 



Partridge could not convince the world that he was still ali\e. 

 He made known through his almanac for the following year " that 

 he is not only now alive, but was also alive upon the 29th of 

 March in question." Thereupon appeared the best skit of the 

 series, " Squire Bickerstaff detected, or the astrological imposter 

 convicted." There is some controversy about the authorship of this 

 paper; but, be the writer who he may, it is generally conceded 

 that Swift had a hand in it. The article purports to have been 

 written by Partridge himself, who complains of having been most 

 inhumanly buried alive, and gives a faithful account of the hard 

 usage which he has received from the " maUcious practices " of the 

 pretended astrologer Bickerstaft'. On the night fixed for Partridge's 

 last, the maid " with a curiosity natural to young wrenches, runs to 

 the window and asks of one passing the street, who the bell tolled 

 for?" The person interrogated as well as several others reply that 

 it is for Doctor Partridge. Then a sober fellow enters and is shown 

 into the dining room, and when Partridge appears, the intruder is 

 already on the table with a two-foot rule, taking the dimensions of 

 the room. He has been sent, he says, to see that the apartments 

 of the bereaved house are properly hung in mourning. In a great 

 fury Partridge drives the fellow out, without having persuaded him, 

 however, that he is still alive. He has no sooner got back to bed 

 " in hopes of a little repose after so man}' ruffling adventures," 

 when Ned the sexton knocks and asks, " whether the doctor left 

 any orders for a funeral sermon, and where he is to be laid, etc. ? " 

 Partridge reproaches the sexton for this affront, but the latter replies 

 that the whole town knows he is dead, and that there can be " no 

 reason why he should make such a secret of his death to his 

 neighbors." 



For three months the annoyance continues ; people ask his par- 

 don for greeting him on the street, because he looked so like the 

 late Dr. Partridge ; the reader of the parish sends two or three 

 times for him to come and be buried decently or send him sufficient 

 reasons to the contrary ; his wife is distracted with being called 

 Widow Partridge. A monument would have been erected to his 

 memory in the parish church, if the question whether he was alive 

 or not, had not been voted on, and decided in the affirmative by 



1 Cf. Dictio7iary of Natiotial Biography, under John Partridge, vol. xliii, 

 p. 429. 



