A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.

Summary

Headnote

Published 1709; copy text 1709 (see Textual Account). The title from the title page runs as follows: ‘A VINDICATION OF Isaac Bickerstaff Esq; AGAINST What is Objected to Him by Mr. Partridge, in his Almanack for the Present Year 1709. By the said ISAAC BICKERSTAFF Esq;’.

On 24 April 1708 Partridge had written to his friend Isaac Manley, mistakenly identifying theHigh-Church pamphleteer William Pittis as the author of Predictions. (Manley, Postmaster-General of Ireland, was also a cardplaying companion of Esther Johnson and of Swift, who would in 1710 attempt to help him when he was ‘complained of for opening letters’ and threatened with dismissal.) Evidently aware of the constituency from which the attack had come, Partridge responded to Predictions in his Merlinus Liberatus for 1709. First, he added a note at the end of the title, ‘to inform the World that I am Living, contrary to that base Paper said to be done by one Bickerstaff ‘. Second, in his calendar for February he predicted the likelihood of ‘Scandalous Pamphlets’ and speculated that ‘Perhaps we may have a second Bickerstaff appear.’ Third, in a passage placed just before the advertisements at the end of his almanac, he made a concerted attack:

You may remember there was a Paper published predicting my Death on the 29th of March at Night 1708, and after the day was past, the same Villain told theWorld I was dead, and how I died; and that he was with me at the time of my death. I thank God, by whose Mercy I have my Being, that I am still alive, and (excepting my Age) as well as ever I was in my Life, as I was also at that 29th of March. And that Paper was said to be done by one Bickerstaffe, Esq; But that was a sham Name, it was done by an Impudent Lying Fellow. But his Prediction did not prove true:What will he say to excuse that? For the Fool had considered the Star of my Nativity as he said.Why the Truth is, he will be hard put to it to find a Salvo for his Honour. It was a bold Touch, and he did not know but it might prove true.

In the Vindication Swift responds by taking up the character of Bickerstaff for a second time.