There seems to be a kind of fantastical propriety in a dead man's
addressing himself to a person not in Being. ISAAC BICKERSTAFF [_i.e.,
RICHARD STEELE_] is no more [_the_ Tatler _having come to an end_], and I
have now nothing to dispute with on the subject of his fictions concerning
me, _sed magni nominis umbra_, "a shadow only, and a mighty name."
I have indeed been for some years silent, or, in the language of Mr.
BICKERSTAFF, "dead"; yet like many an old man that is reported so by his
heirs, I have lived long enough to bury my successor [_the_ Tatler
_having been discontinued_]. In short, I am returned to Being after you
have left it; and since you were once pleased to call yourself my
brother-astrologer, the world may be apt to compare our story to that of
the twin-stars CASTOR and POLLUX, and say it was our destiny, not to
appear together, but according to the fable, to live and die by turns.
Now, Sir, my intention in this Epistle is to let you know that I shall
behave myself in my new Being with as much moderation as possible, and
that I have no longer any quarrel with you [_i.e., STEELE_], for the
accounts you inserted in your writings [_the joke was continued in the_
Tatler] concerning my death, being sensible that you were no less abused
in that particular than myself.
The person from whom you took up that report, I know, was your namesake,
the author of BICKERSTAFF's _Predictions_, a notorious cheat.[16] And if
you had been indeed as much an Astrologer as you pretended, you might
have known that his word was no more to be taken than that of an Irish
evidence [_SWIFT was now Dean of St. Patrick's_]: that not being the only
_Tale of a Tub_ he had vented. The only satisfaction therefore, I expect
is, that your bookseller in the next edition of your Works [_The
Tatler_], do strike out my name and insert his in the room of it. I have
some thoughts of obliging the World with his nativity, but shall defer
that till another opportunity.
I have nothing to add further, but only that when you think fit to return
to life again in whatever shape, of Censor [_the designation of the
supposed Writer of the_ Tatler], a _Guardian_, an _Englishman_, or any
other figure, I shall hope you will do justice to
Your revived friend and servant,