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 in Great Britain. The Staffs
are originally of Staffordshire, which took its name from them; the
first that I find of the Staffs was one Jacobstaff, a famous and
renowned astronomer, who, by Dorothy his wife, had issue seven
sons--viz., Bickerstaff, Longstaff, Wagstaff, Quarterstaff, Whitestaff,
Falstaff, and Tipstaff. He also had a younger brother, who was twice
married, and had five sons--viz., Distaff, Pikestaff, Mopstaff,
Broomstaff, and Raggedstaff. As for the branch from whence you spring,
I shall say very little of it, only that it is the chief of the Staffs,
and called Bickerstaff, quasi Biggerstaff; as much as to say, the Great
Staff, or Staff of Staffs; and that it has applied itself to Astronomy
with great success, after the example of our aforesaid forefather. The
descendants from Longstaff, the second son, were a rakish, disorderly
sort of people, and rambled from one place to another, till, in the time
of Harry the Second, they settled in Kent, and were called Long-Tails,
from the long tails which were sent them as a punishment for the murder
of Thomas-a-Becket, as the legends say. They have been always sought
after by the ladies, but whether it be to show their aversion to popery,
or their love to miracles, I cannot say. The Wagstaffs are a merry,
thoughtless sort of people, who have always been opinionated of their
own wit; they have turned themselves mostly to poetry. This is the most
numerous branch of our family, and the poorest. The Quarterstaffs are
most of them prize-fighters or deer-stealers; there have been so many of
them hanged lately that there are very few of that branch of our family
left. The Whitestaffs are all courtiers, and have had very considerable
places. There have been some of them of that strength and dexterity that
five hundred of the ablest men in the kingdom have often tugged in vain
to pull a staff out of their hands. The Falstaffs are strangely given to
drinking: there are abundance of them in and about London. And one thing
is very remarkable of this branch, and that is, there are just as many
women as men in it. There was a wicked stick of wood of this name in
Harry the Fourth's time, one Sir John Falstaff. As for Tipstaff, the
youngest son, he was an honest fellow; but his sons, and his sons' sons,
have all of them been the veriest rogues living; it is this unlucky
branch has stocked the nation with that swarm of lawyers, attorneys,
serjeants, and bailiffs, with which the nation is overrun. Tipstaff,
being a seventh son, used to cure the king's evil; but his rascally
descendants are so far from having that healing quality that, by a touch
upon the shoulder, they give a man such an ill habit of body that he
can never come abroad afterwards. This is all I know of the line of
Jacobstaff; his younger brother, Isaacstaff, as I told you before, had
five sons, and was married twice; his first wife was a Staff, for they
did not stand upon false heraldry in those days, by whom he had one
son, who, in process of time, being a schoolmaster and well read in the
Greek, called himself Distaff or Twicestaff. He was not very rich, so
he put his children out to trades, and the Distaffs have ever since been
employed in the woollen and linen manufactures, except myself, who am a
genealogist. Pikestaff, the eldest son by the second venter, was a man
of business, a downright plodding fellow, and withal so plain, that
he became a proverb. Most of this family are at present in the army.
Raggedstaff was an unlucky boy, and used to tear his clothes in getting
birds' nests, and was always playing with a tame bear his father kept.
Mopstaff fell in love with one of his father's maids, and used to help
her to clean the house. Broomstaff was a chimney-sweeper. The Mopstaffs
and Broomstaffs are naturally as civil people as ever went out of doors;
but, alas! if they once get into ill hands, they knock down all before
them. Pilgrimstaff ran away from his friends, and went strolling
about the country; and Pipestaff was a wine-cooper. These two were the
unlawful issue of Longstaff.
"N.B.--The Canes, the Clubs, the Cudgels, the Wands, the Devil upon two
Sticks, and one Bread, that goes by the name of Staff of Life, are none
of our relations. I am, dear Cousin,
"Your humble servant,
"D. DISTAFF.
"From the Heralds' Office,
"May 1, 1709."