I should not have given the Public or myself, the trouble of this _Vindication_, if my name had not been made use of by several persons, to whom I never lent it: one of which, a few days ago, was pleased to father on me, a new set of _Predictions_. But I think these are things too serious to be trifled with. It grieved me to the heart, when I saw my Labours, which had cost me so much thought and watching, bawled about by the common hawkers of Grub street, which I only intended for the weighty consideration of the gravest persons. This prejudiced the World so much at first, that several of my friends had the assurance to ask me, "Whether I were in jest?" To which I only answered coldly, that "the event will shew!" But it is the talent of our Age and nation to turn things of the greatest importance into ridicule. When the end of the year had _verified all_ my _Predictions_; out cometh Mr. PARTRIDGE's _Almanack!_ disputing the point of his death. So that I am employed, like the General who was forced to kill his enemies twice over, whom a necromancer had raised to life. If Mr. PARTRIDGE has practised the same experiment upon himself, and be again alive; long may he continue so! But that doth not, in the least, contradict my veracity! For I think I have clearly proved, _by invincible demonstration_, that he died, at farthest, within half an hour of the time I foretold [; and not four hours sooner, as the above-mentioned Author, in his _Letter to a Lord_ hath maliciously suggested, with a design to blast my credit, by charging me with so gross a mistake]. FINIS. Under the combined assault of the Wits, PARTRIDGE ceased to publish his _Almanack_ for a while; but afterwards took heart again, publishing his "_Merlinus Redivivus_, being an Almanack for the year 1714, by JOHN PARTRIDGE, a Lover of Truth [P.P. 2465/6];" at p. 2 of which is the following epistle. To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq. SIR, 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.