When Partridge, the almanack-maker, had overlived the fatal day assigned for his decease by Bickerstaff, he intimated as much to his friends and the public, assuring them that he was not only then alive, but had also been alive on the very 29th March, when the wise astrologer had foretold he should die. "Now," says Bickerstaff in reply, "I will plainly prove him to be dead out of his own almanack for this year, and from the very passage which he produceth to make us think him alive. He says, _he is not only now alive, but was alive upon that very 29th of March which I foretold he should die on_; by this he declares his opinion that a man may be alive now who was not alive a twelvemonth ago. And, indeed, there lies the sophistry of his argument. He dares not assert that he was alive ever since that 29th of March, but that he _is now alive, and was so on_ that day. I grant the latter, for he did not die till night, as appears by the printed account of his death in a _letter to a lord_, and whether he since revived I leave the world to judge. This, indeed, is perfect cavilling; and I am ashamed to dwell any longer upon it." So if the shade of Pelops will receive our counsel, we advise him to abstain from vouching any of the family of Tantalus to testify to the reality of his existence; for he has to deal with a Bickerstaff, by whom it has been demonstrated that Tantalus is nothing but _tain tal ais_, "water receding backwards," or an incarnation of those fabulous times when water was supposed to run uphill, whence it appears that the whole race of Atreus is a mere series of non-existences. It is true we take this latter derivation from an extract from another of this judicious discriminator's labours, in the Transactions of his Academy, where, among other etymological curiosities, we have that very Irish youth Narcissus, a beautiful youth, who, seeing his _own_ image reflected in a stream, became enamoured of it, thinking it the _nymph_ of the water. _Naobh ceas as_--"the sight of a nymph in the stream." Pythia, "the priestess of Apollo at Delphos. She _always_ delivered her oracles in hexameter verses, and with musical intonation--_pitead_, 'music,' from whence the name."[10] Sanconiathon, no longer the "old beginning of time," appears here as _san_, "holy," _con_, "understanding, sense, or wise men," _niod_, "real," _tain_, "of the country"--"the sacred writer or wise recorder of the events of his country." Pygmalion, _big_, "little," _mallein_, "mule," the _little mule_, or person of a low stature and obstinate disposition. This is hardly so good as Swift's _pigmy lion_. "Pasiphae, _ba sabas_, 'the propensity, fancy, or disposition of a cow;' and, _proh pudor_, Venus, 'herself,' _bhean_, 'the woman,' _aois_, 'of the community'--pronounced _vanus_, 'the ---- or _woman of the town_!'"