the Duke of Noailles, was taken quite seriously, for Partridge's name was
struck off the rolls of Stationers' Hall, and the Inquisition in Portugal
ordered the tract containing the treasonable prediction to be burned. As
Stationers' Hall had assumed that Partridge was dead--a serious matter
for the prospects of his Almanac--it became necessary for him to
vindicate his title to being a living person. Whether the next tract,
_Squire Bickerstaff Detected_, was, as Scott asserts, the result of an
appeal to Rowe or Yalden by Partridge, and they, under the pretence of
assisting him, treacherously making a fool of him, or an independent
_j'eu d'esprit_, is not quite clear. Nor is it easy to settle with any
certainty the authorship. In the Dublin edition of Swift's works, it is
attributed to Nicholas Rowe; Scott assigns it to Thomas Yalden, the
preacher of Bridewell and a well-known poet. Congreve is also said to
have had a hand in it. It would have been well for Partridge had he
allowed matters to rest here, but unhappily he inserted in the November
issue of his Almanac another solemn assurance to the public that he was
still alive; and was fool enough to add, that he was not only alive at
the time he was writing, but was also alive on the day on which
Bickerstaff had asserted that he was dead. Swift saw his opportunity, and
in the most amusing of this series of tracts proceeded to prove that
Partridge, under whatever delusions as to his continued existence he
might be labouring, was most certainly dead and buried.

The tracts here printed by no means exhaust the literature of the
Partridge hoax, but nothing else which appeared is worth reviving. It is
surprising that Scott should include in Swift's works a vapid and
pointless contribution attributed to a 'Person of Quality.' The effect of
all this on poor Partridge was most disastrous; for three years his
Almanac was discontinued. When it was revived, in 1714, he had discovered
that his enemy was Swift. What comments he made will be found at the end