designs to go on with another work against winter, which he intends to call," The Modern Poets," a people no less mistaken in their opinions of being inspired, than the other. In order to this, he has by him seven songs, besides many ambiguities, which cannot be mistaken for any thing but what he means them. Mr. Durfey generally writes state-plays, and is wonderfully useful to the world in such representations. This method is the same that was used by the old Athenians, to laugh out of countenance, or promote, opinions among the people. My friend has therefore, against this play is acted for his own benefit, made two dances, which may be also of an universal benefit. In the first he has represented absolute power in the person of a tall man with a hat and feather, who gives his first minister, that stands just before him, an huge kick; the minister gives the kick to the next before; and so to the end of the stage. In this moral and practical jest, you are made to understand, that there is, in an absolute government, no gratification, but giving the kick you receive from one above you, to one below you. This is performed to a grave and melancholy air; but on a sudden the tune moves quicker, and the whole company fall into a circle, and take hands; and then, at a certain sharp note, they move round, and kick as kick can. This latter performance he makes to be the representation of a free state; where, if you all mind your steps, you may go round and round very jollily, with a motion pleasant to yourselves and those you dance with: nay, if you put yourselves out, at the worst you only kick and are kicked, like friends and equals.

From my own Apartment, May 4.

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 Herald's 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 philomatical 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 own 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 cort of people, and rambled from one place to another, until, 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 always been 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 deerstealers: 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

*An allusion to the staff that is carried, as an ensign of his office, by the first Lord of the Treasury, who is afterwards humourously compared by Steele to "an emmet distinguised from his fellows by a white straw,"

:

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 whoring and drinking there are abundance of them in and about London. 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 that has stocked the nation with that swarm of lawyers, attorneys, serjeants, and bailiffs, with which the nation is over-run. Tipstaff, being a seventh son, used, to cure the king's evil; but his rascally decendants 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 Twice staff. 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 fa

The House of Commons.

mily are at present in the army. Raggedstaff was an unlucky boy, and used to tear his cloaths 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 chimneysweeper. 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,

From the Herald's Office,
May 1, 1709.

"Your humble servant,

"D. DISTAFF."

St. James's Coffee-house, May 4.

As political news is not the principal subject on which we treat, we are so happy as to have no occasion for that art of cookery which our brother newsmongers so much excel in: as appears by their excellent and inimitable manner of dressing up a second time for your taste the same dish which they gave you the day before, in case there come over no new pickles from Holland. Therefore, when we have nothing to say to you from courts and camps, we hope still to give you somewhat new and curious from ourselves: the women of our house, upon occasion, being capable of carrying on the business, according to the laudable custom of the wives in

An allusion to the "Diable Boiteux" of Le Sage.