Partridge was wild with rage, and immediately replied in a manifesto declaring that he was alive and well, and moreover was alive on March Twenty-ninth.

To this “Bickerstaff” replied in a pamphlet more seriously humorous than ever, reaffirming that Partridge was dead, and closing with the statement that, “If an uninformed carcass still walks about calling itself Partridge, I do not in any way consider myself responsible for that.”

The joke set all London on a grin.  Wherever Partridge went he was met with smiles and jeers, and astrology became only a jest to a vast number of people who had formerly believed in it seriously.

When Benjamin Franklin started his “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” twenty-five years later, in the first issue he prophesied the death of one Dart who set the pace at that time as almanac-maker in America.  The man was to expire on the afternoon of October Seventeenth, Seventeen Hundred Thirty-eight, at three twenty-nine o’clock.

Dart, being somewhat of a joker himself, came out with an announcement that he, too, had consulted the oracle, and found he would live until October Twenty-sixth, and possibly longer.

On October Eighteenth, Franklin announced Dart’s death, and explained that it occurred promptly on time, all as prophesied.

Yet Dart lived to publish many almanacs; but Poor Richard got his advertisement, and many staid, broad-brimmed Philadelphians smiled who had never smiled before—­not only smiled but subscribed.

Benjamin Franklin was a great and good man, as any man must be who fathers another’s jokes, introducing these orphaned children to the world as his own.

Perhaps no one who has written of Swift knew him so well as Delany.  And this writer, who seems to have possessed a judicial quality far beyond most men, has told us that Swift was moral in conduct to the point of asceticism.  His deportment was grave and dignified, and his duties as a priest were always performed with exemplary diligence.  He visited the sick, regularly administered the sacraments, and was never known to absent himself from morning prayers.

When Harley was Lord Treasurer, Swift seems to have been on the topmost crest of the wave of popularity.  Invitations from nobility flowed in upon him, beautiful women deigned to go in search of his society, royalty recognized him.  And yet all this time he was only a country priest with a liking for literature.

Collins tells us that the reason for his popularity is plain:  “Swift was one of the kings of the earth.  Like Pope Innocent the Third, like Chatham, he was one to whom the world involuntarily pays tribute.”

His will was a will of adamant; his intellect so keen that it impressed every one who approached him; his temper singularly stern, dauntless and haughty.  But his wit was never filled with gaiety:  he was never known to laugh.  Amid the wildest uproar that his sallies caused, he would sit with face austere—­unmoved.