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 Heralds’ 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.[176]

“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 philomathical 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 sort of people, and rambled from one place to another, till in Harry II.’s time 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 been always sought after