Partridge lies under
a dilemma, either of disowning his almanack, or allowing himself
to be "no man alive". But now if an uninformed carcase walks
still about, and is pleased to call itself Partridge, Mr.
Bickerstaff does not think himself any way answerable for that.
Neither had the said carcase any right to beat the poor boy who
happen'd to pass by it in the street, crying, "A full and true
account of Dr. Partridge's death, etc."
Secondly, Mr. Partridge pretends to tell fortunes, and recover
stolen goods; which all the parish says he must do by conversing
with the devil and other evil spirits: And no wise man will ever
allow he could converse personally with either, till after he was
dead.
Thirdly, I will plainly prove him to be dead out of his own
almanack for this year, and from the very passage which he
produces to make us think him alive. He there says, "He is not
only now alive, but was also alive on the 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 this
argument. He dares not assert, 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 is since revived I leave the world to judge.
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