Isaac Bickerstaff | Page 5

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 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 been always 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
deer-stealers; 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 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 drinking: there are
abundance of them in and about London. And 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 has
stocked the nation with that swarm of lawyers, attorneys, serjeants, and
bailiffs, with which the nation is overrun. Tipstaff, being a seventh son,
used to cure the king's evil; but his rascally descendants 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 Twicestaff. 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 family are at present in the army. Raggedstaff
was an unlucky boy, and used to tear his clothes 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 chimney-sweeper. 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, "Your humble servant, "D.
DISTAFF.
"From the Heralds' Office, "May 1, 17O9."

II.--PACOLET.
From my own Apartment, May 8.
Much hurry and business have to-day perplexed me into a mood too
thoughtful for going into company; for which reason, instead of the
tavern, I went into Lincoln's Inn walks; and having taken a round or
two, I sat down, according to the allowed familiarity of these places, on
a bench; at the other end of which sat a venerable gentleman, who,
speaking with a very affable air, "Mr. Bickerstaff," said he, "I take it for
a very great piece of good fortune that you have found me out." "Sir,"
said I,