Isaac Bickerstaff | Page 8

said to have arrived
at; but it is ordered sometimes by fate, that such as die infants are, after
death, to attend mankind to the end of that stamen of being in
themselves which was broken off by sickness or any other disaster.
These are proper guardians to men, as being sensible of the infirmity of
their State. You are philosopher enough to know that the difference of
men's understandings proceeds only from the various dispositions of
their organs; so that he who dies at a month old is in the next life as
knowing, though more innocent, as they who live to fifty; and after
death they have as perfect a memory and judgment of all that passed in
their lifetime as I have of all the revolutions in that uneasy, turbulent
condition of yours; and you would say I had enough of it in a month
were I to tell you all my misfortunes." "A life of a month cannot have,
one would think, much variety. But pray," said I, "let us have your
story."
Then he proceeds in the following manner:--
"It was one of the most wealthy families in Great Britain into which I
was born, and it was a very great happiness to me that it so happened,
otherwise I had still, in all probability, been living; but I shall recount
to you all the occurrences of my short and miserable existence, just as,
by examining into the traces made in my brain, they appeared to me at
that time. The first thing that ever struck my senses was a noise over
my head of one shrieking; after which, methought, I took a full jump,
and found myself in the hands of a sorceress, who seemed as if she had
been long waking and employed in some incantation: I was thoroughly
frightened, and cried out; but she immediately seemed to go on in some
magical operation, and anointed me from head to foot. What they

meant I could not imagine; for there gathered a great crowd about me,
crying, 'An heir! an heir!' upon which I grew a little still, and believed
this was a ceremony to be used only to great persons, and such as made
them, what they called Heirs. I lay very quiet; but the witch, for no
manner of reason or provocation in the world, takes me, and binds my
head as hard as possibly she could; then ties up both my legs, and
makes me swallow down a horrid mixture. I thought it a harsh entrance
into life, to begin with taking physic; but I was forced to it, or else must
have taken down a great instrument in which she gave it me. When I
was thus dressed, I was carried to a bedside, where a fine young lady,
my mother I wot, had like to have hugged me to death. From her they
faced me about, and there was a thing with quite another look from the
rest of the room, to whom they talked about my nose. He seemed
wonderfully pleased to see me; but I knew since, my nose belonged to
another family. That into which I was born is one of the most numerous
amongst you; therefore crowds of relations came every day to
congratulate my arrival; among others my cousin Betty, the greatest
romp in nature; she whisks me such a height over her head that I cried
out for fear of falling. She pinched me, and called me squealing chit,
and threw me into a girl's arms that was taken in to tend me. The girl
was very proud of the womanly employment of a nurse, and took upon
her to strip and dress me a-new, because I made a noise, to see what
ailed me; she did so, and stuck a pin in every joint about me. I still
cried; upon which she lays me on my face in her lap; and, to quiet me,
fell a-nailing in all the pins by clapping me on the back and screaming
a lullaby. But my pain made me exalt my voice above hers, which
brought up the nurse, the witch I first saw, and my grandmother. The
girl is turned downstairs, and I stripped again, as well to find what ailed
me as to satisfy my grandam's farther curiosity. This good old woman's
visit was the cause of all my troubles. You are to understand that I was
hitherto bred by hand, and anybody that stood next gave me pap, if I
did but open my lips; insomuch that I was grown so cunning as to
pretend myself asleep when I was not, to prevent my being crammed.
But my grandmother began a loud lecture upon the idleness of the
wives of this age, who,